From the WSJ Opinion Archives
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Sticks
and Stones
Today's New York Times features one of the silliest op-eds ever. The authors
are Wesley Clark, the retired general and 2004 presidential candidate, and Kal
Raustiala, director of the UCLA's Burkle Center, where Clark is a fellow. (The
Burkle Center is named for Ron Burkle, a billionaire pal of Bill Clinton.)
Here is their argument:
Since 9/11 the Bush administration has sought to categorize members of Al Qaeda and other jihadists as "unlawful combatants" rather than treat them as criminals. . . .
Treating terrorists as combatants is a mistake for two reasons. First, it dignifies criminality by according terrorist killers the status of soldiers. . . .
Critics have rightly pointed out that traditional categories of combatant and civilian are muddled in a struggle against terrorists. In a traditional war, combatants and civilians are relatively easy to distinguish. The 9/11 hijackers, by contrast, dressed in ordinary clothes and hid their weapons. They acted not as citizens of Saudi Arabia, an ally of America, but as members of Al Qaeda, a shadowy transnational network. And their prime targets were innocent civilians.
By treating such terrorists as combatants, however, we accord them a mark of respect and dignify their acts. And we undercut our own efforts against them in the process. Al Qaeda represents no state, nor does it carry out any of a state's responsibilities for the welfare of its citizens. Labeling its members as combatants elevates its cause and gives Al Qaeda an undeserved status. . . .
The more appropriate designation for terrorists is not "unlawful combatant" but the one long used by the United States: criminal.
This is so vapid, it does not even rise to the level of sophistry. The authors argue that the U.S. should "designate" terrorists as "criminals" rather than "unlawful combatants" for purely rhetorical reasons: because calling someone a "criminal" implies less "respect" and does not "dignify" him.
The rhetorical argument can be dispensed with in a single rhetorical question: What do these guys think unlawful means?
But their proposal has enormous substantive implications, to which they appear to have given only the most shallow consideration. To begin with, the government cannot simply "designate" anyone a criminal. Such a designation requires either the criminal's consent (in the form of a guilty plea) or a conviction at trial.
The government can designate someone a criminal suspect or defendant, but this confers on him a panoply of legal rights. Among them are the right to be released if not charged or convicted, which can make it possible for even a guilty man to go free; and the right against self-incrimination, which would make it difficult if not impossible to interrogate terrorists for the purpose of gathering intelligence to capture other terrorists or prevent future attacks.
The criminal justice system is fundamentally punitive, not preventive. The purpose of declaring someone a combatant is to keep him off the battlefield, thereby weakening the enemy's ability to attack in the future. The justice system can do nothing about a "crime" that has not yet been committed.
Even legitimate enemy combatants--i.e., uniformed soldiers--do not have the rights accorded criminal defendants in the justice system. The former may be held for the duration of armed conflict. It is perverse to suggest that terrorists should have more rights than legitimate soldiers.
What Clark and Raustiala propose is to treat terrorists as civilians. The result of their proposal would be to put actual civilians, including women and children, in greater danger by making it harder to prevent terrorist attacks. The claimed benefit is that calling terrorists "criminals" would deprive them of respect.
How many innocent lives are they willing to sacrifice for an exercise in name-calling? To our mind, the only sensible answer is zero.
Sheikh,
Your Booty
Today's Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece on how the U.S. Marines
have made progress in Iraq's Anbar province (link for subscribers, but here's
an excerpt to whet your appetite):
On a recent morning, a 25-year-old Marine Corps lieutenant from Ohio stacked $97,259 in cash in neat piles on Sheik Heiss's gilded tea table. The money paid for food for the sheik's tribe and for two school renovation projects on which the sheik himself is the lead contractor. Even the marble-floored meeting hall where the cash was handed over reflects recent U.S. largesse: The Marines paid Sheik Heiss and his family $127,175 to build it on his private compound.
Such payments have encouraged local leaders in this vast desert expanse to help the U.S. oust al Qaeda extremists and restore a large measure of stability and security. Today, Anbar is averaging about 100 attacks a week, down from 425 a week last year. On the main street in Ramadi, Anbar's main city, Iraqi laborers are removing three years of accumulated rubble that couldn't be carted off previously because of the threat of sniper fire. They're fixing sewer lines shredded by years of roadside bombs. The work is taking place on the same thoroughfare where al Qaeda in Iraq late last year staged a parade of fighters that was posted on Jihadi Web sites.
"For three years we fought our asses off out here and made very little progress," says Lt. Col. Michael Silverman, who oversees an 800-soldier battalion in Ramadi. "Now we are working with the sheiks, and Ramadi has gone from the most dangerous city in the world to a place where I can sit on Sheik Heiss's front porch without my body armor and not have to worry about getting shot."
