The Treatment of Prisoners of War

[HARDCORE]

December 5, 2005

PARTIAL QUOTE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST ? Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said yesterday he wouldn't compromise with the White House on the words in his amendment that would put into law the banning of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees. McCain also noted the United States' use of torture like techniques could lead to them being used against captured Americans.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press," whether he would accept a compromise, McCain, answered, "No . . . I won't. We won't." McCain was tortured while a ?Prisoner of War of the North Vietnamese.

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At a point in time when we are striving to have the Bill (HR 2369, Honor Our Fallen Prisoners of War Act) enacted into law (this Bill would grant a long-overdue, posthumous Purple Heart Medal, to our own military who were brutalized to death in enemy Prisoner of War facilities), how can we possibly condone torture as part of our own operations?

Senator John McCain put it quite appropriately when he stated that - ?If we torture them, they in turn could torture ours??

Although I firmly agree that the actions of some of these enemy combatants leave little room for love, torture is something that our history books tell us is inherent to the enemy alone, and not our own forces! The indignation against those who tortured or massacred our own troops in places like BATAAN, Manchuria, and the POW Camps of WWII, Korea and Vietnam, still echoes forth to this very day!

Our humane treatment of enemy combatants is what has separated us from the enemy beast ever since the first shot was fired at Lexington. And when the British threatened to execute our capture troopers, General George Washington responded by threatening to do the same to ?Captured Limies!?

With this (so-called) World Court already wanting to tack some of our people to the wall for what they claim are Crimes Against Humanity, even to consider torture of enemy POWs is ill-advised and un-American, even if it is sometimes tempting!

As a man who has been there, done that, Senator McCain knows what this can lead to, as well as the fact that the torture of captured forces is contrary to all that we represent! Granted, intelligence may be had in some cases by applying pressure, but to re-ignite the Spanish Inquisition, be it a helluva lot milder, still flies in the face of all that we stand for!

The old Nazi Cop-out of ?We were just obeying orders? didn?t work at Nuremberg, and practicing a double standard as far as torture goes, is still as sad of a reflection upon the human race now as it was some six decades ago, in my opinion!

My wife too, had an uncle who died (or was murdered) as a POW, through beatings and starvation in the early months of the Korean War! What this enemy did back then (and the Communist perpetrators were never brought to justice) was brutal and wrong. And as far as I know, the definition and parameters of torture have not changed, nor has any safe zones for the practice of torture been agreed upon - ?OR HAS THIS CHANGED TOO??

VERITAS