That ad hominem doesn't address his very well reasoned points.

The justice system, and indeed our entire political system, was originally set up to discourage individual abuses of power. It's the reasoning behind checks and balances. If you institute a justice system that has the right to unilaterally imprison people indefinitely under the assumption of guilt then the individual holds too much power over the system. It becomes subject to the whims and caprices of the individual. It goes entirely against how our country was established.

I said that potentators must be made feeling the price of sanctions against them, in case of wars against their countries: targetting their families for example (while often civil populations gets bombed or at least "collateralised" without discrimination, while the families of those ruling often get explicitly saved from targetting).

I also said that one should not just ignore family members that can take revenge against yourself in case you killed the chieftain of the gang because he was a leading figure of the regime. At least those who likely have been risen and educated in the same mental attiotude like the - father or husband you had targetted.

And in my previous post in this thread I said that frontline action in a war does not compare to the policework needed to be done in your own nation in order to catch a criminal, since waging war does not compare to the instruments of enforcing law and order by the means of a justice system.

Finally, "potentators" refers to figures whose guilt and record is obvious and proven.

I see you are still good at your favourite hobby, August: turning words & manipulative quoting.

Perhaps that's because my post wasn't intended to address them mookie. (please note my very clever use of the question mark). All I wanted to know was how his willingness to murder innocent people jibes with his demand that we afford our enemies the standards and protections we afford our own citizens.

Is that really, as he says: "turning words & manipulative quoting", or is it just that he doesn't like it when people point out his contradictions? You decide.

He should have gotten 280 counts of murder, and he should be on death row. A minor conviction is not a win.

As for his confession, he was not waterboarded. The other enhanced interrogation techniques are not even close to waterboarding—which is the only EIT that you can even make an argument is torture. BTW, to be torture is has to cause "severe" physical or psychological harm, which is certainly grey enough to be debatable. The other EITs, again, and not even close to waterboarding, though.

Regardless, the same government (Clinton, Bush, then Obama) have killed people with no due process as a matter of course. Actionable intell, cruise-missle/JDAM through roof. Actionable intell, guy grabbed up at great risk to troops... that's "bad." I guess we can learn the lesson not to take prisoners, and simply kill anyone even suspected, instead.

Lower sentences for military tribunals should give lie to the notion that it is some sort of conspiracy to murder them. Bottom line is that virtually all evidence must be thrown out in a civil court, and certainly everything after they were captured since they were not Mirandized.

If these guys deserve constitutional protections, why are we allowed to summarily execute them? Shouldn't we need to convict them before dropping the JDAM?

I think it's better to address the argument than to sling mud at the person making it. Even if someone's being a hypocrite, it's still better to take the high road. It's hard to do, but it's something we should aspire to.

BTW, as I said in other threads, and up in this one, we should have declared war on AQ, allied terrorist organizations, and any nation abetting them back in late 2001 (when it would have sailed through with 100% support ('cept maybe some idiots like Maxine Waters)).

This was a major failure of the Bush Administration, and the Congressional leadership, IMO.

It would have clarified so many things and it would have been the right thing to do.

I thought I was giving him an opportunity to explain the apparent contradiction. Instead he chooses to act offended and you choose to support the contradiction. Oh well.

I didn't support anything. I said that I think it's best that we avoid ad hominem fallacies and actually address the points of the argument being made. You don't seem to agree. That says a lot about you.

Same old rubbish with you trying to justify the unjustifiable, its a really simple matter tater. If the US calls it torture when other countries do it then its torture when they do it.
Besides which he was held first by Pakistan and then in secret prisons so your saying anything about what methods may have been used either on him or on any of the others whose testimony was refused means absolutely nothing as on top of trying to justify the unjustifiable to are attempting to justify things you don't even know about.

What a novel concept, a state declaring a war on a non state actor.
How exactly would that work?
Allied terrorist organisations and any nation abetting......wouldn't that mean the US had to declare war on itself?

You are going to end up as a member on Skys ignore list:rotfl2:

Yeah such a war declaration would indeed be novel, but it's a novel war. Coming up with a formal declaration is clearly superior to waging war with no declaration.

As for water boarding, this guy wasn't, and I don't think he even claims he was. As for the pakis, what they do is not my problem.

So your way of pointing out my ad hominem attack is by making your own?

I'll quote myself seeing as how you ignored it:

Now either it does or it doesn't jibe but i'd rather have Skybird make his own arguments instead of you trying (and failing) to make them for him.

What on earth makes this terrorism any different from a hundred years of terrorism?

pakis eh....classy.


Errrrr....what they and others do is a major part of the problem just as much as what the CIA does is a major part of the problem, which is why you should be happy that any conviction at all was gained as its the long running habit of ignoring legal problems that has been the key element of the farce
Funnily enough its the reason why you are sitting there moaning about the outcome as you support the stupidity that leads to the outcome you are moaning about.

You're skewing the argument away from the subject at hand (how to prosecute terrorists/enemy combatants) and making it about Skybird. I called you out on it. Deal with it.

Yeah whatever.

I made my suggestion. What do you think?

Great stuff by Andy McCarthy (who knows more than a little about trying terrorists in civilian court):

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...-andy-mccarthy

McCarthy also says the guy is gonna spend life in prison for that one count, and that some on the right are accusing Holder of stuff he had nothing to do with (the indictment was handed down before 911, after all).

Thats the main point of it all, it was easier to btring people to justice before some idiots tried to take shortcuts under the illusion that it would make it easier.
Worldwide there are terrorists simply walking free from court because either the evidence has become screwed by the short cuts some fools introduced, or because the government simply refuses to show the evidence.

I could not agree more Ducimus. Trying to defeat terrorism is like trying to remove cockroaches from the entire earth. It's not going to happen. However, it is possible to control a population of cockroaches in your home and that's how we need to look at this. I'm a strong beleiver in a good offense, but in this case, stomping on them won't fix the problem. The best approach for us is to defend our borders best we can and keep as many as possible from entering the country and invest more in intelligence.

Trying to remove terrorism is like trying to extinguish crimes.

There MUST be a system put up and NOT anarchy to handle the issue.