The U.S. Army is prosecuting Lt. Col. Allen B. West for threatening to shoot an Iraqi policeman who was conspiring with insurgents to ambush U.S. troops.

The smart thing for the Army to do in this case, is to put a letter in his file, let him ride a desk for a couple of weeks until he qualifies for his pension and then honorably discharge him.

The Army isn't doing the smart thing.

At a hearing today, West testified: "To protect my soldiers, I'll go to hell with a gasoline can in my hand."

So, not only is the Army doing the wrong thing, the military prosecutor has been getting talking points from the anti-American "human rights" groups.

Prosecutor Capt. Magdalena Przytulska said West should be tried, saying his actions implied that "we're no better than the enemy we're fighting."

Actually, his actions show that we are better than the enemy we're fighting.

From ABCNews.com:

Despite the excruciating torture he describes, Acree never yielded to the Iraqis' demands. Acree said his silence only made his captors angrier. They beat him and knocked him unconscious repeatedly as he was tied to a chair blindfolded, he said.

On his third day of captivity, Acree said, the Iraqis hit him with something that felt like a 4-by-4 or a metal pipe. "When it hit me, instead of going left or right or back, it lifted me up and back. Out of my seat."

That was the beating that fractured Acree's skull.

From Germany's Deustche Welle:

Dale Store, a pilot shot down in 1991 by Iraqi anti-aircraft fire, spent 33 days as an Iraqi prisoner. It was one of the worst experiences in his life, Store said.

"I was on the ground and they kicked me in the face and kidneys," he said. "Earlier, they had tortured me with electric shocks. ... When they finally stopped asking me questions, I was hoping they would kill me."

We're trying a soldier for firing a gun near a Baathist thug's head and for allegedly punching him. Did Saddam punish his men for violating the Geneva Conventions in Gulf War I? No, in fact, the ABCNews report indicates that the now-rotting, maggot-infested Odai Hussein was in charge of our POWs during Gulf War I.

We're in no danger of becoming what we're fighting. Our goal is to create a democracy and free the Iraqi people. The thugs and terrorists that we're fighting seek power for themselves at the expense of the Iraqi people.