Originally posted by Don Cardi:
in wars of the past, when we captured enemy combatants, did we give them a trial? Or did we hold them in military prisons?
If they were captured on the battlefield they were incarcerated until the war was over, and I have no problem with that.
Anyone we've captured as a result of militaryt actions in Afghanistan or Iraq absolutely
should be detained.
I mean, what are we expected to do? Capture them and then turn them loose five minutes later so they can start shooting at our guys again?
But it's my understanding, and correct here me if I'm wrong, that we are detaining some (many?) people who were
not captured on the battlefield, which pretty much eliminates the presumption of guilt, IMO.
Originally posted by Double-J:
It's also important to recognize that these people aren't being "punished" per se; rather, they are being detained to prevent them from carrying out or supporting another terrorist attack or terrorist activities against our nation.
In fact, the deeper I look into the issue, it doesn't appear that these detainees would see any significant upgrade even if they were made into POW's - the GC doesn't require POW's have rights to access to lawyers, or the ability to refute their incarceration, or to be released from detention before the end of hostilities.
very true, except how do we know that all of them are terrorists in the first place without giving them a trial?
I'm not seeing any reason to give these people fair trials, except obviously for good sportmanship and PR, I suppose.
How about to be certain that they
are terrorists, and to make sure that they are deserving of being detained?
What I don't understand is "What's the problem with giving these guys a trial"?
If they're terrorists, then fine. Lock 'em up and throw away the key. But if they're not.....
Originally posted by Don Cardi:
Apples and Oranges Plaw. In the past, when I've said that a topic was degenerating, it was because the debates degenrated into name calling and personal attacks were made on others because of opinions, related to the topic, that were posted.
Not the case here. You accused this topic of degenerating because you did not agree with how some of us felt about the situtation at Gitmo and our feelings towards the people that occupy it. No one got personal with anyone or made personal attacks on anyone.
OK....lemme see if I have this straight:
If
you say that you think a thread is degenerating because of name-calling and personal insults, that's OK - those are valid reasons - but if
I think a thread is degenerating because rather than address the issues and questions people choose to ignore them and make light of the situation, that's not OK because those are
not valid reasons?
Name calling and personal insults are the things that can cause a thread to degenerate?
Anyway....
I rested my case when I was provided with yet more examples of the type of posts i was talking about.
I rested my case the second time when i was provided with even more examples of the same.
But since we seem to have gotten back on the track here and are discussing the issues, that's a different story.
