US policy and naked violence

Mano Ratwatte

The United States holds a lot of combat age young men in Iraq without trial, even though the Iraqi Government is now supposedly in charge.

These are men who were rounded up in the battle zones where there was fighting between the US led invading forces and terrorists, resistance fighters and other extremist groups. These fighters do not follow rules of engagement nor wear uniforms. They do not abide by the laws that govern the conduct of regular military forces. These fighters are very hard to deal with.

The US cannot and will not bring these men, and suspected terrorists to trial under the normal laws of the United States. They will be tried (if at all) by military tribunals. A lot of them are still languishing in prison camps years after they were rounded up. Why? Because for the US the safety of its fighting men is their biggest concern. The US is afraid if they are released, they will go back to fighting US forces.

Fighting an asymmetric war with a deadly and resilient enemy requires legitimate forces of democracies to deploy asymmetric and unconventional methods of fighting themselves.

There cannot be a policy difference when Sri Lanka has to deal with Tiger combatants. The US cannot preach to Sri Lanka about how they treat combatants. Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces performed under extreme conditions and still end up treating the enemy wounded even when the enemy was ready to blow themselves up for their cause. President Obama’s regime seems to be very confused about how to fight terrorists and will end up undermining American national security if it takes step to prosecute CIA agents while at the same time keeping prisoners in Guantanamo and in camps in Iraq while preaching to other nations.

And Senator Clinton may have forgotten about the rape and brutal murder of a young Iraqi girl by Caucasian American Christian Soldiers that caught the attention of the world media while she kept mum before becoming Secretary of State. She better read facts before she falsely accuses other nations of breaking rules of war and violating the norms of basic human decency.

Some of us recall Mai Lai, Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey’s admission of massacring innocent villagers in Vietnam (where were the war crimes charges against him?), widespread use of Napalm, dropping of VietCong prisoners into the Ocean from Helicopters, and Agent Orange more clearly than others. Not everyone is uninformed.