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Zoooooooom~!

Anygunanywhere wrote"They are not a few hundred, they are in the thousands. Maobama's executive order also applies to the terrorists held in Iraq and Afghanistan. When you made the statement in an earlier post that only a few were captured in combat, you were wrong. Most of them were actually captured in combat by US and our Iraqi and Afghani allies. Most were not sent by other nations. Take another drink of kool aid. These are not cab drivers being railroaded. They are murdering thug terrorists. Go ahead and say it along with me. M-U-R-D-E-R-I-N-G T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T-S. Not freedom fighters. Not uniformed military combatants. Not POWs. They do not even rank as criminals.

The difference in Afghanistan (I can't speak for Iraq, having never been there) is that those [insert your name for them here] captured there are kept in a military detention facility. They have access to counsel, they are not coddled, and they are detained.

ExtremeDuty.45 wrote"It is amazing to me how many people dont get that they are NOT US CITIZENS but

TERRORISTS

Thats the bottome line. They are not an organized military fighting another military but TERRORIST whom have killed INNOCENT civilians!!! They deserve NO rights and have NO rights from the US. Why should we waste taxpayers money in giving them a trial. They dont deserve a trial. They deserve to be hung, shot, electrocuted or anything else you can think of so long as they are executed for commiting the evil acts that they have done.

After looking carefully through the posts, it looks like folks are jumping to conclusions. Who claimed they are US Citizens? Who is saying that they should enjoy the same Constitutional rights as a US Citizen? Who has said that they should be released to conduct further mayhem on an unwitting and innocent populace?

Speaking strictly for myself, I completely disagree with statements like

they are not an organized military fighting another military but TERRORIST

. Yes they are. They are both. They are not a new phenomenon in human history. They are using tactics that work when someone else is militarily superior, and can't hope to operate on an even playing-field.

Before you jump to conclusions, I do not endorse, support or like these folks at all. What I object to is that we (the USA) lowered our standards when it comes to how we handle combatants. They are combatants, they are trying to kill you and me. I see all of these statements and quotes where our forefathers talk about not giving up our rights in the interest of a false sense of security. I see that also as a belief that we don't give up our principles for the same reason.

IMHO we should take all of these individuals in Gitmo and send them to Military Tribunals like we did in any other war (it is a war, there is a medal for it --- GWOT medal) where they get evaluated, judged and a sentence executed. If in the rare instance that they are "innocent" of wrong doing (which I doubt), then we release them like we have been doing all along. The rest of these folks that are still sitting in Gitmo should be put through the regular prosecution process like any other combatant, and disposed with accordingly.

Sitting on them and doing nothing is not the way to go.

I must admit that after reading a few posts, I have a clearer understanding of why President Bush was elected in the first place.

As I have said elsewhere on previous posts, the pendulum swings wildly in the opposite direction once it has reached one extreme or the other. Hold on for your rides, everybody.

stroo wrote:Purple,

Thanks for your service but the following is a)false and b)a calumny against all of us: "This is just as bad as what the NVA were doing to the likes of John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton."

We are not treating the prisoners at Gitmo anything like the NVA treated John McCain. We are not beating them, breaking bones, tying them into positions that cause permanent damager, not giving medical treatment or starving them. At worst, we waterboarded 3, repeat 3, prisoners. And that was the worst thing we have done. It is the only thing we have done that arguably relates to torture as historically understood.

So please let's at least get the facts right before we start making accusations.

I guess we have to agree to disagree.

XtremeDuty.45 wrote:

Purplehood wrote: BTW, I could care less what they "do" to the rest of the prison population.

So you do not care that they recruit other prisoners to their cause so that when the other prisoners get released they can carry out attacks on US soil?

I think you are not looking at the whole picture. IF, and that is a big IF, they are put in a maximum-security federal military pentitentiary they are going to be in a population of:

A) Lifers

B) Death-row

None of the above are going anywhere. So, NO, I do not care.

I must admit that it boggles my mind that some folks think that it is perfectly fine for us to have double-standards regarding treatment of combatants. As a retired Veteran, I can tell you that my sense of honor and justice are not going to vary with each combatant that I come across.

