I attempted to leave a comment here but the link to OWD didn't "take," so I'll just go ahead and post it anyway.  What struck me in Victor Davis Hanson's column, originally published in National Review, was the contrast between the eminent common sense of VDH and the muddled thinking of the Grey Eminence of Old Saybrook--or wherever he emanates from these days.  I allude to my distinguished--and I do mean distinguished--contemporary, Mr.William F. Buckley, Jr., who seems lately to have leapt from the most prominent escarpment in my  home state, i.e., Murtha's Cliff.

The magazine that Bill Buckley brought out more than half a century ago still publishes three of his columns in every issue.  In the latest, dated July 17, he brings off the hat trick.  All three of his pieces are wrongheaded.  In the first, "My Lai Again?" he asks whether the atrocity perpetrated by Lt. Wm. Calley was a forerunner of the events of Haditha last November.  Evidently he leans toward the affirmative.  In the final paragraph Buckley quotes one Christopher Levenick as follows:

"Indeed, it is not uncomon to learn that such men [i.e., war criminals] are capable of living out the rest of their lives without any sense of guilt for their actions.  It remains a basic truth of human nature that a uniform is all that many men need to dissociate themselves from the evil they commit."

Got that?  Marines are uniformed military, hence they are capable of anything.

In "Did Zarqawi Go Peacefully?" Buckley makes no accusation.  He merely relates the fact that when the Special Forces arrived on the scene, Zarqawi was still alive and breathing but stone-cold dead when they left.  He asks "Was there somebody in the act there who decided that Zarqawi was much better, there and then, definitely dead...?"  Good grief.  Zarqawi was close to a 500-pound bomb when it exploded.  As the autopsy later showed, he was hemorrhaging massively from the lungs and other viscera.  No surgeon in the history of medicine, neither Harvey Cushing, Cristiaan Barnard, nor William DeBakey could have saved him. What is the point of these dark insinuations?

In "Gitmo Worries," he said "...Americans understand the distinctive character of the prisoners in Guantanamo [meaning they are not ordinary felons].  But they are not reconciled to the idea of indeterminate detention with no procedural rights..."  Oh? Who exactly are these Americans?  Nancy Pelosi? Diane Feinstein? Bob Herbert?  Bill, old chap, the Supremes just ruled that the Guantanamo detainees are POWs.  As such, indeterminate detention until cessation of hostilities is their lawful fate.  What is more, they must not and cannot be subjected to any "procedure" of a criminal nature.  That leaves open a possible escape hatch in the form of tribunals, provided the Congress authorizes them and devises "procedural rights" that meet with the approval of five or more justices.  Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

Contributed by John Werntz on July 6, 2006 at 01:03 AM in John "72nd TCS" Werntz | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Bill Faith

Excellent post, John. I think the confusion with what you tried to do at STV is that over there comments don't show up till I read them and give them my blessing, which can be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I think what you did there "took" OK, you just couldn't see the evidence. I just "blessed" a comment from you over there a few minutes ago that may be the one you thought didn't take.

Posted by: Bill Faith | Jul 6, 2006 2:00:16 AM