Malmedy and al-Queda

Malmedy is a word that most people won't recognize today. But once, it was a rallying cry for the U.S. Army and its aftermath have important lessons for prisoners captured as part of the War on Terror.
Malmedy is a small town in Belgium. During the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, SS troops massacred about 85 American prisoners of war near that city. The troops were commanded by SS Lt. Col. Joachim Pieper. After the war, more massacres came to light and it generally is accepted that Pieper's troops killed about 315 American POWs and another 110 civilians during the battle.
For Pieper and his stormtroopers, the Malmedy massacre probably was only a slight unpleasantness. After all, compared to what they had done on the Russian Front, it was small potatoes.
However, the American authorities took a different view. When Pieper and his troops were captured after the German surrender in May 1945, they were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp for trial. Pieper, his division commander and about 75 other SS men were tried. Forty-three, including Pieper, were sentenced to hang. Another 22 got life sentences and eight received lesser sentences.
In my opinion, if the defendants were guilty, the sentences were richly deserved. If I had been there, I gladly would have pulled on the rope to hang Pieper.
Now, the rest of the story.
After the trial, allegations surfaced that Pieper and his men were tortured, kept on starvation diets and put through mock trials in order to extract confessions. The Supreme Court considered the case but the vote was a tie, with four voting to vacate the sentences and four voting to affirm. The ninth justice, Robert Jackson, had been the lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal and recused himself.
The Secretary of the Army appointed a commission headed by a Texas judge to investigate. While the commission did not take a public stand on the allegations of torture, it did confirm the mock trials. Later, a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated and agreed with commutation of all of the death sentences. No one seriously contested the defendants' guilt.
All of the defendants eventually walked out of prison. Pieper was the last, after serving about 11 years. He went to work for Porsche and a Volkswagen dealer. He eventually moved to France, where he was killed in 1976 during a firebomb attack on his home.
Why is the story of Malmedy important to how we deal with al-Queda and other terrorists? It's because Americans are a fair people who at the end of the day will come out for justice over revenge.
We've heard and read horrible stories about the torture of al-Queda prisoners by the U.S. and its agents. Aside from the fact that torture is illegal, immoral and stupid, I'm afraid that someday one of the terrorists responsible for 9/11 will walk out the door because of his treatment.
Torture is illegal both under US law and the Torture Convention. It's immoral and if someone needs me to explain why, I can never convince them that it is wrong. And it's stupid because you can never be sure of the information you get. I know people who can get a confession from President Obama that he was the guy on the grassy knoll in Dallas who shot Kennedy, even though he was only 2 years old when it happened.
Let's be straight about this. I have no sympathy for terrorists. The people who planned and financed 9/11 deserve a fair trial followed by what they have coming to them.
But, at the end of the day, the American people won't stand for convictions and executions based on torture.
We're Americans and this is the United States of America. We have to be what we are. And, we are a nation founded on the Rule of Law. I want Osama bin Laden to get a fair trial in front of 12 citizens of Manhattan. I don't want to see him walk out of jail because his conviction was based on torture.