rogue yam said:
We are distinguishing between the terms. Others are mixing the terms. The terrorists are not POWs. (There have been some POWs in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and generally they have been treated according to the various treaties that we have signed.) It all boils down to your demand to put terrorists on trial. We have chosen not to, and repeatedly explained why not. Some leftists don't like this (big suprise...not!) and so they shriek incoherently about "international law" (we are complying with all treaties) and "world opinion" (which is just too rich for many reasons, some of which I've given above). But it really does boil down to that one point. You want American-style criminal justice procedures to be applied to terrorists whatever they've done, wherever they're captured, and wherever they're held. You will not get such from the U.S. so long as GWB is President.
This is not entirely accurate. There are three terms involved, not two: Terrorist, POW, and "enemy combatant", the latter a new term invented by the Bush Regime. The reason it was invented is they were well aware that if they claimed the prisoners at Gitmo and elsewhere were "terrorists", then the US public would clamour for fair trials (or at least military tribunals). If they said "POW" they knew there would be pressure to honor the Geneva Conventions. So out of thin air they invented a heretofore unused term, "enemy combatant", to by fiat define human beings in ways not previously covered by law, military regulation, or treaties. Thus they could claim a right to treat them any way they wanted to, because it's something "new" without precedent and they are making new precedent. As you know, sweet potato, 9-11 changed everything.
Is this right? This is what you support? Neither you nor I know if every person imprisoned in Gitmo is accurately defined by any of these terms. We know that mistakes were made, as they released handfuls over the years. But without evidence, we are expected to agree that every person rotting in our various "black" prisons is guilty -- they're all ambassadors of evil, GWB would have us believe. But we were also expected to believe that Iraq presented a threat to the US, that Saddam Bin Laden might attack Kansas with anthrax-spraying balsa toy airplanes (I'll spare you a long list of other preposterous claims on both the domestic and foreign fronts).
Do you claim to be a conservative? You don't espouse any conservative ideal here. Instead, you express the morality of a schoolyard bully. If you were a conservative, then you would be very concerned that the executive branch of the USG has taken on the unconstitutional power to declare even US citizens "enemy combatants". When challenged they hide behind a veil of secrecy in the name of "national security". (I'm still waiting to see the minutes from Cheney's Energy Summit from way back in 2001.)
How can a purported conservative accept the usurpation of power to imprison US citizens for long periods of time without charges? What's to stop the Regime from jailing Rove (o if we'd be so lucky!) or Ted Kennedy (o if you were so lucky!) or, well, you? A real conservative and patriot would not accept this situation.
Again, these people are not your friends, you mean nothing to them. Why defend the undefendable? By your words on this thread it cannot be because you have a principled position.
On Edit: Bush rules over us by the power of lawyerly redefinition. Is waterboarding torture or not? The Regime says no, they have legal opinion that defines it as frat pranks. Is it unconstitutional and illegal spying on US citizens? Naw, they found another lawyer to redefine that. As a conservative, how can you tolerate this? Libertarians on both the Left and Right should be banding together to restore the democratic ideals of our nation before it is too late.
But then perhaps you share the authoritarian mindset of uber-rightists like Hitler, Mussolini, George Bush, etc. Which is it, sweet potato?