According to the some, it is therefore perfectly reasonable to lock 554 other human beings away for the rest of their lives, without charging them with any crime or putting them on trial, due to the actions of these 61 individuals.

Your cut-and-paste job pretty much proves my point, joaquin. We need the rule of law, but we need it _done properly_.

Like I said, you’ve got shit for brains.

“The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.”

emphasis added

Returned? Were they actually terrorists before or only after their detention and treatment in US hands? And if they were before, then why were the cases against them so weak that they were released from custody?

Anyone? Anyone?

Working out the difficulties of that is something that our legal system — judges, lawyers, lawmakers — is perfectly capable of doing.

This basically sums it up. Only to add that, as others have pointed out, the right decided that figuring out how to handle detainees from these wars was deemed “too hard” before they even started. The Bush administration had no plan for detainees and then came up with the worst of all possible plans: to keep detainees in prison forever, without charges or trial, and throw in a little torture for good measure.

It’s astonishing really that Jay Tea is concerned about miranda rights now but had no problem endorsing torture as a means of gaining evidence or confessions.

It’s also astonishing that legal eagle Jay Tea is raising questions about American jurisdiction while simultaneously, I can only assume, opposing any sort of international court system or international jurisdiction.

The larger point being that many of challenges that Gitmo raises are challenges created by right wing lack of planning and opposition to international courts and treaties, not mention its appalling support for things like torture.

Worst.
Administration.
Ever.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed and 43 suspected of “returning to the fight.”

He said the figures, updated at the end of December, showed a higher rate of recidivism than seen in a previous report showing 37 former detainees as active militants.

He provided no details about the detainees or their countries of origin.

“The overall known terrorist re-engagement rate has increased to 11 percent” from about 7 percent, Morrell said.

The numbers were generated by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency based on fingerprints, photographs and intelligence reports, he said.

[etc.]

Shorter JT: Following the rule of law is too hard. Let’s not bother.

You have no fucking clue how the system works, do you?

Yet you feel compelled to give your opinions on these matters in a public forum.

That’s fascinating to me. Simply fascinating.

You are the only person in this thread who has suggested that, shit-for-brains.

—

“Incapable of imitating examples of barbarity and forgetting recent provocations, the soldiers spared every man who ceased to resist.” – Alexander Hamilton

“Not only your Officers, and Soldiers have been treated with a Tenderness due to Fellow Citizens, & Brethren; but even those execrable Parricides [traitors] whose Counsels & Aid have deluged their Country with Blood, have been protected from the Fury of a justly enraged People.” – George Washingon, to the British

Sometimes democracy is messy.

That should have been asked of Bush BEFORE opening the can of worms, correct?

Don’t blame me. I was trying to ask them.

Fixed.

J.

Unlike you Jay, many judges are highly educated people who would be able to handle the complexities of these different cases. We know for a fact that many of the prisoners in Gitmo are completely innocent, having been caught up in “dragnet” style arrests. People ratted each other out for hundred dollar bills. Giving them proper trials isn’t tantamount to “letting them go,” as much as you’d like to think it is.

Personally, as a firm believer in American values like “innocent until proven guilty” and all that flim-flam that you and your fellow torture-mongers like to talk tough about, Gitmo remains a huge stain on American integrity and idealism. But we have an adult, competent president now who’s going to do the right thing and shut it down. It might take a while, but we’re dealing with eight years of Republican damage to the Constitution. It’ll take some time to set things right.

I know it’s hard to believe that we now have a leader who can deal with complexity, but get used to it.