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THE OBSERVATORY "Gitmo" January 23, 2002 |
| A few words on the current controversy about the al-Qaeda "detainees" being held at Guantanamo ... |
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Human-rights types - especially
the British - are now having tsurris about the conditions the detainees are being held in.
As a purely moral question, I basically could care less if we fitted them all for concrete overshoes and chucked them into the Atlantic. Murderous religious fanatics rate really, really low on my personal human-empathy meter. And, as I seem to recall, the Brits used to be pretty hardassed in dealing with (equally murderous) Provisional IRA fanatics. Still, there are matters of precedent and reputation here. It is counterproductive to go around annoying our friends in the world without good reason - even when our friends are being kind of annoying themselves. More importantly, the treatment we mete out to the al-Qaeda types will be taken as the standard by every third-rate thug in the Third World. It might be eminently satisfying to say the hell with it, keep those f***kers in cages till we hold a drumhead tribunal, then string 'em up (or, better yet, bring down a high-rise building on their heads). In fact, it would be eminently satisfying. But if it's okay for us to do that, we're saying it's okay for everyone to do it - which may not be the example we want to set. How does a civilized, democratic society deal with murderous fanatics when it gets its hands on them? I'm not quite sure of the exact answer, but that is the standard we should try to set. -- Rick Robinson
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