LGF finds The Guardian, always quick to condemn the US on the basis of even rumors of coercive interrogation of captured terrorists, nodding approvingly at coerced (but persuasive!) confession extracted by terrorists themselves.

Blackmailed into a web of treason woven from their own deceit and sexual transgressions, Jefal and his lover faced the justice of the street this week when the 25-year-old Palestinian father was dragged blindfolded into the heart of Balata refugee camp in the West Bank and shot as the worst kind of traitor – a collaborator with Israel. At the execution the mother of one of those he betrayed handed out sweets.

An hour or so later Jefal’s mistress, Wedad Mustafa, a 27-year-old mother of four young children, was hauled from her home by her brothers and killed before a crowd in an act designed to restore the family’s honour.

Public killings of collaborators are not uncommon in the occupied territories. But behind the deaths of Jefal and Wedad lies a tale of both Israeli blackmail, in an operation to stalk one of the most wanted men in Balata, and of two lovers seeking to get rid of an unwanted husband.

Jefal, a member of a respected family in Balata, left an account – coerced but persuasive – of turning traitor. A “confession” video was recorded following interrogation by members of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed Palestinian group responsible for hundreds of deaths in suicide bombings and other attacks and which dominates the refugee camp next to Nablus.

Would that there were only some way to separate our entire treasonous liberal clerisy from the rest of the population of the Western democracies, step aside, and let the Islamofascists have them, to deal with as they choose.

There is a quotation of unidentifiable origin, usually attributed to George Orwell, one version of which goes:

We sleep safely in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to visit unspeakable violence on those who wish to do us harm.

Rough men from Canada and the United States broke into a house on the outskirts of Baghdad today, where they freed, from a “kidnapping cell,” one British and two Canadian members of a Chicago-based Christian Peacemaking Team, kidnapped last November 26. The body of a fourth peacemaker, the American Tom Fox, was found March 9th, discarded along a railway line. Fox had been tortured, and then shot.

Coalition forces had learned the location of the kidnap victims only a few hours earlier as the result of the interrogation of a prisoner captured last night. Is it possible, do you suppose, that someone may possibly have employed violence and coercive methods, thus violating his human rights?

Associated Press reports:

The Christian Peacemaker Teams volunteers have been in Iraq since October 2002, investigating allegations of abuse against Iraqi detainees by coalition forces.

And, see! They may actually have found just such a case.

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One would think that the Moonbat Galactic Central Headquarters web-site would have a comment on the rescue, and so they do. One notes that it contains not single word of thanks for the men, who obviously at some personal hazard and inconvenience, went out and saved these bleating moonbat imbeciles from painful death at the hands of evil men. On the contrary, the statement actually condemns their efforts generally.

We believe that the illegal occupation of Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must end… We pray that Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq.

Michelle Malkin was pretty steamed over this one, and who can blame her?

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Wretchard is eloquent as usual.

O, my Beloved, in order to vindicate the justice of the Islamic cause, and in order to reveal the greatness of God, and to make known to the entire world the wickedness and cruelty of the Franks, Time Magazine (blessings and peace be upon it!) informs the world of the struggles of the brave jihadi Mohammad al-Qahtani. (Identified by the intelligence forces of the Great Satan as having been intended to be the 20th hijacker on September 11, 2001, travelling on Flight 93. But who was prevented by the enemies of God from entering the United States, was deported, and then re-captured by the infidels in Afghanistan a few months later.)

Brother al-Qahtani has obtained legal representation by infidels made mad by God and compelled to battle against those who would protect them from the vengeance of the Faithful.

Consequently, in accordance with Allah’s will, the mujahid Mohammad al-Qahtani now proclaims that all of his earlier statements and confessions (providing intelligence and identifying Al Qaeda personnel) were lies extracted from him by such brutal tortures as intrusions into his personal space, the pouring of water he declined to drink upon his head, and worst of all (Have pity, O Believers!): the hanging ’round his neck of images of beautiful women clad only in swimming suits!

So ever may the Faithful be permitted to confound the unbelievers and thus bring them ever nearer to their appointed destruction. Allahu Akhbar!