The success in Anbar Province, which lies west of Baghdad, hasn't come easily. The key to the U.S. campaign has been recruiting, cultivating, and rewarding tribal leaders. At points, the effort even involved a Marine general making several trips abroad to woo an important exiled tribal sheik to return home. The progress here, which has unfolded as violence elsewhere in Iraq has climbed, has become central to American hopes of success in the deeply divided country. President Bush has repeatedly touted it and U.S. commanders throughout Iraq are looking to export the Marine model.
An intriguing report (translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute) from Akhbar Al-Sharq, a Syrian opposition Web site, suggests that the model may be spreading even beyond Iraq:
Representatives from 55 Syrian Arab tribes have declared the establishment of a joint association called the "Party of the Nation."
A communiqué released by the party stated that it "will function democratically, together with the other opposition forces, to change Assad's criminal dictatorial regime."
Who says democracy in the Middle East is dead?
They
Also Serve Who Only Sit, Roll Over and Play Dead
From a letter to the editor of USA Today:
USA Today's recent article about the higher than normal rates of child abuse among Army families with a deployed spouse failed to mention what I call the "silent Army family member." This is the family's pet, which suffers not only abuse and abandonment but also an inevitable death if not rescued.
I am a retired Army lieutenant commander who volunteered for a no-kill shelter that provides food and care to these abandoned animals. There is an animal shelter near Fort Bragg in North Carolina. It has taken in several thousand dogs and cats surrendered by local military families since the war on terrorism began. Right now, it has about 1,200 animals. We must not forget about the silent family members.
Linda L. Lado
Prescott, Ariz.
OK, just a few quick points: First, why does Lado only care about "silent" pets? No offense to lizard fanciers, but we find our cat's purr to be quite a pleasant sound.
Second, sad as this is, every pet, no matter how well treated, will suffer "an inevitable death."
Third, did Lado really say she was a lieutenant commander in the Army? Doubtful, since the rank of commander exists only in the Navy and the Coast Guard. We did a Factiva search and found an old story that identified Lado as a lieutenant colonel.
Probably this was an editing error, but it's one no one with even a slight familiarity with the military would have made. This column strongly supports the all-volunteer military, but it is true that one of its drawbacks is an appalling ignorance about military affairs among journalists and others whose job is to inform the public.
Answering
Kerry--II
Our Monday item about John Kerry's Saturday
letter about our July 26
op-ed about Kerry's claim that a bloodbath "didn't happen" after
America's retreat from Vietnam brought this follow-up from reader R.T. Barber:
I just got around to reading Kerry's attempt to extract himself from his latest verbal quagmire and was stunned at his statement that "450,000 civilians and 1.1 million soldiers were killed" in the eight years preceding the U.S. withdrawal. One of your readers, Betty Tolsma from Shertz, Texas (home to many airmen serving at Randolph Air Force Base), wrote that "Mr. Kerry needs to give academic sources for the civilian (450,000) and military (1.1 million) war deaths which he cites in his response to James Taranto's account of the post-Vietnam debacle."
The Department of Defense figures on U.S. Vietnam War casualties show 47,424 "total hostile deaths" and 58,209 "total in-theater deaths." So from where was the 1.1 million figure derived?
I suspected that South Vietnamese military casualties exceeded U.S. military casualties, but the U.S. Army reported that "South Vietnamese military deaths exceeded 200,000," which if added to U.S. casualties falls far short of the senator's number. A May 2004 report on the differences and similarities between the Vietnamese and Iraq conflicts published by the U.S. Army War College includes the following passage on page 13:
In April 1995 the government in Hanoi announced that Communist forces during the "American period" of the Vietnam War had sustained a loss of 1,100,000 dead, a figure that presumably included the Communists' 300,000 missing in action. (Hanoi also estimated 2,000,000 civilian dead.) This passage includes a citation for the Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Spencer C. Tucker, ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).I'm sure Senator Kerry isn't purposely reciting Communist propaganda in support of his argument.
Hmm, we're actually not so sure. But even if we assume Hanoi's numbers are accurate, consider what Kerry is claiming: that it was worth sacrificing the lives and freedom of the South Vietnamese--our ally--in order to prevent casualties on the enemy side. Imagine what the world would look like if we'd taken that approach during World War II--or, for that matter, what it will look like if we take it with Muslim terrorists.
He's
a Phony, but at Least He's a Man
Brad Warthen, editorial page editor of the State, a newspaper in Columbia, S.C.,
has a telling story about John Edwards, who visited the State's editorial board
in January 2004, hoping to win a primary endorsement. A week later Howard Dean
came by:
"Isn't [Dean] a nice man?" said our copy editor (the fan). I agreed. Then came the revelation: "Unlike John Edwards," observed the administrative assistant. What's that? It seems that when she alone had met then-Sen. Edwards at the reception desk, she had been struck by the way he utterly ignored the folks in our customer service department and others who had hoped for a handshake or a word from the Great Man. He had saved all his amiability, all his professionally entertaining energy and talent, for the folks upstairs who would have a say in the paper's endorsement.
