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Over on MSNBC.com. Read it a few days ago, but took me a while to find it again.

Private Ericsson was the blond-haired blue-eyed epitome of American youth. A little older than his peers at 22, he was often the first to speak up when I called for a response. In this case I had just put forward the question, What would you do?” to a hypothetical situation in which several prisoners had been captured who may, or may not, know about an ambush the enemy had emplaced for our unit some distance away. The prisoners appeared to be civilians, taken in a village from which we had, in this notional scenario, recently taken fire.

I’d shoot one of them sir, to see if it got the next one to talk,” said Ericsson with a perfectly straight face. The room remained silent.

WHAT?!” It was not my calmest reply because I was, frankly, stunned. Standing at the front of the room I looked around at the assembled men seated before me. Nobody was leaping to contradict his comment. Their attention was split between us.

Ericsson repeated his response, looking me straight in the eye. I’d shoot one of them sir. And then, if that didn’t get the next guy to talk, I’d shoot another.”

Jesus.

Ericsson…” I started to reply, about to tell him how wrong that was, to lecture him and explain about not only the laws of land warfare but how this would additionally be entirely counterproductive in addition to being illegal and immoral, but I stopped myself. If Ericsson thinks this way…

“No, wait…OK, how many of you think that this is the correct response?” Now I was addressing the whole group, most of my company in fact. After a few seconds almost half of the hands went up.

I had a lot of work to do.

Yeah, but not the kind of work you expected. After being fed so much PC bullshit in army school, you actually believe that shooting one guy WOULDN’T get one of the others to talk.

It is actually a shame that LTC Bateman does believe this. Here’s what would happen in the REAL WORLD, not the world that you are led to believe by military lawyers and the media handlers would like you to believe.

You have a dozen likely terrorists you just captured. Walk in to the room and look at them. You’ll notice two things. Several of them are hard core. They’ve been through this kinda stuff before. They’re the leaders. You know they are, because several of the others are looking at them for guidance.

Then there are the kids who just a few weeks ago were living with their parents, boasting to their fellow unemployed buddies about how they can take out some American troops. The lucky ones will get a whirlwhind training session of about a week before getting sent out to assist the leaders.

Walk into that room, and shoot one of the leaders right in the head. The one the rest looked to. Sure, he might have been the most “valuable” prisoner because he knew the most, but I guarantee one of the newbies will break. If not, take out #2.

I want you to think what you would honestly do in the newbie’s position. You’re just some 19 year old kid who wasn’t expecting anything like this when you joined up with Al Qaeda or “the resistance”. You just wanted to prove you’re a man. But that doesn’t include what’s happening now. I guarantee that if you know anything, you’ll talk at this point.

Our military goes through intense training to learn how to handle being captured, what they’re allowed to do and not to do. And I’m sure that if we were in a war with another similiar regular military, this tactic wouldn’t work nearly as well. But this isn’t the Russian army. This is a ragtag bunch.

Can anyone convince me otherwise? Does anyone think that if they do know anything, that they’ll continue to keep it quiet?

Is this an ugly solution? Oh yeah. And it is illegal according to the laws of normal war. But we’re not fighting a uniformed army. The terrorists we are fighting are civilians. They’re classified at best as irregulars, which aren’t treated the same as a standing uniformed army. The rules make allowances for when the enemy looks no different than true civilians.

Kathryn Lopez at NRO…

Every defense I’ve heard of the cuts seems to ultimately come down to “DHS can’t make everyone happy” (that’s almost a direct quote from a DHS-defending pundit). Sorry to be an Ugly New Yorker, but…we’re not everybody. We’re New York. And we’ve been hit twice. Go for it, Congressman King.

Thanks for reminding me just why I left the east coast. Bunch of self important bastards everywhere.
Sorry, but the rest of the country doesn’t think about New York nearly as much as New Yorker’s think they do.
I won’t even watch a TV show based in NY anymore. Haven’t for years. You just can’t make me care.
If you get attacked by terrorists again, well, fine, I feel for you because you’re Americans. But if they hit Kansas City, they’ll get just as much support from me…