The Courage Not to Prosecute?

Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch seemed like a great choice to prosecute Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner believed to be connected to the 9/11 attack.
Col. Couch, a Marine Corps pilot and veteran prosecutor, lost a close friend in the attack. Former Marine Michael “Rocks” Horrocks was the copilot on the second plane to strike the World Trade Center in 2001.
An al Quaeda member said Slahi was involved in the recruitment of those who committed the 9/11 attack.
The other evidence against Slahi consisted of his own statements.
But after nine months of preparation, Col. Couch, 41, declined to prosecute Slahi.
The reason, detailed in a full-page account in the Wall Street Journal: Col Couch concluded that Slahi’s confession came as the result of torture — beatings and death threats — and was therefore inadmissible under both U.S. and international law.
According to Bill Wilder, director of educational ministries at the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, Va., Couch “...wanted to be a good soldier and yet on the other hand felt his duty to his God to be the greatest duty that he had.”
It was Couch’s belief that, according to Wilder, “...human beings are created in the image of God and as a result we owe them a certain amount of dignity.”
Slahi, 37, remains in Guantanamo. Col. Couch finished his three-year term as a prosecutor and took on a new assignment as a judge on the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals. He says he continues to hope for “some nontainted evidence” to bring Slahi to justice.
Upon leaving his prosecutor post, Col. Couch received the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and a citation that referred to his “moral courage.”
Do we praise Col. Couch for that moral courage, or condemn him for failing to prosecute an alleged 9/11 conspirator?

Drive Your Guzzler, but Quit Complaining

The current price of regular gasoline is approaching $3.
But do most of us care?
I do a couple minor things that help improve my gas mileage. I use cruise control whenever possible. And if I am on the parkway and in no hurry, I just stay at 55 rather than bump it up to 65 where legal. (Yeah, that’s me.) Pretty small stuff, but it helps.
But most motorists, according to experts, do precious little to try to save money.
They continue to buy gas guzzlers, absurd vehicles that get 10, 12, 14 miles to the gallon, and hold in disdain smaller cars with more than double that mileage.
They don’t drive less.
They burn rubber.
Hey, it’s a free country and if you want to drive a vehicle that gives lousy mileage and if you want to continue to make unnecessary trips and drive in a way guaranteed to burn up the most fuel, that’s your right.
Just stop complaining.

High Winds Followed by Big Bucks

Avalon beaches are supposed to get 180,000 cubic yards of sand this week.
Nice timing.
The wind is whistling a million miles an hour right now. At least it sounds like it. It’s so bad, even the county zoo is closed. The animals refused to leave their homes and entertain visitors.
This nor’easter presumably is eroding beaches, but I’m not going out to look.
It will be followed by costly beach replenishment projects paid for by the federal, state and local governments.
Or, more accurately, to be paid for by taxpayers.
There are arguments to be made in favor, and against.
What’s yours?

What Happened to the Stiff Upper Lip?

These things happened on the same day:
Tennis great Billie Jean King said in an interview that American tennis is in a crisis because American youngsters have become rather soft.
She noted Russians “play tennis wearing layers of clothes in the snow, But “fourth-, fifth-, sixth-generation Americans...are all a little soft.”
Golf great Gary Player said in an interview, noting that American players are being dominated by international players, said the latter “aren’t spoiled. They don’t have luxury locker rooms and courtesy cars meeting them at the airport and traveling gymnasiums. They have to learn to play in different conditions and grind it out. They’re hungry.”
And finally, 15 British marines and sailors returned from being held captive in Iran for nearly two weeks during which time some confessed, apologized, and seemed to go out of their way to praise their captors.
From what we know, the Britons were subjected to being blindfolded, separated, and suffered psychological torture. None of us knows how he would react in similar circumstances, but what happened to the stiff upper lip?
NBC-TV’s Andrea Mitchell contrasted this with the experience of Sen. John McCain. He spent five and half years as a North Korean prisoner (1967-73) in the notorious “Hanoi Hilton,” even refusing an offer of repatriation.
What are we to make of all this?

Hunting Easter Eggs

Easter is over, to be followed by complaints in Spout Off and elsewhere about the behavior of the children and parents engaged in the Easter egg hunts.
I couldn’t go to every Easter egg hunt. Actually, I didn’t go to any — this year.
But there are two sides to every story.
The parent(s) of a child taught to say please and thank you, a nonaggressive kid who never snatched anything out of another kid’s hand in his or her life, stands in awe as the hunt progresses.
The parent sees a child about to be terribly disappointed and led away empty-handed and weeping. So the parent either takes the child by the hand and leads him or her to an egg, or even finds one and gives it to the child.
Yes it breaks the rules. Maybe the child would be better off disappointed, but with a lesson learned. What do you think?

My Night with Anna Nicole

I am not making this up; I give you my word. I dreamed last week that I was standing in line to see the body of Anna Nicole Smith.
I was on the second floor of a building — does the Rio Grande Firehall have a second floor? — and there was a huge crowd. My wife was with me.
The glass-topped coffin was on a stand or something so it was waist high.
Just before one got to the coffin, there was a large notebook on which the viewers could write a comment, like “Love you Anna Nicole.” My wife wrote something, but I couldn’t see what. I didn’t.
I was there as a reporter but I didn’t have a reporter’s notebook, just a tiny piece of paper folded over and a little stump of a pencil with a very thick point so I could hardly read what I was writing at the time, let alone later.
Just as I got to the coffin, the crowd surged and I and those around me were forced up against it and I envisioned the glass breaking and being impaled on it,
Wouldn’t that be a story? I thought: Reporter killed while viewing Anna Nicole Smith.
But it didn’t happen.
There was just a skeleton in the coffin and, writing this a few hours later, I remember that the previous night I had watched the bones-filled TV program “Bones.” At least part of the reason for the dream was revealed.
After passing by the coffin, there was a table of baked goods for sale, but they were all in opaque bags and one couldn’t tell what they contained. It occurred to me that this was a fund-raiser.
I believe I woke, and I believe I fell back asleep and the dream resumed, something that does happen with me occasionally.
In my dream, it was the next morning —early, dark, pre-dawn — and the coffin and I and maybe a hundred persons were outside — I had a feeling it was on Route 9 in Court House — and we were there to see the coffin taken away.
I was still a reporter with the same slip of paper and useless pencil and trying to find and interview whoever had spent the night with the coffin. No one seemed to be in charge, but someone told me “Harry from Public Works” did. I couldn’t find anyone by that name.
Then one young man improbably lifted the coffin up on his shoulder as if it were very light and walked away with it and I felt terribly sad.
I repeat, I honestly dreamed this and, as I type, all sorts of interpretations come to me including my own illness, Easter approaching, whatever.
If you want to comment on this — do you dream, do you believe they mean something, can you figure out mine? — just click on the comments button. It would be great if a psychologist or psychiatrist chimed in. But don’t send me a bill.
I’ll be offering new comments as events or ideas occur all week plus a “significant” blog sometime before noon on Saturday, April 14.

Is Sexism Katie Couric's Problem?

The ABC World News with Charles Gibson and NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams are locked in a tight race for No. 1.
The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric trails far behind. as it did when Dan Rather was there.
TV news pro Jeff Greenfield, who will be joining the Evening News, says it’s sexism.
My first reaction was to reject that claim. But as I thought about it, I realized I had given Katie only one look. Then I settled on Williams and only recently moved to Gibson, with lots of going back and forth.
But I haven’t given Couric, who I liked on the morning Today show, a second chance. I think the problem is Katie. I had and have no trouble, for example, with Diane Sawyer. But I’m not sure. What about you?