When Gitmo was first set up, I thought, “Good. Lock ‘em all up.”
When people cried that the detainees’ rights were being violated, I joined the chorus of, “They’re combatants, they have no rights!”
In the back of my head was a voice crying, “We’re Americans dammit, we’re better than this.”
Today the “liberal” block of the Supreme Court listened to their voices much better than I ever did and decided that those folks have every right to have the government either show the evidence against them or set them free.
We’re Americans dammit, we’re better than we’ve shown to be over the past few years. Thanks to the Supreme Court, we’re acting like it again.
Maybe it’s going to prove to be a mistake when it comes to our security. But we all know what Ben Franklin said about that.
You have more mercy then I. The only lesson I see from this is take no prisoners. Better to kill them in the field instead of capture them.
Comment by Jim C — 20080612 @ 1443
The people interred at Gitmo are not Prisoners of War. They are illegal combatants on the battlefield. POW’s are afforded special rights due to their status and throughout history POW’s of the US were treated well in US facilities. Every single person in Gitmo is there because they are tied to specific groups of terrorists and we need a place to keep them out of contact of their mates still on the outside while we attempt to figure out their structures and build ways to infiltrate or destroy said groups.
I fear that giving these people access to our courts and their ACLU lawyers is going to do one thing. They will be let go, the US will be forced to pay them craploads of money and they will use that money to kill Americans at every opportunity.
Sadly I have no confidence in our judicial systems ability to keep these murderers confined.
Sure we can say we are taking the moral high ground and I like that but the cost of that moral high ground is going to be devastating.
Comment by Joe — 20080613 @ 0757
I agree with both of your points. If we knew that everyone at Gitmo was really a terrorist, really a part of the Taliban, really an “illegal combatant” I’d feel just fine about locking them up and throwing away the key.
However, some of the folks in Gitmo are there because Afghani bounty hunter caught them, tied them up, and turned them over to us saying, “This guy’s Taliban.” and then got paid by us. Some of the “evidence” against them was obtained by “alternative interrogation methods” that before 9/11 we would have insisted we’d never stoop to.
Does it mean that some of the real bad guys are going to be set free? I’m afraid so. Does it bother me that they will be returned to their homelands to kill more Americans? Absolutely.
What bothers me more is that we’ve let those fears turn us into something less than we are. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We Americans and we’re better than this.
Comment by Timmer — 20080613 @ 1105
Strikes me that the “illegal combatant” thing is something of a modern invention. From what I remember, that would have covered a fair number of the Americans fighting our guys in the war of independence, including the “minutemen”.
Take them as POWs or shoot them.
Comment by Al — 20080614 @ 1744
In the words of Chief Justice Roberts (dissenting):
The existing procedure allowed accused jihadists to challenge their detention, and many were released. Indeed, over half of all those ever held at Camp X-Ray have been released.
The existing procedure was not perfect. For one thing, it was subject to influence by outside money. See this article for details of how legal giant Shearman & Sterling engineered the release of several jihadis from wealthy Kuwaiti families, for which S&S earned $millions in fees. (S&S also bills 10s of $milllions to Middle Eastern clients.)
This SCotUS will subject American soldiers in the field to the harassment of lawyers, many of them quite overtly opposed to the mission of our forces. (Convicted terror accomplice Lynne Stewart is viewed by many as a role model of legal ethics.
Comment by Rich Rostrom — 20080618 @ 0021