So as I drove home from work this afternoon, I listened to a local liberal-- excuse me, "progressive" talk radio host as he berated a caller.  I wasn't privy to the start of the conversation, but it devolved within seconds of my tuning in.  Both sides engaged in framing the other in the lowest of terms.  The show's host characterized the caller as being okay with torture, and the caller characterized the host as unwilling to do what must be done to keep the country safe.

It's spurred me to lay out my thoughts on the subject.

Torture is a subjective term, loaded with connotation and emotion.  But is it torture?  "Torture" is often gratuitous, with little interest in information.  And we're endlessly reminded of how "torture never produces reliable intel."  Well, yeah.  Duh!  But what we're talking about, I would postulate, is not torture, but what the Bush administration characterized as "enhanced interrogation techniques."  It's not done for sadistic purposes.  It's done to achieve our national security goals.  Now, as far as these techniques not producing reliable information, do these liberals think that we set foreign policy based on single data points?  No, corroboration is the cornerstone of intelligence work.  Do liberals think the portrayals of intelligence work by Hollywood is how it really works?

Moral discussions aside, I think it's time to set the record straight on the legal issues.  Many on the left want their pound of flesh.  They want to see Bush and Cheney frog-marched before the cameras.  They accuse them of war crimes.  So is what transpired at Gitmo such an egregious violation of the law?

First, consider that these enemy combatants were captured on a foreign battlefield trying to kill American soldiers and civilian contractors.  The knee-jerk reaction on the left is to treat them as POWs.  After all, it's war.  Not so fast.  The treatment of prisoners of war is something covered by the Geneva Conventions.  But lefties like to quote selectively from that list of rules.  As a non-uniformed combatant, your average scumbag Taliban fighter or Al-Qaeda terrorist has zero protection under the most-hallowed of war rules documents.  In truth, the Geneva Convention sought to protect civilian populations and uniformed soldiers from reprisals for actions of non-uniformed combatants.  Consider the following examples:

• A member of the French Resistance during World War II bombs a Parisian eatery frequented by German soldiers.  The bomber is apprehended and summarily executed without trial.
• A team of uniformed American infantry are trapped behind enemy lines and commit acts of sabotage to slow the enemy's advance.  They are captured and summarily executed without trial.
• An air force pilot is shot down after bombing enemy cities.  He is detained in a POW camp, given three hots and a cot, and is treated with dignity and respect.  He manages to escape twice from the camp, but is re-captured and sent back to the camp.

Only the second bullet demonstrates a war crime.  Once the infantry were captured, they were entitled to Geneva Convention protections, provided the army which captured them was a signatory to the Convention.  What distinguishes the American personnel from the French Resistance member?  The American personnel were uniformed.  They were clearly identifiable as members of an opposing army.