Cheat Seeking Missiles

Fair Treatment Of Prisoners

e hear a lot about the prisoners in the war on terror, folks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his buddies in Guantanamo, but we hear precious little about people like Piotr Stanczak, who suffer the great misfortune of being captured by the other side.

As the new administration moves forward with its plan to close the prison that is the world’s best option for holding the world’s most disgusting criminals, it does so in the face of reason, ignoring the threat jihadists pose, which they demonstrated most recently with their handling of Stanczak. Why is this crazed charade moving forward?

Well, as near as I can tell it’s because the Leftists of the world have united in orange jumpsuits to howl in protest that America is protecting the West from those who would destroy it.

After years of reading Leftist drivel against Guantanamo, it’s all really boiled down to policy - the trials aren’t happening fast enough. Sure, the hardcore left still equates Guantanamo with torture - against overwhelming evidence of humane treatment and limited, temporary use of techniques that are not life-threatening against only a few of the most important intelligence targets … who happen to also be the most deadly of the prisoners. Yet the symbol-driven Obama admin proceeds with its focus on the facility - the perceived need to close the prison - giving itself a terribly thorny problem that is nothing more than Leftist hype.

This situation is uniquely driven by the left. No one else is protesting or raising issues. Oh, sure, there’s a periodic peep of protest from the U.N., but do a search for “Guantanamo” at the U.N. News Center and you get nothing. Even though the housing of prisoners in Guantanamo doesn’t shake the world, it particularly shakes the American anti-Bush, anti-war Left, and Obama is listening.

Do you think the American anti-Bush, anti-war Left will protest how another prisoner in the war on terror, Piotr Stanczak, was handled?

A Taleban group in Pakistan is reportedly claiming to have killed a Polish engineer, Piotr Stanczak, who was kidnapped in September last year.

Reports quote a Taleban spokesman as saying he was killed after a deadline expired for the Pakistani government to free captured militants.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Warsaw had received “informal confirmation” that the man was killed.

Pakistani security officials said they could not confirm the Taleban claim.

A Taleban spokesman said Mr Stanczak was beheaded after a deadline expired on Friday for the release of a number of militants in government hands, Reuters reported.

“We have killed the man after authorities refused to release our colleagues,” the spokesman, calling himself Mohammed, told Reuters. (BBC)

Let’s review this terrible news. Stanczak was not an enemy hostile; he was abducted while doing survey work for the Pakistani oil ministry 40 miles from Islamabad, far from the front. He was held under conditions we will never know because the Red Cross/Crescent was not allowed access to the facility … if we can even call it a “facility.” He was held without trial - and murdered without trial. His death was, to put it mildly, inhumane. Say what you will, that is not the portrait of a Guantanamo detainee’s life.

The Left will not mourn the death of Piotr Stanczak. Obama will not consider the contrasts between his ordeal and the daily life of Guantanamo detainees. He won’t compare the innocence of Stanczak to the evil in the heart of the detainees.

Will nothing will be learned from Stanczak’s death? A few of us might memorialize him, but do any among us think his death will lead to more rational decision-making by the Obama administration?