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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>No apology required. No offense taken. What's this world
coming to when flippant, less than productive, and mildly barnyard
flavored response merits remorse? Embrace the steaming pile! Savor it's
heady, pungent bouquet! Luxuriate in it's crass, yet strangely
satisfying texture. Not every off hand reply needs to be considered a bolus of
bad taste in the same way that not every well pondered response is required
to be a loaf of learned elocution.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>g</FONT></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=sunilramalingam@hotmail.com
href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com">Sunil Ramalingam</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, March 31, 2009 2:32
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] Say
What?/Apology</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>My apologies to all, and in particular Gary, for my first
response to this post. I should not have sent that out; instead I should
have outlined reasons for my disagreement with it.<BR><BR>My last post does
not further any discussion, and I'm sorry I sent it out.<BR><BR>Sunil<BR><BR>
<HR id=stopSpelling>
From: <A href="mailto:jampot@roadrunner.com">jampot@roadrunner.com</A><BR>To:
<A
href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com">donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com</A>;
<A href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com">sunilramalingam@hotmail.com</A>;
vision2020@moscow.com; thansen@moscow.com; bear@moscow.com<BR>Subject: Re:
[Vision2020] Say What?<BR>Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:22:11 -0700<BR><BR>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>A slightly different perspective...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>g</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jonah Goldberg </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | "There's a reason why we sign these
treaties: to protect my son in the military," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.,
hissed at the attorney general through his enormous teeth. "That's why we have
these treaties, so when Americans are captured they are not tortured. That's
the reason in case anybody forgets it." </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Well . . . sorta. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>The relevant
reason we sign treaties like the Geneva Convention is so that other signatory
nations do unto us as we would do unto them. That means we can't subject
captured French soldiers to "Caddyshack II" and France can't subject our boys
to Jerry Lewis marathons. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>OK, perhaps
I'm making too much light of a serious thing - torture. But then again so is
Biden. The Geneva Convention is a contract, like all treaties. And contracts
obligate those who sign them to certain behavior. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT
face=Arial size=2>Hence, POWs from signatory nations are entitled to all sorts
of stuff, including dormitories replete with educational and entertainment
facilities and generous canteens run by POWs who receive a share of the
profits. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>As my colleague Rich Lowry and
others have pointed out, many of these provisions are the vestiges of World
War II - when millions of conscripts were thrown into a faraway conflict and,
hence, deserved not merely humane treatment, but, in Lowry's words, "Hogan's
Heroes" treatment. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>And that's why White
House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez suggested in a 2002 memorandum that the Geneva
Convention seemed "quaint" in the context of the war on terror.
</FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>But that's all beside the point for the
moment. Because whether or not it's "quaint" for prison guards to behave like
Sgt. Schultz ("I see nothink!") or not, one thing is clear: The Geneva
Convention does not require countries who haven't signed it to do anything at
all. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>And guess what? Osama bin Laden
has as much use for the Geneva Convention as he does for the new Lady
Remington electric shaver. <BR></FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>So yeah,
Biden is correct in all of his pious glory that the Geneva Convention protects
military personnel like his son from being tortured - but it protects them
from being tortured by other countries who have signed the Geneva Convention
(By the way, Biden's son is quite safe as a stateside military lawyer - a fact
Biden revealed after the useful sound bite was over.) </FONT><BR><BR><FONT
face=Arial size=2>If you sign a contract with your neighbor agreeing that
neither of you will plant stinky ginkgo trees on your property, that contract
is binding on you and your neighbor. It's not binding for the guy who lives
across the street. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well, Osama bin
Laden lives across the street. He lives outside our neighborhood, our
community, our laws. He lives outside all of the rules of civilization, at war
and peace. Every day, he violates the Geneva Convention before he has his
second bowl of muesli. He blows up passenger trains and hijacks civilian
aircraft. His henchmen don't wear uniforms, and they don't abide by any of the
rules governing professional armies. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>We've all seen countless WWII movies about how soldiers out of uniform
can be shot as spies under the Geneva Convention. Well, all of al-Qaida's
soldiers are spies. And they most emphatically do not provide their prisoners
with ping-pong tables and dormitories. They cut off their heads and put the
pictures on the Internet and TV. The same goes for Osama's allies and fellow
travelers in Iraq. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>The liberal
punditocracy seems to think it's an obvious fact that the Geneva Convention
should apply to the war on terrorism, even though the plain text of the Geneva
Convention applies as much to the war on terror as it does to the battle
between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Sen. Biden surely knows all of this. And so does John Ashcroft, whose
son has actually served in Iraq. But why should the facts get in the way of
some righteous bloviation in an election year? </FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Now, this doesn't mean that there aren't other rules governing the
behavior of American soldiers, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
This doesn't mean the military should be free to torture any belligerent who's
not party to the Geneva Convention, or that there aren't real costs for
American prestige to such behavior. And, no, this doesn't mean that those
responsible for the Abu Ghraib fiasco shouldn't be punished.
</FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>But if you think the Geneva Convention
is a wonderful thing, I don't understand why you would want to weaken it by
saying there's no advantage to signing it. Al-Qaida and the Iraqi insurgents
defy all the rules enshrined and symbolized by the Geneva Convention (and,
often, the Koran) and yet administration critics piously demand that these
thugs should be given all the benefits that come with being a signatory to it.
</FONT><BR><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well, if the barbarians get all of the
benefits of the Geneva Convention without obeying any of its rules, then it
becomes not merely quaint, not merely worthless, but a tool of those who wish
to overthrow all it stands for. <IMG height=18
src="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/weeglobe.GIF" width=21 align=textTop>
</FONT><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com
publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click </FONT><A
href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/subs.php"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>here.</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial size=2> </FONT><BR><FONT face=Arial
size=2>To comment on JWR contributor Jonah Goldberg's column click </FONT><A
href="mailto:schmooze@jewishworldreview.com?subject=Jonah%27s%20column"><FONT
face=Arial size=2>here.</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial size=2> </FONT><BR></DIV>
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