84 page Interrogation Log — Detainee 063 23 November 2002 — 11 January 2003

Marty Lederman in the fourth of a series of postings, linked by Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy, reviewing the John McCain-sponsored Al Qaeda Bill of Rights, notes what he regards as potential negatives, including: (the possibility of the) Admission of Evidence Obtained by Torture and Limitations on Detainees’ Access to Judicial Review.

Lederman’s position implicitly involves vesting detained terrorists and illegal combatants with rights to treatment and protections pertaining to persons enjoying the status of prisoners of war. But what is the actual status of such persons? To be entitled to be treated as a prisoner of war, the individual apprehended under arms in some form must be either a uniformed individual serving in the regular armed forces of a recognized state, which these detainees are not; or meet all of the criteria required for recognition of equivalent irregular status in

Section 2 of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention:

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Terrorists and unlawful jihadist combatants fail all four of the above tests, and should be consequently regarded as ineligible for the honorable status of prisoners of war, and should be regarded and treated, as hostes humani generis, “the common enemies of humankind.” See Joseph P. Bialke, Al-Qaeda & Taliban unlawful combatant detainees, unlawful belligerency, and the international laws of armed conflict.

As Mackubin Thomas Owens writes:

The real reason the detainees are not entitled to POW status is to be found in a distinction first made by the Romans and subsequently incorporated into international law by way of medieval European jurisprudence. As the eminent military historian, Sir Michael Howard, wrote in the October 2, 2001 edition of the Times of London, the Romans distinguished between bellum, war against legitimus hostis, a legitimate enemy, and guerra, war against latrunculi — pirates, robbers, brigands, and outlaws — “the common enemies of mankind.”

The former, bellum, became the standard for interstate conflict, and it is here that the Geneva Conventions were meant to apply. They do not apply to the latter, guerra — indeed, punishment for latrunculi traditionally has been summary execution.

While not employing the term, many legal experts agree that al Qaeda fighters are latrunculi — hardly distinguishable by their actions from pirates and the like. As Robert Kogod Goldman, an American University law professor who has worked with human-rights groups told the Washington Times, “I think under any standard, the captured al Qaeda fighters simply do not meet the minimum standards set out to be considered prisoners of war.”

Jeff Goldstein posts this comment from Steve in Houston:

If I’m a terrorist, feeling all bummed by my comrades getting greased along the Euphrates, I’m really trying to find a silver lining. Fortunately, the infidels are cooperating:

— I now no longer need fear any kind of physical coercion; the Dems have basically put me in the same position as Nigel Tufnel’s guitar: It’s never been played. Don’t touch it. Don’t even point. Don’t even look at it.

— As a potential martyr, I know I won’t need to comply with a treaty I never signed; I won’t be incarcerated for much more than a fortnight; I won’t be returned to my country of origin; and I won’t be placed in some allahforsaken Caribbean gulag where they pee within 20 feet of my plastic-encased Koran.
— I also know that if the kufr find my Blackberry, they can’t really do much about checking on my contacts at Harvard and Georgetown. I’ll lose my speed dial to Ahmenedijad (sp?) and Dana Milbank’s (or is it Dana Priest’s?) e-mail address, but I can always rebuild my contacts list.

It’s great. I get all the benefits of being an American citizen and still get to plot its violent demise.

AP reports:

Prisoners were tortured and starved to death in a post-World War II interrogation camp run by Britain for former Nazis and others, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Guardian’s report cited documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act that described the suffering of some of 372 men and 44 women detained at the camp in Bad Nenndorf, a spa town in northwest Germany occupied by the British after the war. Many prisoners had been former Nazi party members or former SS members, rounded up to prevent any insurgency, the Guardian said. Other detainees included businessmen and industrialists who had flourished under Adolf Hitler’s regime.