To paraphrase a typically inane quote, "Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out" is not what I would categorize as a sound, moral philosophy. I would think that I would try to do the sorting for God, then kill them if called for.

Here is the main point:

The prisoners in GITMO are WAR prisoners and therefore not entitled to the rights of US
citizens.

The point is, they are PRISONERS OF WAR. They are not being treated as such. I know of no one except Defense Lawyers that are asking for them to have civil rights like the rest of us. I, for one, am stating that they need to be treated as POWs and not put in a legal-limbo like they have been for years. This is just as bad as what the NVA were doing to the likes of John McCain in the Hanoi Hilton. We as a people should not stoop to behaviors that we call horrendous.

yerasimos wrote:This may not be fully coherent, but let me try:

This country changed for the worse long before Gitmo, Abu Graib, 11 September 2001, or the inaugurations of Bubba, Dubya or the Obamassiah. The damage may be truly irreversible, and shutting down Gitmo or continuing to run it may make little difference.

It is not an American value to torture anyone, whether via waterboarding, electrical shocks, or anything else, nor is an American value to spy on people indiscriminately, hold people indefinitely without trial, or use "secret" evidence against them in a show trial in a foreign country. How did we get into situations where we thought we had to do those things, or subcontract other people to do them on our behalf?

I am pretty sure KSM and the rest of the Al Qaeda (sp?) prisoners are evil people, and they are not simply mistaken, misunderstood, unloved, or improperly medicated. At the same time, I find it difficult to consider the people who set up and operate Gitmo to be my countrymen, even if they may wear a uniform and think they are protecting me, because their operating system seems pretty foreign to me also. It reminds me of trying to save an undamaged home from an encroaching flood by spraying it with gasoline and throwing a lit match.

As I see things, America is not a people, nor a flag, nor a military, nor a land defined by borders on a map. America is a set of ideas---among them respect for the lives and liberty of others, including those accused of crimes---that have been ignored by many people in this country for far too long, particularly its leaders.

I hope no one is misunderstanding what I am saying. They are all the enemy. Treat them as such. They are not supernatural beings requiring supernatural remedies.

I had a wounded Taliban fighter not ten feet in front of me when serving along the Pakistan border. Looked like a hairy-nasty Pathan tribesman to me.

He was the enemy. Nothing more, nothing less.

anygunanywhere wrote:They are not militia, partisans, or freedom fighters. They are scumbag terrorists. Lowly animals have more sense of right or wrong than they do even when they are eating their young. Those scumbag bottom feeders would cut your spouse and children's heads off in your living room and laugh at you while doing so. These terrorists make the worst on Texas death row look like ministers. I refuse to accept any notion that they have any rights. They gave theirs up when they pledged whatever alegiance to whatever higher power they bow down to, and their higher power is not the same God I worship.

The fact that any elected or appointed government official would ever label any American CITIZEN as a terrorist to accomplish any goal counter to the US Constitution and BOR when that person has done nothing wrong does not deserve to enjoy life either and should be locked up in a Gitmo like prison and given a sun dress and spike heels.

If anyone has a problem understanding this then we will have to just do the old "agree to disagree" shuffle. You obviously have a much different belief system than I have and I do not care to live in your world.

Anygunanywhere

We have always felt that way about anyone that we fight. It comes down to this, they are an organized bunch of people that are trying to kill us. In those instances, we get our organized bunch of people that kill for a living to go after them, based on our time-honored rules. They are no better or no worse than Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin...just add Osama bin Laden to the list.

My entire philosophy is this...we don't change our principles based on someone else's actions. If it gratifies you to call them something other than the "enemy", more power to you.

I am an idiot. I did not want Gitmo to function in the manner that it has for the last two administrations.

It is my belief that those personages of a disreputable-nature that are being held there should be treated like combatants, and that we should not have tried to come up with a new category for them.

In my opinion, they are no different than combatants that we might have referred to in the past as:

- Militia
- Partisans
- Guerrillas

No extraordinary new rules and systems should have been created to handle them. Try them, convict them, stick them in Leavenworth till they die. BTW, I could care less what they "do" to the rest of the prison population.