Cynical Nation

Liberals across the country are wringing their hands and weeping over their soy lattes at the very prospect that such a dreadful Mexican could become our next Attorney General. To listen to the hysteria, one would think Alberto Gonzales is Torquemada made over.

If that were the case, you'd think his detractors would be able to cite any number of damning quotes from Gonzales' extensive paper trail to buttress their case. I have been challenging anti-Gonzales crowd for days to show me a single, direct quote from Alberto Gonzales that casts him in the light of a torture-hungry Inquisitor. The challenge continues.

So far, the responses I've got have been either

• silence, or
  
• vague mumbling about how Gonzales determined that al Qaeda and the Taliban were not covered by the Geneva Convention.
  

Well, here's the problem with that. The 1949 Geneva Conventions were very specific about who was entitled to protection and who was not. The thinking was that soldiers fighting for their country's armed services are simply doing their jobs, and (presumably) are guilty of no wrongdoing. As far as we know, they may even serve unwillingly. Therefore, signatories to the protocols engaged in a reciprocal agreement to treat each other's prisoners of war according to certain rules.

Stateless gangs of fanatic, murdering thugs, who wear no uniform and swear allegiance to no country, are quite obviously and explicitly exempt from the agreement. Some may find this objectionable, but their problem is with the Geneva Convention itself, and not with Alberto Gonzales. The rules set forth are very clear, and al Qaeda and the Taliban simply do not satisfy the criteria. They are illegal combatants.

Moreover, if that's what this whole melodrama is about, then surely Gonzales is far from unique. I'll bet you'd be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of Congressional Democrats who want to afford al Qaeda formal POW status. Certainly, there was never any chance that Bush would appoint such a bleeding-heart to head the Justice Department. So again, I ask, what is the big freakin' deal about Gonzales? I suspect it has much more to do with raw emotionalism and political posturing than anything substantial or logical.

If the question is really about nothing more than whether these detainees need to be handled according to Geneva Convention protocols, then so be it. Let the Democrats, who already suffer from a perception that they're soft on terror, insist on having a debate about whether we should treat al Qaeda more generously than the Geneva Convention requires. Let's have that debate publicly and loudly. But when the smoke clears, Democrats, remember -- you asked for it.