A noble view of history

Maybe future Islamic scholars writing their new history books will look kindly on America for what the Senate Armed Services Committee did today. Perhaps we can even imagine a conversation...

"They went down with their Constitution, Usama. They gave our freedom fighters the same rights as their own citizens". "Proves that Sharia law is the only way, Khalid Sheikh."

"For instance, that Senator Lindsay Graham was a patriot",

We are not going to win the war by killing every terrorist with a bomb or a bullet"

"Ha, ha, ha, they didn't really understand war, eh?"

"Don't forget the general". "Oh, you mean former General Colin Powell, who killed many brave Arabs in his war days?" "Yes, yes, the one who kept a secret for three long years watching as his adminstration adversaries twisted in the breeze, but who finally saw the light",

.. that the Bush administration is risking the safety of U.S. troops and worldwide opinion by permitting harsh treatment of detainees

"Bwaahahaha. The general must have forgotten Mogadishu in his zeal to get revenge on that evil Bush." "Bwahahaha."

"Those Senators were really brave even with their personal security guards and jets and reinforced cars". "Yes, but full of stupid Crusader logic",

Today's Armed Services Committee vote would let suspected terrorists see evidence used against them and would bar statements obtained through torture or inhumane treatment.

"That's when brother Ramzi's ACLU lawyers were able to get ahold of the plans of the rendition program and secretly pass them to the base, praise be Allah". "Yes, and when brother Abu's lawyer was able to find out about the surveillance their Crusader president was using to stop us."

"But that officer John McCain, he was himself a former prisoner of a state regime, no?" "Yes, in their ill-begotten war to stop evil communism in the far east. Good thing our brave mujahadeen had that war to study from."

We are concerned about the plight of American servicemen who may be captured in future conflicts.

"Such kind thoughts for our terrorist, er, freedom fighters who belonged to no state, wore no uniform, or had no rules of engagement, Khalid." "Yes, Usama, it's no surprise we won. Allah Akbar!"


Back in 1810 Thomas Jefferson, himself a "Crusader" who defeated Jihadists during the infancy of our nation, wrote a letter to Thomas Colvin regarding circumstances:

The question you propose, whether circumstances do not sometimes occur, which make it a duty in officers of high trust, to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrassing in practice. A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

When, in the battle of Germantown, General Washington's army was annoyed from Chew's house, he did not hesitate to plant his cannon against it, although the property of a citizen. When he besieged Yorktown, he leveled the suburbs, feeling that the laws of property must be postponed to the safety of the nation. While the army was before York, the Governor of Virginia took horses, carriages, provisions and even men by force, to enable that army to stay together till it could master the public enemy; and he was justified. A ship at sea in distress for provisions, meets another having abundance, yet refusing a supply; the law of self-preservation authorizes the distressed to take a supply by force. In all these cases, the unwritten laws of necessity, of self-preservation, and of the public safety, control the written laws of meum and tuum.

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A better roundup you'll not find anywhere regarding capitulation politics, including France's Muslim conundrum.

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The EU is now piling on:

"Secret prisons are illegal, immoral, and counter-productive in any strategy to win hearts and minds," EU counter-terrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries said in a statement on Friday.

Aside from these peckerheads, rational Americans fully understand the perplexing spot terrorism has put us in, ie--forcing a choice between providing basic rights to detainees to protect against wrongful persecution (who might then abuse those given rights and kill us) and a President's responsibility to, as Jefferson said, "save our country when in danger". It's not easily solved.

But the idea we can win the hearts and minds of fundamentalist-rooted terrorists is completely absurd. The only hearts and minds that matter belong to the moderates within Islam who might rise up against their terrorist brethren. They don't need an example from America or the west, it should come from within their own hearts and minds. They know what's right and wrong, and they know why we started renditions and secret prisons. And they can fix it.

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Nobody should be debating this topic without first reading Andrew McCarthy's column.