RE: So Pony Up The RIGHT Answer

Given the nature of this war and who we fight, that kind of thinking is naive and dangerous, but you really don't care, do you? Do you really think a jihadist picked up in Iraq trying to detonate a car bomb in a crowded market by US forces should be able to "face their accusers?" Be judged by a :jury of their peers?" No prisoner of war at any time during the 800 years of Enlish/American jurisprudence has ever been given the "same treatment" as a citizen. Ever. No habeas Corpus. Ever. But oddly, nobody ever cared until we started fighting these scum... oh, that's right it's Bush's War!! That's what you people really care about more than anything, more than the safety of our citizens or winning this war, that Bush is president. I guarantee if a Clinton or Gore or Obama were president and doing the exact same things people like you wouldn't make a peep about Gitmo.

One thing you probably don't realize is that most (okay - yes that means some weren't) are in Gitmo following judicial procedures. I know for fact that one of those detainees made it there:

• after the legal system confirmed the corroborating facts that target ABC was a lawful suspect for a military operation
• after the legal system had the target approved by the Iraqi judicial ministry
• after his capture produced even more evidence of criminal/insurgent activity
• after his incarceration in common detention facilities in Iraq while the new evidence was reviewed by both American and Iraqi judicial systems
• after subsequently moving through several detention facilities each time getting increased scrutiny on him, the operation and the evidence

Bottom line - the people that are in Gitmo made it there following judicious review of evidence. It's not just "some call" by some military folk that we're going to stick a guy in there. It's a well defined procedure that is far more rigorous and subject to more eyes than putting an American rapist into jail.

And you also forget that a lot of the suspects from abroad that are incarcerated didn't just come from the CIA (insert three letter organization here) nabbing them from the streets. They came from operations involving the same cooperation with foreign states if not actions by those same foreign states.

The dudes in there are bad. Real bad.

Fair enough, and a noble sentiment. However, in practical implementation it has some flaws. Organized crime trials might be a good model because these guys have a tendency to have their accomplices make witnesses "disappear" before trial and get off.

Remember the World Trade Center bombing of 1993? A lot of people forget that one, but these guys had al Qaeda affiliation (sort of a precursor group). The trial gave al Qaeda a bonanza of information on what we knew about them, how we collect our information on them, and a plethora of other concepts to allow them to evade detection and pull off the 9/11 attacks. We need to find ways to give these people fair trials without giving the other bad guys out there a playbook to do it better next time.

Also, for the record, I am totally against torture for a number of reasons, just to clear that up. For one thing, it doesn't really work, and secondly this is a war of ideas. The center of gravity here is convincing people inside and "outside" our system that it works and is worthy of their participation (democracy, rule of law, etc.). If we don't follow our own rules, why should they believe our system is better than, say, Sharia law, which many currently advocate?