Even though I detest the members of Al Qaeda who are fighting in Afghanistan (simply for the fact that they’re religious fanatics who want to impose their screwed up ideals on everybody else), I feel like their basic human rights ought to be respected. As such, much as I loathe them, I don’t think it’s right that they be summarily executed, regardless of what Donald Rumsfeld wants. That said, these guys make it really hard to excuse not just shooting them on the spot. There were rumors that the hundreds who were killed in the school in Mazar-i-Sharif were shot after they killed Northern Alliance members who went in to accept their surrender. Then the same thing happened in Kunduz — they gunned down the Northern Alliance soldiers after radioing that they were surrendering. And now, hundreds of these guys revolted after surrendering and being taken prisoner and were all killed. If you attack people after surrendering, it makes it extremely unlikely that they’ll be willing to accept your surrender in the future. I don’t expect people to take many Al Qaeda prisoners from this point on, and truthfully, they’ve brought it on themselves.