http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4759317.stm

Lord Goldsmith, the UK Attorney General (and all round Blairite) has called Gitmo "unacceptable" and said it should be shut.

It`s taken him how many years to figure this out? He must be billing by the hour.

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Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Marx (G.)

Canada is the closest ally of the US, not Britain.

The US should close Gitmo down though, they must try and convict those suspects as well.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

Well, I'm glad someone with some authority in this country has grown enough backbone to criticise the US, but even then he still has the simpering compliment to them. Beacon of liberty my arse!

Yay! Let's close Gitmo!

Let's close it right now. Just one little question though. What will you do with all the unlawful combatants there?

I suppose that most of the evidence against these individuals can't be used since these poor terrorist fighters who were captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan weren't given the same rights a guy arrested in Ohio gets. And since they were in isolation and did not enjoy 5 star accommodations I guess they should be compensated and released.

So they can all go free, Yay!! How politically correct and even righteous we are! We give enemies who don't even qualify as lawful combatants and therefore aren't covered by the Geneva Conventions the same rights American citizens get if they are stopped for speeding!

That would be great and it would give us all a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and our delicate moral sensibilities would no longer be offended by these harsh measures which people sometimes have to take in order to protect democracy from those who would destroy it.

And if just a few of them went and launched some terror attack that killed hundreds of people, so what! We can still enjoy that warm fuzzy feeling inside from the knowledge of having done absolutely nothing to stop them.

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Love Angel Music Baby

...always cracksme up! Lamenting that 'evidence' cant be used to convict these people...then they proceed to immediately convict them themselves as 'terrorist fighters'...and then we get to the coup de grace of Bush Administration euphemisms, the most intentionally meaningless, pap cunningly devised to conceal rather than reveal a truth....'captured on the battlefield' - all it means is that they were in Afghanistan at the time; the country is the battlefield, under the new religion, get it?

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Yeah, they were just sitting in a restaurant sipping their tea when suddenly those evil American soldiers took them away. It's not like those people were captured in battle or anything...

But like I said, what would you do with them?

I readily admit that the evidence against some of them wouldn't hold up in court due to the nature of terrorist activity which doesn't leave much of a paper trail.

Come on, what would you do?

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Love Angel Music Baby

You describe - strangely - almost precisely how the Tipton Three were picked up. Now they are out and...http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...175790,00.html

...oh, and dont mention the fact the quite a few may very well be completely innocent...

For a start I would have gone after the people who committed the crime...and get them....invading a foreign nation was not the only way of going about that work...but if you do insist on warring all the time, there will be wars. But remember...there is a cost....expect the backlash....

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Oh, I see. You would have captured Usama and all the other Al Qaeda terrorists. Peace of cake!
Just out of curiosity, what would you do if you didn't have enough concrete evidence against them? Would you let them go again? Or do you think that just because you believe they are the 'real' bad guys you would have solid proof that would be enough for any court? Do you have indisputable evidence against anyone? But this is just getting us away from you answering the question.

You still haven't answered my question: what would you do with the people in Gitmo right now if the U.S. closed it? You just answered that you would have gotten the real bad guys, that's not an answer. You're saying they should close Gitmo, okay, tell us what should be done.

Gitmo is closed! Yay! Okay, what do you do with all the poor innocent Taliban and Al Qaeda peace-lovers? I suppose you let most of them go?

And if a few of them (just a few!) go back to attacking U.S. forces, or better yet, launch a terrorist attack on London, New York, or wherever you happen to live, what then?

Sorry, we gave them the same rights Americans have if they're stopped for 'driving under the influence', and they took advantage of it! It's not fair!!!

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Love Angel Music Baby

Many gitmo prisoners should be released into the custody of other nations to be dealt with. The serious offenders should be placed in federal prisons pending trail. What so hard about that?

And what if most of them go on to live long, happy and productive lives. You would deny them that right, just over assumptions?

What are they taking advantage of? They are humans and they have humans rights, such as the right to due process. The US signed the universal declaration of human rights, so it is fair that they be treated in a similar fashion to Americans.

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"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. " — John Stuart Mill

That sounds so nice on paper. But unfortunately that is not how the world works. Are you telling me that armies which took POW's in wars gave them civilian trials?! Are you serious?

Let me get this straight, armies around the world, take their POW's and send them back to the homeland for the justice system to deal with them?!

Can you give me examples of countries which fought wars and then sent all the prisoners back home for their courts to process like regular criminals? I'd love to read all about it. So POW's weren't held in POW camps until the war was over?

Besides, these Talibanis who were captured on the battlefield are combatants, or unlawful combatants to be more precise. They don't even deserve the same rights as uniformed soldiers since they don't fight according to the laws of warfare. But even if they did they can be held by the military as POW's until the end of the war. And that is not going to be any time soon. So even if you treat them as lawful combatants you can hold them with no problem for the foreseeable future.

Wouldn't it be funny if the U.S. had sent all its Vietnamese, Japanese, or German POW's back to America for a fair trial back during those wars!

Are you serious?



OMG

You guys really think these people want to just live their lives peacefully?!
You really, truly believe they will let you live your life happily if you just leave them alone. Like before Pearl Harbor, or 9/11.

If you just bury your heads deep enough in the sand people will leave you alone. Sorry, to break it to you, but there are people who really hate you because of your way of life. They hate you for being alive. And they spend every waking moment thinking of how to kill you and destroy your way of life.

Now I know how to end this war:

We could all just make love not war, and take lots and lots of LSD!

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Love Angel Music Baby