Prisoners' Dilemma

I am sure that you all have heard about the fate of the two American soldiers - PFC Christian Menchaca and PFC Thomas Tucker - who were taken "prisoner" by Islamic terrorists at a checkpoint near Baghdad the other day. In what has become a par-for-the-course action on the part of the terrorists, the two American soldiers, both privates first class, were tortured, mutilated, and ultimately killed. The bodies were so disfigured that it will take DNA testing to ensure a positive match.

In light of this latest atrocity committed against American servicemen, I am sick to death of listening to the anti-war/anti-American left wring their hands over the alleged mistreatment of our prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the supposedly horrible treatment of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, and the alleged massacres of Iraqi civilians at Haditha and some other Iraqi locales.

When we take prisoners in this war, we ship them to tropical Cuba, supply them with prayer rugs and an arrow painted on their cell floor indicating the direction of Mecca, meals that comply with Muslim diet requirements, and of course a personal copy of their beloved Quran. When we do mistreat prisoners, we put underwear on their head and make them form naked human pyramids. Then the American perpetrators of these acts are punished and imprisoned. If any atrocities were committed at Haditha by our Marines, you can be assured that the guilty parties will be punished. The more I hear about Haditha though, the more I think the charges against our Marines are a sham.

Treatment of prisoners is an entirely different story when one of our soldiers is captured by our Islamic enemy. During the war in Afghanistan, a Navy SEAL named Neil Roberts fell out of a hovering helicopter during a fire fight. He was taken prisoner by three al-Qaida members and was killed in cold blood right there on the battlefield by the terrorists shortly thereafter. So much for compassionate treatment of prisoners by our enemy.

In Iraq, the first American soldier taken prisoner was named PFC Keith Maupin. He was captured during our initial invasion of Iraq and was not heard from, until finally a video was released on a terrorist website showing Maupin kneeling and being shot in the back of the head. The video has not been authenticated since you never see Maupin's face, but to this day, he is still unaccounted for.

Don't forget about the members of that Maintenance unit (the Jessica Lynch incident) who were ambushed and captured in Nasariyah at the beginning of the war. Several servicemen who were taken prisoner were later killed and half-buried in a building basement.

Then today, the news came that our two missing soldiers were found dead on a street in Baghdad. Details are still sketchy, but it was confirmed by an Iraqi government official that the soldiers' bodies showed signs that they were, "killed in a barbaric way." I didn't catch where he got his info, but I caught a snippet of the Dennis Prager radio talk show where he was talking about the soldiers' eyes being gouged out and their bodies being worked over with a machete. The Fox News article to which I just linked quoted a statement from al-Qaida in Iraq that said they had "slaughtered" two "Crusader animals". In Arab parlance, "slaughtered" means that the soldiers' throats were cut, if they were not beheaded.

At Gitmo, we sometimes utilize sleep deprivation and hot/cold room techniques to try to extract information. Wow... how awful.

If they haven't already, I'm sure that our soldiers have figured out that if it appears that they might be captured, they better fight to the death, because a worse fate awaits them if they fall into the hands of the enemy. No soldier deserves to die in the manner that these two American enlisted men did.

Good Day to You, Sir - and God bless those two soldiers and their families.