Hey, Netherlands--You Used to Be Cool

The logic of "The War on Terror" is contagious, apparently. The logic that goes something like this: To fight brutality, we must become torturers; to protect our freedom, we must relinquish it. Hence the Patriot Act, the wiretaps, the suspension of habeas corpus, Guantanamo Bay.

It's not very good logic. And it's spreading.

The Hague ruled today that hunger-striking accused war criminal, Vojislav Seselj, may be intravenously force-fed if he does not voluntarily begin to eat.

This isn't the way to protect human rights.

Mr. Seselj is a terrible man (allegedly terrible--he rather implausibly denies the chrages against him). The thought of him escaping legal justice sickens me.

His ploy to martyr himself sickens me. His cynical use of the hunger-strike, the tool of non-violence, also sickens me. I do not think that we should give in to his demands (although his demand for the counsel of his choice should perhaps be reconsidered), but to force a needle into his arms and deny him the very basic right of what goes into his body seems like a terrible way of impressing upon the world the importance of protecting human rights.

Especially now, after the last election and Rumsfeld's resignation, when the US's treatment of prisoners is as susceptible to world pressure as it has been since the war began. Especially now, when the world needs to take action to prevent "extraordinary renditions." It's now more important than ever to acknowledge that behaving ethically is costly. It prevents us from beating the answer out of a suspect--even if we really really want the answer. And sometimes it means that a monster gets to cheat justice. It's still the right thing to do.