Now wait a minute

Let's be clear that when I speak of Arabs, referring to the folks raising mayhem in France, I actually refer primarily to persons of North African extraction who are almost exclusively muslim in religious orientation. In fact, they may be Berbers, Moroccans, Touregs and a dozen others ... or Arabs. During the zenith of the Islamic era, the entire area affected was dominated by the Arab culture, bringing with it Islam, learning, culture and a society that prized knowledge, cleanliness and worldliness into a cesspit of darkness, ignorance and bigotry that was North Africa, (and Spain and France). Charles Martel changed the tide of that expansion (imperialism and conquest) and the rest, shall we say, is history.

Also, please note that I by and large do not run back and edit what is a stream of thought so that you, the reader, may admire my gift for prose, grammatical perfection and literary accomplishment. I could care less in this forum. Stuff it. If it bothers you ... well, I hope that it torments you. And that you keep reading, you anal weasel.

Now to the business of torture and detention:

So what? No, really, I am against running into someone's house and just grabbing them and subjecting them to torture. That is just a wee bit too Stalinist for me. However, you see some dudes with RPG7s running into a house, you follow them and there is just this picture of domestic tranquility when you open the door ... plug 'em in. But never a child. For that, you consign yourself to the torture of eternal damnation. And I hope it hurts. But if it just that smiling, jolly old poor peasant, you need to indicate that it would be in his immediate best interests to cough up the the gents that just entered, or .... Because, IMHO, I don't really care that he/she is in mortal terror that if he/she rats on the recent visitors, he/she might journey to meet the Almighty. If one American or Brit should die because of the squeamishness to extract the relevant information (notwithstanding the understandable terror felt by the poor wight whose abode was just "visited" by members of the local insurgents), it is too high a price to pay for failure to commit a disgusting act on our part. And that is assuming that the smiling (and terrified, perhaps) villager / merchant / sheepherder is in fact a witlesss, innocent victim. Remember Vietnam? Lots of innocent villagers digging tunnel all night and peacefully tending rice paddies by day.

Also consider the moron caught trying to light his shoe on an airplane. Rights? Excuse me? What, we should accord this piece of fetid crap human rights? This excrement that was attempting to murder an entire planeload of innocents? (Though, of course, in his world view there are no innocents and the plane was loaded with infidels deserving, nay, needing extermination.)

In the course of the War on Terror, may of these creatures will and have been caught in various stages of preparation to commit atrocities on us (you and me, living in the West). We should just coop them up without trying to find out where they got their materials, instructions, indoctrination and other support? Really? That would represent an act of such monumental stupidity that the supporters of such a course of action deserve the just reward of their failure to vigorously interrogate their captives ... a grisly demise. To say that these people should be accorded their rights is plain foolish: they want to kill you and don't really care how you die, notwithstanding your inalienable human rights to pursue your own, life, liberty and happiness. But no, you feel the need to take the high road (or in the immortal words of AC/DC, you "highway to hell"). Just don't take me. I'd prefer to switch on the juice.

The trouble is the grey area ... who needs a bit of pursuasion and who is just an innocent jerk caught up in the dragnet. The great dilemma. Sadly, I can offer no wisdom except to say, if you catch the SOB with a gun in his hand or swabbing positive for Semtex, break out the pentothal and what ever other goodies that medical science may have been able to refine and let's do what has to be done in the least invasive, painful way possible. But do it.

Detention. Again, the impulse is to say, "so what?" Experience in Germany, Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan has showed us that the release of enemy combatants back into the general population is a bad idea. The Soviets understood this and only released broken, old men back to their foes. While I cannot even begin to understand and appreciate the misery and evil that these people suffered, the Soviets did not suffer the flow-back combatant phenomenon. As American (and Brits) did. Back in the day if you let an IRA bomber out, in no time he is back in business: the captor not having the balls to see through the fight. WW2 Germans were notorious for insurgent attacks. People forget that it took well over 4 years to "pacify" Germany. If it was in fact ever really accomplished. But today in our 30 nanosecond MTV world, we want the Baath Iraqis to just shrug and say, "from today I will be a good Iraqi." Christ, they must be peeing their robes in mirth at our short-term views and committment.

Where does this lead? Well, to detention of likely characters that will march to the nearest weapons cache and kill some US soldiers. Is that so hard to comprehend? If we cannot hold them here in the US because some leftist Cambridge liberal will file suit in District Court to secure "humane treatment" and his release from unlawful detention, we must find some other place where people have the spine to stand up and act on the premise that it is better that the murderous radical is imprisoned than this snake should be free to wreak more havoc on me and mine. It is just too stupid for belief to accept that the detained will peacefully go home and start farming or what ever. Wake up!! They have sworn holy oaths to kill you. They believe in your demise. Sooner rather than later. And they want to be the mechanism for the execution of Allah's will (or at least as they have been told that Allah might will it).

But, you say, Islam is the religion of peace!! Yes, I agree with you. The trouble here is that a great many people mindlessly accept someone else's interpretation of that great book and the words of the Prophet. The net result of that being actions and words that have no basis in the religion of peace. Are you going to let someone who will tell you to your face that you must die (and that he/she would be honored to be the vehicle of deliverance), free to walk the streets? In the US we might even send these people to centers for criminally insane, were they Christian and American citizens. Too dangerous. But we should let them go because they are enemy combatants and further detention is inhumane and illegal? Huh? Say what?

Getting back to the basics: just another dude, swept up off the streets, you must let him go. Catch him in the act trying to kill you for ideological reasons ... all bets are off. Polish prisons for Taliban? Let's build some.