And we could refuse those countries whatever they want or need.
In fact most of their countries did not refuse them, the countries that refused them were the countries we wanted to send them to. There is a difference


Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are in positions to refuse, since we control their borders

yeah, but that would make too much sense

there's too much disconnect between State, and Defense, and Justice

Rachel Maddow on this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbslm1h8xjI



You really think that it's like WW2, that "ends" with the defeat of a certain enemy, a certain nation?

While I really am a bleeding heart, pinko commie, bed-wetting, trial attorney liberal, I think we should "LoJack every one of them with a tracking devise deep in their whatever and turn them loose, then.

As long as we can track them nuntil they undergo major surgery, which in their countries would be fatal anyway, we can gain intel or track them down and shoot them on the field of play.

I just hate f$#king with our legal system or excluding people because we have prejudged them to be what we hope tortuing them will prove.

yup

they declared war on us

not the other way around

<----backs out of the thread

chicken

hush

OK. Time for Civics 101. Few here will understand it and fewer will agree, but here goes.

I criminal trial is not about the guilt or innocence of the accused. Let me repeat. It is not about the guilt or innocence of the accused. It is about testing America and our resolve to live by the principles that we profess to believe in. To believe in and live by them not only in theory and in the best of times but in practice, in the worst of times.

A criminal trial is a morality play for all of us. If an accused jihadist detainee cannot receive a fair, impartial trial with the same rights that we declared (as justification for an act of treason) to be self evident for all men, then they aren’t self evident for any one. At one time, not for African-Americans, women, or other partial humans. (sarcasm intended)

If the presumptions of innocence and the burden to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt isn’t there for Mohammed, it isn’t there for Tom, ****, Harry or Jane.

No where in the Constitution does it say, fair trials for US Citizens and legal residence only. Illegal aliens, F U! Lest we forget, at the time of the Declaration and 13 years later, the Constitution, the countryside was replete with spies and fifth columnists and at no time in our history was our defense more precarious, yet at that time, the founding fathers saw fit to create a document that weakened not strengthen the Federal Government’s ability to deny individual liberties to ALL. They feared the terrorist/tyrant from within more then the one abroad.

but do POW's get criminal trials?

because for all intents and purposes that is what they are

the N Koreans put their POW's on criminal trials. would we be on that level?

Respectfully, they are not. If they were, we would indeed be guilty of Geneva Convention War crimes. There are strict rules regarding POWs and POWs were in fact housed in the US. Fort Stweard (Anniston, Al house Italian POWs and the O Club walls have murals painted by one of them.

We can't have it that they are POWs or we're guilty not criminals without charges and trials or we are in violation of our own laws. They are in fact detainees. The Japanese Americans were detainees in California during WWII. They were allowed to live as familes and have a semblence of controlled refuge camp normalacy.

Technically, what we are doing now is we are taking hostages. How would we like it if others take our citizens and just held them in their jails forever, without any charges? Or even worse, torturing them and implanting tracking equipment in live human beings?

We would be outraged. But, those things do happen, and we properly classify people who does that to our citizens, as criminals.

By doing the same, we are doing criminal acts. Question is, by who's legal definition, but there is no question that we would find our own acts repulsive, if we were on the receiving side.

Can we guarantee, that no American will ever murder an Afghani citizen, or take him hostage? No, we can't. The same should be expected for the other countries. They can not be held responsible for something that their citizens do, without expressed participation of their state.

Then, what is the honorable way of dealing with the problem?

On our land, we dictate what is legally considered a crime. If an Afghani had arrived here and committed a crime, then he should be a subject to a criminal prosecution, as established here.

If a crime has been committed on their land, against our citizens, then we don't even have an option of declaring a war, because if we did, then we could consider anything to be a crime, and demand anything, or declare wars left and right. So, the only proper action in that case is to request proper actions from their government, and if refused, then cease relations. There can be a case when we simply aren't welcome and there is nothing we can or should do to change that.

But, what we are doing now amounts to kidnapping people for reasons that we approve and holding them for as long as it suits us.

I suggest that we take the higher road, before we are made to do that by others.

yeah I think that is why they were in Guantanamo in the first place. To keep em off American soil and jurisdiction. They were under a special circumstance where no precedent actually applied to them. And even Obama hasnt yet figgered out what to do with em

I don't think anyone would be allowed to kidnap people as a matter of a state policy, just look what happened to Chechnya, this is exactly what they have tried to do as a policy instrument for their (deserved) independence.

They only reason we are able to do it is that we can. Nothing different form the reasons Hitler used.

These people were not attacking us. There were roaming in their own lands with hate toward us. So what. We do not have a right to prosecute them for few that did commit a crime here. Prevention my ass. I sure would not want to be representatively held in limbo or killed or kidnapped and operated on, because some of our citizens are considered to be criminals in some other country. Such as Bush and Cheney.

Why this?

Who attacks us?

so you just think the detainees are just random people picked up off the street?

WoW...a post by Nogames I for the most part agree with. Some check...has hell frozen over?

Interesting.

The 1993 World Trade Center bomb plot terrorists were tried under the American Justice and found guilty, currently serving I don't know how many years in a prison.



How come, that was "ok" and this isnt?


Update for those who forget even recent history:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

because that was an actual criminal act committed against civilians on American soil

most of the detainees came from the battle of Tora Bora in which they were ununiformed non regular military captured on the battlefield