A message for the wankers: If you are going to quote from a piece verbatim, either blockquote the paragraph or put quotation marks around the text. When you make up a line and blockquote it to make it seem as though that is what is written, all you are doing is proving what a dishonest leftist fuck piece of shit you are. End of lesson.

A large part of the problem with the discussion of torture and Guantanamo is that, well, there’s no discussion. When was the last time CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, or any of the networks devoted an hourlong segment to the paradoxes in U.S. policy? Torture is illegal, period; those who approved it have violated U.S. law. This is clear in the Convention Against Torture, signed INTO LAW by Ronald Reagan. If you think the law should be changed, by all means let’s have the discussion; but the Bush administration, acting, reasonably, in undue haste for fear of another attack, didn’t devote resources to exploring the question.

Secondly, I'm consistently bothered by the fact that in any discussion of how we treat suspected terrorists, everyone seems to forget about the "suspected" part. This is how you end up with people discussing whether or not terrorists deserve the benefits of due process, which misses the point entirely.

The whole reason for due process is that until a person is tried in a just court, we have no way of actually knowing whether they are terrorists. Somehow the entire debate gets framed around whether these dangerous men are deserving of a specific process, the whole time forgetting that the very reason for the process is to make sure that innocent people are not unjustly punished or imprisoned. In fact, based on what I've read, it appears likely that many of the Gitmo detainees are not actually dangerous at all, but were swept up in an over-zealous attempt to imprison anyone remotely related to al-Qaeda (we paid Shiia militia in Iraq to round up suspects, which produced results as uneven as you’d expect). It’s important that we consider this possibility, and that we don't simply treat this as a philosophical question of whether a murderer deserves a lawyer.

Finally, I was encouraged by Enrique Espinosa and Ninoska Perez-Catellon’s unequivocal positions on torture, said on Perez-Roura’s Radio Mambi program Thursday morning: anyone who’s escaped the Castro regime knows exactly what torture is, what it does to the souls of those who administer it, and how it desecrates the ideals of the United States. The ticking-time-bomb scenario helps ratings for “24,” but the odds of it really happening are very small.

Duke dude, you're missing the friggin point

Is sleep deprivation torture? no
Is playing loud rock music torture? no

As I stated in the article which you did not read apparently, the AFM prohibits techniques that are allowed by the police department when questioning criminal suspects. The AFM is to be applied to soldiers of organized armies in the battlefield. Not with terrorists picked up in the battle field.

You think KSM and all these other scumbags should be tried here in federal courts? with the same rules of evidence given to US citizens? You want them let go in the USA? Hell, these guys admitted to master minding 9-11.

Dude, you're smoking too much weed. Stay off the drugs man.

Secondly, I'm consistently bothered by the fact that in any discussion of how we treat suspected terrorists, everyone seems to forget about the "suspected" part.

You mean the guy captured on the battlefield with an AK-47? or the group caught planting an IED and a couple of cell phones for remote detontation in their posession? most of the goobers at Gitmo have been captured on the battlefield.

They're illegal combatants, and are not protected in any way, shape or form by the Geneva Convention. You're worried about their due process?

How's this for due process: charge them as spies, put their asses in front of a military tribunal, and if found guilty, hang them.

We've been doing that since at least 1780. That is what happens to spies.

Darth, problem with that is that these guys aren't even part of a country as with German spies or Russian spies. They're scumbag terrorist murderers who are dying to fight jihad against the US & Israel.

I guess these pansies would have no problem if we simply shot them in the battle field as our soldiers have a right to do. But I guess the idea of depriving them of sleep or playing Brittany Spears 24/7 in their cell to extract useful information to save US Lives is of no use for these liberal buttlickers.

IRA Darth Aggie, I am 100% in agreement with you.

Thin, just rent a room to KSM when he gets out. He is only "suspected" in your mind, after all.

Oh, and the Convention against Torture was signed by Reagan, but it wasn't ratified by the Senate until 1994. Here's an interesting footnote to the Senate's ratification:

That the United States declares that the provisions of articles 1 through 16 of the Convention are not self-executing.

Not self-executing means that Congress will have to pass legislation to enforce the treaty.

You can read about the other Senate quibbles.

You think KSM and all these other scumbags should be tried here in federal courts? with the same rules of evidence given to US citizens? You want them let go in the USA?

Yes! "Bring'em on!" As a commenter said on Ross Douthat's Atlantic Monthly blog said yesterday, what a blow psychologically to Al Qaeda to treat these suspects as criminals. Your second question: no, just Geneva Convention prescriptions. Your third question is totally disingenuous. The suspects released in the last four years were returned to their home countries.

They're illegal combatants, and are not protected in any way, shape or form by the Geneva Convention. You're worried about their due process?

The problem is the term "illegal combatants," created specifically by the Bush administration to strip suspects of Geneva Convention protections. It's not just a question of correct nomenclature.

My personal ideal of hell would be Celine Dion blasting all day.

Thin, agree in Celine Dion. On everything else, I disagree.

Thin, if you try them in a regular federal court and give them rights of Americans which they do not deserve, you will end us with a wussy nut judge with an agenda who will throw out the evidence against them because it was obtained through coercive methods and then they will be let go back to try to kill more americans. This isn't a drug case dude. This isn't a regular criminal case where you're dealing with search warrants and the Rules of Criminal Procedure. These are terrorists captured in the field.

In war, they are given military tribunals. That's how it's been done in this country since the revolutionary war.

Bring them on... puh-lease. You want them kept in your neighborhood?

Here's another reason why we should keep the military prison in Guantanamo...

Saudi freed from Guantanamo rejoins Al Qaeda

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-detainee24-2009jan24,0,4983174.story

j2tharome....thanks for the link. Again, proof positive that these are bad people who should not be let go ....

Hey guys, let me pass on something that was read at a staff meeting one morning while I was serving in one of the wars over there (I'm afraid of giving too much identifying info). The report quoted an enemy commander telling his subordinates to surrender quickly when outgunned by the Americans. Why? because they "will put you in prison for 6 months, you don't have to answer their questions, they can't mistreat us, and they will feed you and give you medical care so that you can continue the fight after they are forced to release you." That's all I ever have to hear when it comes to discussing interrogation techniques. BTW, I've also seen portions of the Army Field Manual and it is designed for a conventional conflict, not the threat we face today - it's pretty much a joke. Protecting American lives should be the overriding factor in all these discussions. The liberals and other hand-wringers have been undermining us for 8 years and the enemy knows how weak we are. Our men and women are dying and our nation enfangered and all these gutless cowards can do is lobby for the enemy and our 'international image'. They are worthless bastards and bitches.