Do Queensbury rules apply?

Another shocker, or so says the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-U.S. crowds--HORRORS! The CIA has been accused of maintaining secret facilities in foreign countries, presumably to be able to interrogate high-profile Al Qaida detainees without having to worry about the niceties of U.S. constitutional rights provided in the U.S. judicial system to American citizens.

To my liberal readers and the disconnected armchair warriors sipping their diet green tea and calculating the cost of remodeling their kitchen counter tops with the finest marble or coriander materials: We are engaged in what some have described as the opening chapter of World War III in which the safety and even the existence of our civilization is at risk!

The Queensbury Rules do not apply. We're not playing cricket where the highest refined standards of sportsmanship guide both internal and external appearances of the game. Do the Geneva Rules of War apply? Not if the combatants don't want to play by the rules, like acting on behalf of a sovereign state and wearing identifiable uniforms.

To the nervous Nellies who wish to connect this theme with torture, I say this: The U.S.A. does not embrace cruel and unusual torture as a policy--a long-standing credo expressed in Senator John McCain's recent (unnecessary) "Torture Amendment" that passed 91-9 in the U.S. Senate. On the other hand, in the interest of survival and the protection of our troops on the front lines fighting the beheading bunch, there is no reason that techniques such as "waterboarding," sleep deprivation, temperature control, and other non-life threatening methods should not be used whenever vital intelligence is available and is not offered under up voluntarily under "friendly" circumstances. Charles Krauthammer offers a definitive and lucid analysis of the moral dimensions of what he calls "crossing the Rubicon" in a recent issue of The Weekly Standard. Here's a preview of Krauthammer's reasoning:

GIVEN THE GRAVITY OF THE DECISION, if we indeed cross the Rubicon--as we must--we need rules. The problem with the McCain amendment is that once you have gone public with a blanket ban on all forms of coercion, it is going to be very difficult to publicly carve out exceptions. The Bush administration is to be faulted for having attempted such a codification with the kind of secrecy, lack of coherence, and lack of strict enforcement that led us to the McCain reaction.

Of course, as Krauthammer says, officially embracing such techniques may well stimulate abuse(interestingly, he suggests leaving the military completely out of all forms of coercive interrogation) if they are not applied under clearly defined rules and controlled by intelligent managers. The fact that excesses took place at Abu Grahib under the command of Major General Barbara Fast points to the failure of sound management--an offense that is indictable under the military's Uniform Code of Military Justice (see my post "Female Interrogator" on October 24, 2005, below).

Remember, this operation is not comparable to Auschwitz , no matter how the opponents of the U.S. conduct of the war are trying to paint it! I say give thanks that hundreds of "warriors for Allah," who would lop off your heads in the blink of an eye, are being frustrated, even if they are discomforted from time to time.

And to the armchair weak sisters: Can I say it any more plainly? Start putting something less mind-altering in the Kool-Aide you've been sipping since 9/11/01.