Texas Justice, Served American Style

Like many other Americans my interest was recently piqued when I read that “Mexican national,” Jose Medellin, was about to be (and has since been) executed for the brutal rape and murder of two teenage girls in 1993. Various editorials alarmingly tried to compare Medellin’s predicament to that of a poor American tourist, caught up in a legal situation while vacationing abroad, and being denied access to an American consul. The argument being that if the United States did not stay Medellin’s execution, as requested by the International Court of Justice (and subsequently, the Bush Administration), and have his, along with the cases of 50 other Mexicans on death row, reviewed to see if their right of consular access was violated at the time of their arrests, then Americans in other countries could be subjected to the same treatment.

The media threw around the phrase “Mexican national” as if poor Jose Medellin had been on vacation in the U.S. at the time he committed his dastardly deed, and longed to return home to his beloved Mexico. As a police officer who has arrested foreign nationals before, and has had to fill out the required consular access forms as required by law, I thought that if Medellin was arrested for a crime, of course he should have been notified of his right to consular contact.

However, as it turns out, Medellin was not here on vacation, or business, nor was he here temporarily. Medellin had come to the United States, possibly in violation of U.S. immigration laws, with his family or otherwise, at the age of 3. He grew up in Houston, Texas, where he no doubt went to American public school, at least for a time, and spoke English like most of his peers. As a gang member, probably with numerous prior police contacts and possibly arrests, he had some working knowledge of our laws, customs, etc. At the time he gang-raped and murdered two innocent girls, Medellin was 18 years old.

For 15 years, Medellin had grown up and lived in the U.S. He probably considered himself as “American” as anyone in his neighborhood. He didn’t move to Mexico first chance he got; he wasn’t yearning to be a Mexican national; he was happy and content going about his day-to-day criminal activities as an “American” who should have known better—wherever you live, wherever you’re from, you just don’t gang rape and murder children.

And you obey the law!

One of Medellin’s lawyers, Sandra Babcock, tried to argue that this case was “about the reputation of the United States as a nation that adheres to the rule of law.” I’ve got news for you, Ms. Babcock, Texan officials were adhering to the rule of law—their state law. Most law-abiding Americans expect their state judicial systems to punish wrongdoers appropriately, and according to state law. In other words, you murder somebody and you pay the price, whether it’s in Texas, California, or wherever. And no American, whether they be Texan or otherwise, is going to accept a foreign, UN-sanctioned judicial body in The Hague, telling them how to punish a murderer among us.

Despite the ICJ’s ruling, and no matter what President Bush would have liked, the State of Texas did what the majority of Texans wanted. Americans are rightly outraged that there are people in this country illegally, who rape and murder American citizens, assault police officers, and terrorize neighborhoods. Just ask the family of LA Sheriff’s Deputy David March, who was murdered by the same type of “Mexican national” as Medellin—an undocumented criminal thug who lived and plundered in the U.S., then tried to seek security in Mexico after doing his damage here.

Americans already know what would have happened to Medellin if the so-called International Court of Justice had got its way. Medellin probably would have been deported back to Mexico, where Mexican authorities wouldn’t have prosecuted him for anything, since he didn’t break any of their laws. Medellin would have easily crossed the border again to return to his “homies” in Houston, where he might have murdered another innocent American.

Interestingly, Medellin’s predicament got scant coverage by pro-immigrant rights groups. They probably didn’t want to touch this hot potato. You see, you can’t have it both ways. Is Medellin a “Mexican national” who should have been in Mexico, obeying the law, or is he as “American” as any hard-working immigrant who’s been here 15 plus years, trying to enjoy the “American Dream,” and therefore, potentially subject to American laws and justice?

The irony is that Medellin sat on Death Row for almost four years before deciding that he was indeed a “Mexican national” who should have been provided consular protection. Through the appeals process, both state and federal courts determined that Medellin’s case had not been compromised because he hadn’t been provided consular access.

It’s common knowledge that the International Court of Justice has had a checkered relationship with the U.S. government, and because of that, the U.S. Supreme Court did the right thing by agreeing to hear the case. However, they made the right decision in pointing out that the Justice Department had not requested their intervention, and basically left it up to the Lone Star State to decide Medellin’s fate.

