hmm, edward. intriguing "point". You see, here in the US of A, we have this silly thing called "Rights". You know, fair trial and all. I know that the news tries to convince you that armed thugs are out to get you, and that civil liberties and due process are the only thing preventing an honest police force from cleaning up the streets, but that is a juvenile, simplistic notion. Perhaps you should stop watching the 'news' with its fear-based programming.

In reference to the Gitmo prisoners, most people would say that allowing the President to violate Habeus Corpus, one of the oldest laws in the evolution of western democracy, sets a dangerous precedent that may come back to bite us in the arse. You see, what would be preventing the president from imprisoning you, or someone you love, merely because an anonymous source declared you were a terrorist. You never get to defend yourself, because the prosecution never has to show the "proof" against you.

Can someone explain to me why I should be more concerned about these Gitmo prisoners than all the armed criminals running around my neighborhood?
The armed criminals do get their legal rights.

No one is saying they should be set free. That is a straw man. People are saying they should be tried in a court of law and be allowed to challenge the evidence against them. Currently, they are not even allowed to *see* the "evidence" against them.

again, "Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as Al Qaeda fighters"

Not very elegantly put, Charles, but essentially correct. Any wholesale release of Gitmo prisoners will undoubtedly be the cause of additional terrorism once some (not all, of course) of those people are free to return and begin attacking our troops and allies once again.

The guilty should be punished and imprisoned appropriately. Those determined to be innocent should go free.

Yeah, lets bring those guys here...oh wait. The NIMBY affect comes in then doesn't it...All of you want them placed elsewhere but not in your town/state.

The guys you should feel sorry for are the poor MPs on guard there dealing with the abuse the prisoners put out! Many of them (admittedly not all) are animals we will see again and bitterly regret once released.

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=331

331: Habeas Schmabeas 2007

An updated version of our episode "Habeas Schmabeas," which won a 2006 Peabody Award.

In my opinion. anyone who supports the suspension of Habeus Corpus in the name of America doesnt really deserve the rights that protect them from the same atrocities.

Do you really think your government and military are trying to protect you by torturing innocent civilians?

"The administration quickly put together a kind of hearing based, in part, on the old Geneva
Conventions hearing they’d abandoned. They called this hearing a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or,
in the elegant shorthand of the Pentagon, a CSRT. These new hearings have one oddity to them: the
tribunal assumes all the evidence against the detainee is correct. If the detainee wants to prove them
wrong, it’ll be difficult -- because he’s not allowed to see the evidence. It’s classified. As a result, these
hearings make strange reading. In many of them, there comes a moment in the dialog like this one between
detainee Abdul Malik and the judging panel.
MALIK: Regarding the charge that I worked at several guest houses and offices, what was the
work?
JUDGE: I cannot answer that. This is the first time we’ve seen the evidence. I know nothing more
than what is written here.
MALIK: Same with me. I don’t know anything about this. Regarding the charge that I was
frequently seen at Osama bin Laden’s side -- who saw me?
JUDGE: I don’t know.
MALIK: If it says “was frequently seen,” you have to prove that."

"We tried out many of our new interrogation techniques on Jumah Al Dossari. Colangelo-Bryan met
with him many times and catalogued what was done to him. Al Dossari said that Americans forced him to
the ground and urinated on him. We put out our cigarettes on him. We shocked him with an electric device.
We spat on him. W

no, Lindsay, sorry, but I am not referring to the Nuremburg trials. That is obviously a completely separate case. Actually there are instances of Nazi soldiers who were tried *On the Battlefield* Take an hour to listen to the show

"Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as AlQaeda fighters. In fact, Michael Donleavy, head of interrogations at Guantanamo, complained in 2002 that
he was receiving too many “Mickey Mouse” prisoners.
"Habeas corpus – it’s a phrase we all know, but let’s be honest. Can anyone really remember what it means? It’s not a trial, or anything like one. It’s more, well, primal. It’s a hearing that commands the
executive, in this case the president, to explain why he has jailed somebody. The idea dates back to 1215 England when the nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and agree to the Great Writ, later known as habeas corpus. In Latin, it means “show me the body.” In other words, a neutral judge would have to see the prisoner in person to check if he’d been tortured. And then the judge had the power to require the king to explain “Why is this guy jailed?” All the executive had to do was answer with a convincing story, and then the guy went back to the dungeon. It’s a right so elemental that it’s in Article One
of the U.S. Constitution. It’s one of the reasons we fought the Revolutionary War."

Actually, I shouldn't say captured "Nazis". Not all German soldiers were Nazis by any means.