COL. WEST UPDATE

Charges against him have been reduced from Article 32 action (court martial) to Article 15, which can range from a written reprimand (the miliary equivalent of putting it on West's "permanent record") to confinement to quarters. This is very good news, as his attorney says--it means he is very unlikely to face long-term repercussions for saving the lives of his subordinates. The worst fate seems to be that he would have to retire as a Major, though he has achieved Lt. Col.

But--the West case has exposed a glaring weakness in our relations with captured insurgents/terrorists:

"All of the intelligence witnesses regularly expressed the fact that detainees bragged they know they don't have to talk because we can't do anything to them," Mr. Puckett [West's attorney] said. "The bad Iraqis are ID'd by human sources. The Iraqis who are ID'd as bad guys and questioned all know we can't touch them. We can't even so much as threaten them."

The price we pay for being civilized...perhaps we can find some way to correct this problem. The logic here is inescapable, and we see it nearly everywhere--take guns from law abiding citizens, and soon only criminals will have guns (because they're criminals, they'll just break the gun laws). Sign agreements with rogue states, and pretty soon you're helping prop them up while they cheat on the agreement (e.g. North Korea). We need to find some way to remain civilized, yet get detainees to fear us enough to want to talk. It might lead to speedier capture of Saddam and (if he's alive, which I doubt) bin Laden if detainees think we're open to more, um, persuasive methods now.