Medellin, as a murderer who committed his gruesome crimes within the territory of the United States, got what he deserved in Texas—American justice, meted out by American judges, presiding over American courts. Medellin and his family chose to live in the United States and chase the American dream. Medellin chose to pursue this dream as part of a lawless, murderous gang of criminals. If you want to play the “American Dream” game, you better be prepared to live by the “American Dream” rules.

Putting War Into Perspective

U.S. military deaths in the Global War on Terror have surpassed the total number of Americans who perished in the 9/11 terrorist attacks—over 4,500 Americans killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. But while this is a grim reminder of the horrific human costs of this conflict, it might help Americans and members of the media to temper talks of “quagmire” or hopelessness if they can regain their “historic memory” to better frame this war, and modern warfare in general, into proper perspective.

War is hell. Nobody can, or should, minimize that. And you don’t need to have experienced it firsthand to understand its brutality and misery. While some things never change, like the rough going of the footslogging infantry, advances in technology, medicine, and international law have mitigated some harsher aspects of battle when compared to the bloody meat grinders of World Wars I and II. While this idea may not be any comfort to a Marine under fire in Afghanistan, one can vicariously try to understand the vast differences between a “quagmire” of twentieth century war and what current politicians term a “quagmire” today. Trust this: few current military personnel or politicians have a thorough comprehension of what a real “quagmire” is.

Over 4,000 Americans killed in Iraq over a five-year period? That’s reprehensible. The loss of any U.S. soldier, sailor, or Marine is tragic. But in World War II, 4,000 Americans would have been killed in one battle, over several days! One thousand Marines were killed on the first day of Tarawa in 1943. In World War II, over 2,000 Americans were killed on Omaha and Utah Beaches in Normandy, France, on D-Day in a 24-hour period. In the month-long Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944-45, 16,000 Americans were killed in action. In the first day of the Battle of the Somme in France in World War I, the British Army lost over 50,000 men killed, wounded, and missing!

Unlike today, where newspapers print the death toll in Iraq almost daily, reminding us of the loss of our countrymen, in the two World Wars the media hardly bothered. Imagine reading The New York Times in 1945: “4,000 Americans were killed today…” Keeping our losses out of the media, which was easier in those decades due to a more limited communication system prevented Americans from being up in arms regarding the horrible toll of fighting for democracy.

One can only imagine how the world would be different if today’s media machine—faxes, Internet, cell phones, and all—had existed in World War II. Picture CNN covering the destruction of an entire American Army in the Philippines in 1942, as General MacArthur barely escaped with his life. Or imagine imbedded reporters with the green and ill-fated 106th Infantry Division in the first days of the Battle of the Bulge, a unit that was quickly destroyed by the Germans. Talk about quagmires! How would Anderson Cooper have covered General Mark Clark’s Italian Campaign of 1944-45, a bitter, hard-fought struggle in which Clark was all but told that he would never be given enough “boots on the ground” to “win,” but only enough to pin down as many German divisions as he could, so that Hitler would have them unavailable for use in Eastern Europe or France? Would Americans at home been able to stomach these disasters or the high casualties involved if they could see it on TV every night?

And what of the ancillary tragedies of war that shock the human consciousness: civilian casualties, friendly fire, and atrocities? We’ve seen isolated incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan—Haditha, Pat Tillman and Abu Ghraib come to mind—but keep in mind, that today’s military forces, for the most part, do as much as they can to keep civilians out of harm’s way. In World War II, targeting civilian centers was part of the “total war” package. Neither the Axis Powers nor the Allies had many qualms about destroying entire cities, many of which had little military value. And friendly fire incidents involving artillery or air strikes, as well as training accidents, sometimes killed over a hundred Americans at a time between 1942-45.

We get rightly shocked and outraged when we hear that an Iraqi mother and child are killed, inadvertently, when the car they are riding in fails to stop at a designated checkpoint and is fired upon. A Marine who is put on trial for possibly killing an unarmed and wounded Iraqi insurgent makes newspaper headlines, but few Americans remember the real atrocities from the European and Asian killing fields in the 20th century: the Rape of Nanking, Malmedy, or even the liberation of some of Nazi Germany’s worst death camps. In one instance, U.S. troops machine-gunned to death over a hundred lined-up and unarmed SS guards. Does the fact that they were SS butchers who had aided and abetted in the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews and designated “undesirables” make it less of an atrocity?