It's another bit of evidence that Edwards's populist persona is utterly phony. Blogger Roger Simon explains why this matters:
People like Edwards are more than just fakes--they are actually dangerous. By parading around like a popinjay for the poor, he actually hurts them, making a mockery of genuine of [sic] problems. Everything is about Edwards and his glory. It's not about anything else.
Meanwhile, Edwards's wife, Elizabeth, tells CIO Insight why her lesser half is at a disadvantage against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fundraising dollars."
Well, OK, they can't make John a woman, but that doesn't mean they can't try!
The Purr-fect Candidate
- "I'm great at scaling the gate whenever my foster mom opens the door,
so I've met some bigger cats and am fine with them. . . . If you
are looking for a kitty with great personality and charm, I'm your girl!"--Laila,
"Pets of the Week," Beacon
News (Aurora, Ill.), July 28
- "For 15 years, I have stood up against the right-wing machine, and I've come out stronger. So if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl."--Hillary Clinton, Aug. 7
This Could Be Dangerous
- "Clinton, Obama Take Heat From Rivals"--headline, Associated
Press, Aug. 7
- "Hospitals Are Shutting Down Burn Centers"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 7
Breaking
News From 1920
"Candidates Seek Opposite Gender's Votes"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 7
World
Ends, Etc., Etc.
"Among the hardest hit in the [Minneapolis] bridge collapse last week was
a group that had survived war and strife in their homeland, Somalia, and a move
across the world to settle here."--New York Times, Aug. 8
Wasn't
There a Priest Available?
"Giuliani Questioned About Catholicism"--headline, Associated Press,
Aug. 7
World's
Slowest Cops
"Annie Johnson says Chicago Police chased after her son for a year before
they caught him in a West Side alley Monday night."--Chicago Sun-Times,
Aug. 8
This
Time the Cheshire Cat Really Is Gone
"Livonia Wal-Mart Opens on Old Wonderland Site"--headline, Detroit
News, Aug. 8
He's
Got a Totally New Look
"SCLC Will Not Recognize Michael Vick at Convention"--headline, Associated
Press, Aug. 7
Bad
News for the Handicapped
"No Excuse for Using Handicapped Parking"--headline, Hattiesburg (Miss.)
American, Aug. 8
News You Can Use
- "Rooms and Furnishings Should Reflect Your Taste, Style"--headline,
Detroit
News, Aug. 4
- "Doctors: With Pencil Removed From Woman's Head, Pain Should Subside"--headline,
FoxNews.com,
Aug. 8
- "Hey Mister, There's a Monkey on Your Ponytail!"--headline, Xinhuanet (China), Aug. 8
Bottom Stories of the Day
- "Normal Man Died of Natural Causes in Florida"--headline, Pantagraph
(Bloomington, Ill.), Aug. 7
- "Bonds Makes History With 756th Home Run"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 8
No-Kidding
Bloomberg reports that Corinne Maier, author of the French best seller "Hello
Laziness," has a new book out that advises readers "to shun babies":
Never mind that Maier, 43, has two children herself. Titled "No Kid" and emblazoned with a mock traffic sign showing a red diagonal slash across two children, Maier's new book offers "40 reasons not to have a child." It's been simmering on French bestseller lists all summer. . . .
Her gripe isn't with children; it's with what children have done to her. Motherhood, she says--becoming stern behind her round-rimmed glasses--has turned her into a cop, putting her in "a monstrous place."
"If I could live my life all over again, I would do something completely different," she says half seriously, relaxing on a black leather divan in a living space sprinkled with rugs and contemporary art. "I would focus so immediately on what interests me that I think I wouldn't have room for children. When you have a fascinating life, you don't need children."
Come to think of it, if her parents hadn't had children, she wouldn't have this problem either.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Ed Lasky, Richard Brum, Alexander Levedahl, Michael Segal, Kevin Burns, Dan Tracy, John Nernoff, Taylor Dinerman, Tom George, Bob Michaelson, John Williamson, Richard Belzer, Andrew Robinson, Alan Doris, Robert Gessner, Dan O'Shea, Kevin Juzysa, William Phillips, James Wittenbach, Aharon Spetner, Mark Van Der Molen, Doug Black, David Eike and Keith Kemper. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: What the terrorist surveillance fight is really all about.
- James Kirchick (from Azure): Postapartheid South Africa has become the free world's leading coddler of dictators.
- Chloe Veltman: Prague is a city of walls.