It appears that I am not the only reader to reach for the air sickness bag after receiving my dailing helping of Andrew Sullivan‘s limitless supply of sanctimony anent mean tweatment of poor widdle terrorists. Even the easy-going Glenn Reynolds writes:

Andrew Sullivan — pursuant to his apparent brand differentiation strategy, I guess — is bravely standing up to the “NRO-Reynolds chorus,” whatever that means. I don’t think I really agree with Mark Levin, Rich Lowry, et al. on the specific subject at hand, though I confess that I haven’t followed that particular pissing match very closely. However, I do agree with them that Andrew has been consistently, pompously, and annoyingly moralistic and irritatingly unspecific. So if that’s the chorus, well yes — but it’s a song that has a lot of notes, most of them struck by Andrew himself. And I’m irritated with him, not for the reason you might think — because I disagree with Andrew — but more the contrary, because every time I read one of his preening posts, I find my opposition to torture weakening in response, even though I’ve been consistently in opposition to torture since 2001 (and before). God help me if he ever starts blogging in support of nanotechnology and bans on cloning — I’ll probably start looking at Leon Kass more sympathetically. It’s like listening to Robert Bork talk about original understanding jurisprudence.

An announcement is expected later today.

It would be unrealistic for the Bush Administration to continue to try to oppose this unstoppable piece of feel-good legislation.

The United States has an ancient, and very deep, cultural tradition of hypocrisy, dating back to the settlement of Massachusetts Bay by Puritans from England early in the 17th century. This tradition commonly expresses itself in intellectually dishonest, impractical, and counter-productive public policies, which are nonetheless nearly invariably successfuly rammed through by the contemporary elect on the basis of simplistic slogans and a chorus of pieties.

Are we Americans really so humane and idealistic that we would prefer to avoid the coercive interrogation of captured terrorists, even at the potential cost of mass American civilian casualties, even at the cost –perhaps– of our own precious and unique lives? You’ve got to be kidding! Of course, we’re not. We all know perfectly well that we have every intention of being safe and protected by the rough men charged with our defense. But we are a self-indulgent and intellectually dishonest people. We want to have it both ways. We insist on striking public postures demonstrating to the world, and to ourselves, that we are too fine and noble to condone brutality and force, and we still want those entrusted with the responsibility for our defense to break the rules, to sacrifice themselves if necessary, to protect us. Of course we intend to be safe, but we feel a need to indulge in a public ceremony of innocence, to assure ourselves that, come whatever may, our own hands are clean. Feeling better about ourselves for a fleeting instant may have a terrible cost for someone else someday, but what do we care?

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And 24 hours later, Gregory Djerejian confirms:

No. McCain is right. Torture can never be legally preordained as an acceptable tactic, even against the monsters we face. It must remain a crime to engage in it, without exceptions, and interrogators must be held accountable for their actions. They may, under the totality of the circumstances, be pardoned or otherwise excused when the full facts come to light. But ex post, not ex ante.

Those pouting spooks and their MSM friends have, in the opinion of this writer, gone too far this time. They’ve gotten carried away by breathing in too much of the oxygen-deprived atmosphere of high-mindedness prevailing within their rarified liberal elite circles, and have lost all touch with reality, specifically the reality of what normal people are going to think of all the recent “Gotcha! You are sooo mean to the poor widdle terrorists” stories.

ABC news informs the world, sternly wagging its finger under the nose of the Bush Administration, that though the wounded-in-capture

Abu Zubaydah was given proper care… Once healthy, he was slapped, grabbed, made to stand long hours in a cold cell, and finally handcuffed and strapped feet up to a water board until after 0.31 seconds he begged for mercy and began to cooperate.

Can you imagine? Not only grabbed, but actually slapped! And then the poor lamb had his face immersed in water for a soul-shattering 31 seconds before this brave soldier of the Prophet crumbled and began singing like a canary.

Face it, gentlemen. Abu Zubaydah was not really some bird-watching tourist erroneously scooped up in a random police sweep. He was a very major figure in Al Qaeda, its chief of military operations and its chief recruiter. Infoplease says:

Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian long believed to be one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants. Experts think Abu Zubaydah became al-Qaeda’s chief of military operations after Muhammed Atef was killed in a U.S. bombing raid on Afghanistan in Nov. 2001. Early in 2002, intelligence experts said Abu Zubaydah was reorganizing the far-flung remnants of the al-Qaeda network to plan further terrorist actions. He is suspected of helping plan a wave of incidents that was to have taken place after Sept. 11, 2001, including attacks on the American embassies in Paris and Sarajevo.

