Kowabunga

The Star Tribune is running the following editorial(login required):

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., set off a firestorm last week when he compared U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to practices employed by Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot and their ilk. His remarks were condemned by the White House, the Pentagon, the Christian Coalition, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Newt Gingrich (who called for his censure by the Senate) and by the entire right side of the talk radio/television/blog world. The heat got so bad that, late in the week, Durbin apologized if his remarks had been "misunderstood." They weren't, and Durbin should not have apologized.

and a few paragraphs later:

Durbin was spot on in his assessment of Guantanamo. That's why he was so roundly attacked. He told the truth. And his message is of vital importance; the United States is better than this.

So, according to this editorial, the Star Tribune believes that the united States is running a death camp at Guantanamo. Why am I not surprised.

To compare Guantanamo and other prisons where terrorists and other un-uniformed (what a weird word) combatants are being held to Nazi death camps where 6 million Jews and millions of other innocents were exterminated, or to Soviet gulags where some 20 million innocents were brutally murdered, or the killing fields of Pol Pot is a complete outrage. The United States is not running death camps, and although there has been reported incidents of prisoner abuse, the perpetrators have been charged, tried, convicted and sentenced.

One last quote from the piece:

The issue of whether Durbin's rhetoric crossed a line is small potatoes compared with the undeniable truth that American treatment of its prisoners has crossed many, many lines -- of morality, of international law, of practical benefit.

I guess the writer forgot that under the Geneva Convention, combatants who do not where uniforms are considered spies and may be summarily executed as such. Perhaps he thinks we should line them up and shoot them.

Meanwhile, the S'Trib should consider publishing a retraction of this contemptable piece and fire the writer and the editor who allowed it to be published in the first place.

If the S'Trib doesn't, then I guess they are as anti-American as the writer.