Yes, war is hell, but it could be worse. We have seen world war, genocide, the Holocaust, and atomic obliteration. We have come close to nuclear Armageddon. Thankfully, whether we have meant to or not, we have progressed to the point that through collective international bodies and tribunals, modern technological advances, peace activists and movements, the media and the internet, and our own moral endeavors, we will never again (we hope) see the massive death and destruction that we witnessed in the early half of the 20th Century.

So let’s keep things in perspective (and keep our fingers crossed).

Don’t Blame Society for Fat Kids

We see them everywhere we go: chubby children waddling, huffing and puffing, protruding tummies bulging over ill-fitting clothes. Then along come the activists and the media, themselves overweight with politically correct, misdirected “experts.”

Childhood obesity, they claim, is a national epidemic, whose root causes are the “supersize me culture” of the fast-food industry; food industry advertising; sedentary activities like watching TV and playing video games; cell phones; computers; public schools cutting back on physical education; poverty; racism; lack of universal health care; lack of parks to play in—on and on.

The fingers of blame and shame are pointed in every direction, it seems, except toward the main individuals who can actually impact the eating habits and healthy lifestyles of children—their parents.

These politically correct media types are often quick to point out disclaimers: Parents are too overworked trying to make a living. Or, they’re poor and can’t afford healthy food. Their latchkey kids are feeding themselves in the parents’ absence. How can parents control what their kids eat?

Politicians don’t get re-elected by telling parents they’re the problem. Nonprofits get funded more easily when it’s a case of government throwing big bucks at an institutional crisis, not parents. You see, parental behavior is, well, private. Doesn’t every family have the right to privacy, with parents raising their kids however they please?

A recent study in Pasadena, “Preventing Childhood Obesity: The Need to Create Healthy Places,” revealed that 23.9 percent of Pasadena school children were obese due to lack of exercise and park space. The study actually stated: “A concerted effort from all sectors of society is needed to address this epidemic.” The study’s answer: more parks, healthier menus in our public schools and “safer” neighborhoods so that children could walk to school. No mention of parents, by the way, as if they didn’t exist.

How can we zero in on the parents who knowingly or unknowingly allow their children to become obese, and therefore, unhealthy? How can we help them change tactics with their children?

While there are countless parents who do take their kids to the park, sign them up to play Little League baseball and soccer and who insist they eat their veggies, there are plenty of other parents taking their children to McDonalds and Taco Bell. These parents are the ones allowing their kids to get Venti sugar shakes with extra diabetes cream on top at Starbucks. Or, they model a lifetime of bad habits for their kids by facilitating the consumption of sugar and fat-laden foods by bringing and eating them at home. I don’t see the CEO of Nabisco feeding the obese kids—their parents are.

I’m a single parent, and I’m not rich. Yet the only two people who are to blame for what my 6-year-old daughter eats and how much exercise she gets are her mother and me. I encourage my daughter to eat only until she’s full. There is little or no snacking between meals. She is not allowed to drink sodas, or scarf down chips and candy.

My daughter has participated in Girl Scout camping and activities, as well as affordable classes in karate, dancing, and soccer. And, yes, her grandparents and/or I take her to the park (Eaton Canyon or Brookside Park) for weekend hikes. Sometimes we just walk around the neighborhood. It all matters.

I couldn’t get my daughter to eat a cupcake now if I wanted to. On special occasions, such as the movies, she is allowed a Sprite. And after church, she can have one of the small donuts or a cookie served on the post-church snack table out front. And TV time? She gets an hour a night.

I know many other parents like me: ordinary folks just trying to make a living but who care a mighty lot about their kids. We’re not infallible, but we’re reasonable. We try to envision our kids as adults, like us. Will they be healthy? Will they thank us for teaching them to care for their bodies and health in simple ways? We’re counting on the answer being “yes!” Their future, and the health of our nation, depend on us working together, as individual parents, to protect our children’s well-being.

Originally published in the Pasadena Star-News of July 6, 2008.