Add over a thousand, most of whom were packing, in 18 degree weather in Utah, home of the best firearm laws in the country.

An enemy combatant has no rights? Those rights are there to protect our soldiers against similar and worse abuses by the other side. Those rights were put in place after centuries of war where to be captured was to be tortured to death if they thought you might know anything, or to be put into crowded unsanitary concentration camps or worse simply shot or stabbed to save the cost of feeding and caring for prisoners. The Geneva Convention put some order and control to the horrors of war. They aren't there just to inconvenience Col West and his ilk. They are there to protect the soldiers of both sides. The soldier West interrogated illegally and in violation of Army Regulations was a uniformed member of a recognized national army.

No, his crime was committed against a member of a uniformed military. This was before suicide bombers, and IED's. He committed a crime. He violated the Geneva Convention in his treatment of a prisoner of war. His act was a blatant violation of the Law of Land warfare. Something every soldier gets pounded into their skulls at least once a year. Had an enlisted soldier conducted a field interrogation in this manner they would be sitting in Leavenworth to be dishonorably discharged as an E1 at the end of the sentence, but as an officer he was allowed to retire with his full pension. Mr. West speaks well for the conservative movement, but do we really want to be represented by a criminal?

Doesn't matter, he's still a war criminal under the Law of Land Warfare. His actions violated the Geneva and Hague conventions to which the US is a signatory. Any enlisted soldier who did what he did would be sitting in a cage Leavenworth, but as an officer he was "allowed" to retire with his full pension. I like what he has to say, the way he says it and his politics, but I could never support a war criminal. I'm just glad he doesn't represent me.