Are you familiar with the idea that rights are not "given"?

I have no firsthand knowledge of any operations where we employed bounty hunters, so I can't comment on that. However, if the bounty hunters had to turn their captives over to military intel, It is probable that the vast majority of those retained were, in fact, belligerents.

My unit worked pretty closely intel, since part of our job involved retrieving and transporting prisoners. Technically, we were not supposed to have any knowledge of the procedures used to target and evaluate detainees, but when you work closely with people for a long time, they let things slip, even the "super-secret spy club" guys.

From what I learned and observed, intel actually has a really thorough process for making sure they get the bad guys. This being the internet, I can't say much, but I can tell you that they are trying to fight a counterinsurgency campaign, but they are aware that every time they detain an innocent person, they make new enemies for us and they get into trouble for it. One of their main problems is that they have to let known or suspected bad guys go because they don't have enough evidence.

That said, I'm sure they have screwed up a few times and sent innocent people to Guantanamo, but not often.


Neither am I, but I'm equally uncomfortable with the idea of releasing insurgents who favor such extreme methods because they managed to get through the US legal system, which has a poor record when it comes to both incarcerating the innocent and releasing the guilty.

I don't doubt that.

:salute: I concur, although I fought on foreign soil to keep brutal extremists away from innocent people. The important thing is doing the right thing.

That aside, I am curious as to why you think these people are political prisoners. I don't doubt you, but I can't revise my opinion without that information.

That's what I am considering. Going back and reading my post, though, it kind of sounds like I was suggesting we hang these people. If I gave that impression, I'm sorry. That's not what I was saying. I was just pointing out that the US is not hanging them.


Agreed. The US does a lot of things that are hypocritical, though. That's partially why these guys are so pissed off at us. In this instance, though, I believe the US is trying to do something good.

And if that is in fact what they are doing, I share your view.

Just a young military guy's more worthless opinion.

The fact that you seemingly have no concept of natural rights (amongst other things) makes your story about being a law student very laughable.

Gee, it's that pesky part of our primary founding document. You know, "endowed by their Creator" etc. The point he is missing is that in a lot of cases we don't know whether a detainee is actually a terrorist or not. But that doesn't matter, we can throw out the baby with the bathwater. They're all foreigners anyway, so they aren't really human.

I've tried in the past to explain to the boy that he doesn't know for a fact that he's right, and that none of us can ever know that for certain, but he insists that he's right, and he knows it, which means that he has no possibilty of being wrong, which means that if he actually is wrong he'll never know it. Also, the man who knows everything can never learn anything new.

It's a dilemma he appears to be incapable of understanding, and as long as he sits on his high horse he'll never contribute anything but derision and foolishness.

No mookie, I disagree with you so you attempt to mock, discredit me etc which proves your ignorance.

I fully understand the concept of natural rights as well as legal rights, basic stuff, very basic.However, in the real world dealing with terrorists who do play by the rules, I reject that we as a nation are obliged to respect the "natural rights" of terrorists/enemy combatants. They were captured taking up arms against the US, well they deserve nothing but the gallows honestly.These people are like sex offenders, no cure, no rehab which is why those we have released, many of them have turned up on the battlefield again.Thanks, play again.

When you reject the fact that they have rights, you open the door for them to disregard that you have any rights.

You can't claim the moral high ground and deny it to others.

Again further proving that you have no earthly idea what the definition of natural rights are. There's a reason why you're a joke around here. This is it.

But they already do have disregard for our rights. Even our right to live. That's why they fly airplanes into buildings and gleefully video tape themselves sawing peoples heads off. They will continue to do so if given the chance. Letting them go, and civilian trials could end up doing just that, only puts them back into circulation.

I don't accept "He started it!" from my kids, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't really belong in a discussion on human rights.

If you put them outside the society of civilized humans, you don't get to complain that they're not acting like civilized humans. Only when you accept that they have the same human rights as anyone else do you get to start looking down on them for not playing nice with you.

Sure it belongs.

These terrorists didn't start outside civilized society, they put themselves outside by their actions. It's a key difference you fail to take into account. We didn't open the Gitmo prison before they decided to fly airplanes full of innocent civilians into buildings filled with more innocent civilians. Before they get to be treated like human beings again they have to renounce that kind of thing to the satisfaction of the thousands of victims families.

This is a fair enough concept, but it assumes that every single detainee is a terrorist. You seem to adhere to the "Of course they're guilty, or else they wouldn't be detained" school of argument.

But that is lesson 101 in law skool.

Bubbles bubbles bubbles......You have not got the faintest idea what you are talking about.
Do yourself a favour and quit while you a flat on your face unable to even approach the starting line.

The United States does seem to have a history of this.

14 Oct 85 - Edwin Meese, United States Attorney General 1985-1988

But you touched on my point. We don't know who is or is not innocent. To claim that every one at Gitmo is guilty is the same as saying that everyone who is arrested by the police is guilty. Which simply is not true.

And for the President to say that even if they are found not-guilty in a trial, we will continue to hold them ... just because...., goes against everything that I once though America was about.

No one, not even the President, should have the power to put people in concentration camps... just because.

It. Is. Wrong.

But like most things here, people have their position and there is little chance of convincing people to change their position.

No one will be able to convince me that it is right to hold people in concentration camps without a trial or as the President stated, even if there is a trial.

And I am positive that I won't be able to change any one's mind who thinks it is OK to hold people in concentration camps.

I guess we will have to disagree to disagree. :D

When Bill Clinton was president I started seeing bumper stickers here in uber-right-wing Utah that said "I love my country, I just don't trust the government". When his successor signed off on the Patriot Act, many of those same people here started saying things like "If you don't support the government, you're Anti-American!"

If the parties being detained are indeed guilty of the crimes in question, then they deserve the worst punishment available. But to lump them all in the same category "just because" shows a shallowness that frightens me.

Cuba was the navy's #1 whorehouse of the USA before the revolution, run by mobsters and frequently visited by congressmen (of the whole world).
With only Guantanamo left, why should they shut this down also ? :O: