The point is you don't know and neither does 99.9% of known population of the planet. You have no feckin idea if said prisoners are guilty. No idea. You don't even know who they are. You don't know how many. You don't know if they have been charged.

The best chance we have of knowing the answers is to insure due process for ALL prisoners held by or in behalf of the US. Public trials. The government will then prove it did or did not provide humane treatment and due process. That wasn't terribly difficult, was it?

Here

Here

Here

Here

And here is perhaps the most comprehensive and most recent source available this week. This is a culmination of an 8 month investigation. This one article in a series. For the rest of the series look to the box just on the right of the article.

Couple of thoughts. I have no problem with internal regulations being put on the military so that there are different areas checking on one another. In no way should this ever be a civilian tribunal or court system. That's absurd when we are facing people willing to fly planes into buildings and use unconventional forms of attack designed to inspire fear and confusion in the citizens of this nation.

I don't mind demanding that the military follow certain procedures to ensure that everyone who is captured is actually a terrorist. This could be done relatively quickly with things like sleep deprivation, lie detector tests, truth serum, and waterboarding.

However, enacting regulations that try to consider terrorists as having the same rights of law as the rest of the law abiding and tax paying citizens is ridiculous, whether or not 5 pinhead judges on the Supreme Court want to make a political statement or not.

__________________
"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

Southpaw, the problem is we don't often know who is a terrorist and who is an innocent person. It would seem to me that you are assuming that anyone of the region in prison is a terrorist. That is precisely the crux of the situation. We do not know who is and who is not a "terrorist". And until we do know prisoners should be afforded basic rights. If and when it is determined that a person is in fact a "terrorist" then that is a horse of a different color. You, it would seem, would throw away the basic rights of all prisoners and assume that they are all guilty until proven innocent. That is not the legal philosophy we practice in the U.S. In America (and in other countries) we take the high moral high ground - innocent until proven guilty. Either, Southpaw, we believe in those principles and we practice them or we do not. There is no room for either or. Right is always right and wrong is always wrong. Being just is not the easy way. I don't know that anyone ever said it was.

It costs us little to show the world that America is in the end just. We cannot, we cannot, preach freedom and justice if we do not practice it in all that we do. That choice, sir, is ours and ours alone. The world watches, who is America?

Everything that the USA does is GOOD.

Remember folks

GODBLESSESAMERICA

or was that YHWH???

not really sure these days who this GOD charater really is.

It seems that GOD will ring Goerge Bush up and instruct him to invade Iraq.

BUT

the POPE goes on telly and tells everyone that the Iraq war is immoral and that all hostilities should cease.

Are you sure George Bush is talking to GOD?

What all of sudden you are God Fearing? The pope is a pawn.

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Liberals believe it is okay to kill babies, but not terrorists.

democrats believe it is okay to taser a 10 year old if this stance will get their guy elected.

You are acting like these are guys pulled from a farm or shopping mall from somewhere with no credible evidence that they are involved in nefarious activities.

These guys were jailed because they were involved in activities which the military perceived to be of the terrorist variety. It's not just like they had the wrong skin tone. I'm all for figuring out quickly through a variety of methods if someone is a terrorist as soon as they are apprehended. If they aren't, let them go immediately. If they are, then they don't deserve any rights under any international laws or our laws.

War isn't pretty. Mistakes are made on both sides. However, trying to give everyone who is apprehended the same amount of rights and assume that they are somehow as decent as normal American citizens is foolish at best. Personally, I would rather use harsh methods on 10 men and find out later that one was innocent rather than forgoing any harsh measures on any of the 10 and sending them all through to a citizen panel before liberal journalists who are more interested in a story and liberal politics than saving the lives of Americans and our soldiers. I don't care if this sounds unfair. Our opponents lost the rights of 'fairness' which you seem to laud here a long time ago when they took the fight to us. I said it before and I'll say it again: war isn't pretty.

Before you label me as a xenophobe anymore, just realize that my best friend growing up looks exactly like some of the men in these photos. He had to shave his head after 9/11 because he was worried about stereotyping. Our world is not perfect and it sucks sometimes. However, to gamble at this and make believe that the other side will follow the same moral codes as us is foolish and deadly.

__________________
"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.

A Mason, would they have him, I know they will take all sorts of rubbish but comeon sophy thats a bit of a leap

Of course they won't follow the same moral codes as us.

But that is what makes us the good guys right? We are supposed to follow it.

Good Morning Redders, rational as ever,

We do follow the moral code. However, every moral code out there is justifiably broken all the time.

Don't murder.... except in self-defense.
Don't assault someone.... except to protect another.

See my point?

Don't torture someone... unless they are terrorists that hold information which could save thousands or possibly millions of people.

This world isn't perfect. We shouldn't act like it is.

__________________
"When we consider that women have been treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

- A perfect example of why I'm a paranoid parent.