Abu Zubaydah has a long history of involvement with al-Qaeda. In 1999, a Jordanian military court sentenced Abu Zubaydah in absentia to death for plotting to attack tourist sites in Jordan around the millennium.

Abu Zubaydah also organized terrorist attacks on the millennium celebrations in the Los Angeles in Dec. 1999, according Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian convicted of involvement in that plan. During his trial Ressam also said Abu Zubaydah directed Afghan terrorist camps and recruitment for al-Qaeda. Ressam indicated that Abu Zubaydah told him to obtain Canadian passports so others could carry out attacks against the U.S.

There is reason to believe that grabbing Mr. Zubaydah, shaking him, and giving him a good slap, may very well have saved a great many innocent American lives by thwarting a project he had been working on in his spare time, involving the detonation of a dirty bomb somewhere in the United States:

AP 11 Jun 2002:

Jose Padilla, the alleged American al-Qaida operative, became a protege of top Osama bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah late last year, even as the war on terrorism raged around them in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

But Abu Zubaydah fell into U.S. hands in late March, before Padilla could carry out any attacks, officials said. The prisoner became one of several sources of information that led U.S. authorities to Padilla.

While left-wing members of the urban chattering classes may get their knickers in a twist over “secret renditions” and the occasional grabbing and slapping of terrorist fanatics plotting mass-murder attacks on innocent people, ordinary normal Americans are only too well aware that they themselves might just one day happen to be the very same innocent people targeted by these monsters for cruel and untimely death. Most Americans do not live in the same privileged dreamworld as our liberal elite, and consequently do not subscribe to the same kind of ultra-scrupulous moral philosophies dictating that one must love thine enemy and get him an ACLU attorney. Most Americans really wouldn’t mind one tiny bit, if rough men charged with protecting their lives found it desirable to chop the likes of Mr. Zubaydah into a fine minced pate, and proceeded to serve him on toast, if that is what it took to keep innocent people at home safe from Mr. Zubaydah’s friends’ murderous plots.

My guess is that the great majority of Americans are not going to like this kind of leaking, and they are not going to like the leakers or the MSM which irrresponsibly publishes information jeopardizing this country’s efforts in the War on Terror, and that the cries of indignation drawn from the American public by the publication of this improperly disclosed intelligence information, are not going to be cries demanding the heads of leading figures in the Bush Administration or that of the fellow who gave Mr. Zubaydah a good slap. What the American public is really going to want are the heads of the pouting-spook leakers and those of the reporters assisting them.

ABC News is reporting that

Current and former CIA officers speaking to ABC News on the condition of confidentiality say the United States scrambled to get all the suspects off European soil before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there today. The officers say 11 top al Qaeda suspects have now been moved to a new CIA facility in the North African desert.

The disgrunted intelligence officers even disclosed an actual list of 12 high-value targets allegedly held by the CIA, and ABC is reporting it :

Abu Zubaydah: Held first in Thailand then Poland

Abu Faraj al-Libbi: Held in Poland

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Category link to previous and later related articles.

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

— actual source unknown, generally attributed to George Orwell

Charles Krauthammer has a thoughtful article in The Weekly Standard, which constitutes an unusual contribution to the debates within the American commentariat on terrorist interrogation by virtue of saying sensible things. I found the article being chewed over, like a rubber dog toy tossed to a pack of terriers, by a consistery of conservatives on NRO.

I believe myself that attempting to have a publicly-discussed, publicly-disclosed policy of what happens to terrorists is a fundamental and profound mistake.

It is also my opinion that members of the American intelligentsia, a pampered lot, whose personal experience of violence, by and large, tends to have been confined to a certain number of viewings of the films of Quentin Tarrantino, whose worst experience of physical suffering inflicted by another human being took place in a dental chair, the kinds of people who believe there need to be rules about this sort of thing and theories about that sort of thing, are just not qualified to sit in safety and comfort in offices and studies in the United States, telling rough men, charged with maintaining their safety, how to do their job.

The American intelligentsia should simply be grateful that their society includes men who can do for them what they could not possibly do for themselves, shut up, and let it go at that. There are always things which happen in the course of wars which it is better not to think about, better not to talk about. That’s what war is.