John Maywether told a growing crowd that Aruba is not an island of criminals. “We have 96 (prison) cells and 53 percent of them are occupied by non-Arubans,” he said.

The officials went looking for a missing tourist, not a victim of foul play. Her friends were of little help and it took some work to find the last people to see the woman.

They have a legal system and they are not about to violate it because the mother of the missing woman can get on television in the United States. Aruban officials are not going to cede authority to the FBI, and American law enforcement has no power on the island.

As it stands now they have a missing person case. That isn’t a crime, and after all of the exposure of the “runaway bride” people in the rest of the world might think that this is something young American women do frequently.

As I live in a resort area that used to be frequented by college students on “Spring Break”, I know that teenage drunks do a lot of really stupid things. As the stupidity has resulted in deaths, our area actively discourages college students, making it very difficult for them to rent rooms and deploying extra officers to discourage underage drinking.

I feel sorry for the woman’s parents, but without some proof of a crime, the Arubans can’t go much further.

His article points to an op-ed piece by William S. Lind: Doing It Right about a California National Guard unit that is keeping the peace in a small area of Iraq by acting like police officers, not soldiers.

I was in both the military and law enforcement: the rules of engagement are very different. If you don’t act like the military when taking a country, you die. If you don’t act like a police officer when you occupy a country, a lot of civilians will die before you are killed.

The role of the police officer in society is to keep the peace. Whenever possible a police officer will try to calm down a situation and not instantly respond with violence. Soldiers are trained to respond to any perceived threat with violence, not de-escalation.

We have too few soldiers, and they have the wrong skills.