The McCain mutiny
During the Gulf and Iraq Wars, our troops taken prisoner were abused and tortured by the Iraqi regular army, but most survived and were ultimately released. The same cannot be said about the Islamic fascists we battle today; Every American soldier taken captive has been brutally tortured, murdered, and then their lifeless bodies horribly mutilated. Every blessed one of our boys.
These Islamist murderers do not have a standing army, a country to defend, rules of engagement, or a military tradition that arose from a chivalric past. Muslim terrorists don't care one whit about the Geneva Conventions. The global Islamist terror network with which we now battle plans its atrocities so they invite conventional military retaliation that inflicts "collateral damage" — civilian casualties, images of which are then incessantly flashed to a gullible world by an accommodating Drive-By Media.
The golden key to defeating such terrorist efforts is information. If you know target priorities, who the leaders are, terror cell strengths, what types of armaments they have, and what methods they will employ to commit murder, you win. Enter the McCain Gang: Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and John Warner, with a duplicitous Colin Powell riding shotgun.
Principled folly
Thanks to another wrong-headed Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld acceding American due process rights to foreign butchers, President Bush requested that Congress enact new procedures for terrorist trials. The president proposed procedures to protect America's secrets (means of surveillance, secret communications systems, and the data they produce) from those sworn to destroy us, yet conduct war-crimes trials that encompass more due process than terrorists should be allowed — this last to appease the American Left and America haters — but I repeat myself.
This was unacceptable to the McCain Gang. They contended that by withholding evidence, secret or not, from terrorist defendants it would make a mockery of any trial — as if the murdering Islamist zealots were actually United States citizens or uniformed military. Never mind that what they want would compromise intelligence methods and sources, oh no. We must, according to the McCain Gang, "provide enough fairness guarantees that the nation would be comfortable having American troops tried under it."
Say what? You dare equate foreign, civilian murderers with American troops?
Somehow, some way, John McCain and his McCain Amendment suppose that if we treat Islamist terrorist scum with dignity and sing Kumbaya together, the aforementioned Islamist terrorist scum will treat our own captured soldiers with love and a mother's caress.
Ahem. Please reread this article's first paragraph, then after retching email it to McCain.
McCain unhinged
Although not thought possible, John McCain has surpassed his previous loony proposals by a wide margin, including his daft, free-speech abridging ideas of campaign finance reform. To be sure, McCain suffered torture for years at the hands of the North Vietnamese, as did all of our captives during the Vietnam War — all, that is, except those who were worked to death, starved to death, or arbitrarily executed.
Wake Up! No nations are bound by the Geneva Conventions except the Brits and America.
But as barbaric as the Communist Vietnamese were, this illegitimate but deadly enemy is far worse. The very idea of equating Islamist fascists with America's best and brightest is an insult to those who proudly don the uniform and place their lives on the line.
The minds of John McCain and his henchmen are stuck in time, focusing on an era when nation-states warred and hostilities followed at least a modicum of rules, including prisoner treatment. These packs of murdering Islamists laugh at our civility and use our own rule of law to strengthen their recruiting and commit more atrocities.
McCain more than anyone should realize that providing incentives to terrorists is madness. When bad behavior is rewarded, expect more of the same.