Geneva in Vain

Charles Krauthammer's column published 10/29/11 in The Oregonian expresses justification for the manner of Gaddafi's death at the hands of the rebels. Apparently because he’s a bad guy that gives justification to the NATO backed rebel forces in sodomizing, torturing, and then murdering him. He had his chance to leave. “Call it the Gadhafi Rule: Give it up and go, or one day find death by "Libyan crossfire” – a temple to temple bullet shot point blank across the skull. “Followed by a Libyan state funeral. That's when you lie on public view for four days, half-naked in a meat locker” Krauthammer gleefully writes, blood curling down from his lower lip.

How are we to distinguish between the rebels and Gaddafi if they are willing to do this to an unarmed man - without due process - and then display his body publicly for days against sacred Muslim law? We support these people - this reflects on us as well. As does the manner of death of Osama Bin Laden and others. Is this really how we want it to go?  

To people like Krauthammer apparently so. I would very much want to ask Mr. Krauthammer and all the other blood thirsty people like him - where is your honor? Where is your humanity? There are rules of conduct in war - they are hard earned coming out of the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Apparently, Mr. Krauthammer has no use for them – and for that he and those like him should be deeply ashamed.

2019: Charles Krauthammer is dead now and cannot defend himself. The above was written while he was alive. I leave it here now for despite his death, his words live on. His words will forever leave a stain on his legacy, and on his decedents, for which there is no defense, and no forgetting.  An eye for an eye will never be a pathway to peace, or to our collective humanness. It may feel good at the moment, but Charles’s words harmed and diminished us all.