Ok, firstly, nobody has been detained without reason.  There was a reason these persons were detained in the first place. Perhaps for some, such as the ones mentioned, it was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but these things can and do happen during war. Nobody is detained for no reason. That is an absurd statement.

Secondly, the idea that somehow these people detained upon the battlefield while dressed in civilian clothing and suspecting of being terrorists have any rights at all beyond those defined by the Geneva Convention is totally absurd. According to the Geneva Convention they could have been summarily executed as spies yet the evil Americans chose to arrest them instead. Geez, we're such evil people.

Some of you folks really need to be introduced to reality. As one who has experienced a warfare situation or two I can spot an ignorant fool when I see one (or their statements) with reagrd to such situations.  Frankly terrorists have no rights at all according to the Geneva Convention so any complaints about the rights of these people being violated are quite abusrd.

All I can say is I wasn't oppressed when I've been to China, of course I didn't voice my opinion. I do believe they are an intolerant nation, but when it comes to terrorists I agree with their policy completely, if guilty they should be executed. I believe the US went far out of the way to protect these men that were seeking to learn the skills to harm others, possibly innocents. Let me put in in a context that might make better sense to you: Would you provide an escape for a pedophile that was planning to molest a neighbors kids, whom you don't like, just because he had no plan to molest your kids and your neighbor might hurt him if he got his hands on him? Even if that same pedophile was hanging out with another group of pedophiles that WERE planning on molesting your kids?

Why on earth would the US ever give someone interested in learning terrorist skills a green card? I noticed Germany didn't show any interest in taking them, are you so heartless over there? Actually, I don't blame you, so why do you expect us to do something so foolish that your country (and many others) wouldn't do? I really love the international out cry about Gitmo, yet no one (except the Chinese) want to take these poor, mistreated souls into their homes. Gitmo could be empty tomorrow. It's so easy to be self-righteous when it's just words.

Gitmo is a military base, it has been since the Spanish American War. The gates were closed when Castro came to power. It is a beautiful place, I've been there. You could say everyone stationed there is imprisoned to a degree. It has been used as a detention camp for illegal aliens (Haitian) held until they could be deported. It has also been used as a refuge camp (for those very same Haitians, as many as 10,000). Of course keeping war detainees there was/is political. It keeps things that shouldn't be complicated, simple. Too many liberal minded folks here are overly concerned about giving our external enemies the same rights as US citizens (ACLU). Imagine if the over 250,000 German and Italian POW's were captured and held in the US today. The US would have not been able to prosecute the war, due to the cost of providing a quarter of a million trials, complete with security, lawyers, appeals and on and on.

You must not have been reading the news about all the liberals protecting that pedophile rapist who raped a 13 year old and then fled the country some decades ago.

Because about 50% of americans are so open minded their brains have fallen out. It is utterly retarded but apperantly acceptable to the left to be a terrorist.

Just like no democrat senator want's them in his state prisons

Germany didn't want to have to mop up a problem that the US created in the first place, but the social democrats and the greens were all for taking them in. Merkel and her cleavage weren't too inclined though - security threat. There is hypocrisy all around, and I know that yapping about lofty moral principles seems completely out of synch with reality when jihadist terrorists use civil and human rights to try and outmanouver those silly westerners with their bleeding hearts. Germany didn't have a major terrorist attack since the red army faction were hunted down or disappeared, so public oppinion has the luxury of thinking about all of this in abstract terms. The german troops in Afghanistan are hardly on the radar and now 5000 US troops will be moved to northern Afghanistan to do what the germans don't do.. take an active role. There are so many things weird, like training the police in Afghanistan according to western standards. I can't seem to reconcile the image in my head - afghani police securing evidence and interviewing witnesses in a country that seems to be basically lawless, hit by terror attacks and the war against the taleban going on as well.

Those POW's were in uniform and even those that were in camps in the US didn't get a trial. They didn't need one, they didn't do anything other than fighting in a declared war and getting captured. Why would they have needed lawyers or a trial? After the war was over they were released and went home. Some even stayed behind and married american woman. They were never suspected of being terrorists or saboteurs or spies. But catching all the terrorist/taleban (provided that you could identify them without a problem right away) and putting them ina camp just to let them go once the "war" seems to be over doesn't appear to be a very smart idea.

I am glad the swiss arrested that man and hopefully they'll extradite him to the US. I never understood how some people came to Polanskis defense by saying that he was such a great artist and didn't deserve to be arrested for a "minor thing" like rape that happend so long ago. Disgusting. At last we agree on something..

 

Agreed...Didn't Al Quiaida declare war (Jihad) on the west in the 1990's? We just ignored it. The rules assume the declarer has a physical nation...I believe it is time to amend the rules.

It is doubtful that fundamentalism can be defeated by military means. Their ideology is hammered into these people from the day they were born, they don't really know any alternatives. I saw this really moving documentary from a young israeli filmmaker who interviewed woman in a prison that had attempted suicide bombs, recruited people for it etc. Some of these woman had children, and they were able to have them with them in prison till the kids turn 2. It is pretty breathtaking to hear a 18month old boy babble "allah is great". That child doesn't stand a chance - all he learns is what hamas teaches, he's a potential terrorist in the future.

Amending the rules and capturing or kiling every terrorist isn't possible - you have to stop them to teach their children to be terrorists. I have no idea how to accomplish that, but unless the "de jiadification" of those fundamentalist muslims is somehow achieved, I doubt that a victory in this war is possible. Killing cell leaders (and their families) with drones around the world like in Somalia a few months ago is like cutting off a head from Hydra - 2 new ones will appear in its place.

They are still hiding among civilians. having a nation isn't a problem, hiding among civilians endangering them and putting enemy troops in a position where they must suspect (and potentially kill) a civilian is the problem.

Violence, lots and lots of it. Particularly against their religious institutes. For an effective example look at soviet russia and its effective stomping out of all religion (I am not advocating stomping out religion, especially not all religion, I am saying that the only way this will end is with islam dominating the world, or the stomping out of islam)

Of course, all us infidels could convert to islam, that will also work. This war was started by mohammed himself and is a fundamental part of islam. The only "muslim extremists" are those who advocate peace... because they are going against everything the religion stands for. The rest are muslim mainstreamists.

Amending the rules IS possible and I'm speaking of the ones we do catch. Right now it's a win-win for the terrorist...carry out his mission successfully or get captured and live probably in better conditions that he is used to at hotel Gitmo...on the taxpayers dime.

He obviously meant amend the geneva convention to give MORE RIGHTS to "freedom fighters" (terrorists who hide in civilian populaces) so they are not sent to gitmo which he considers an evil abomination and one big human rights violation. Apparently the US not extraditing some of those people to their home country where they would be executed is a gross violation of human rights to him, he wants the US to furnish them (terrorists who target other countries which happened to be training with al-qaeda/taliban/etc when the USA caught them) with green cards and set them free here in the USA as american citizens (he actually said so).

I wasn't refering to the GC when I said that it is impossible, it is more a general statement. Military action is not the sole solution, and more violence would only be counterproductive. Interestingly enough "winning hearts and minds" and the new strategy in Afghanistan to stay in the villages to ensure stability and a positive image of the west are a part of what I called "de-jehadification". If you ammend the rules, nothing much in the overall situation would change. You would kill or capture more, probably have more collateral victims as well, but the problem would still be the same. You can only really change something if the young generation is taught different values.

If someone is not guilty of the charges that said person was arrested for, you let them go. You can't just keep someone locked up because they want to use violence sometime in the future. Otherwise, you would have to arrest all of the US military right away - they train to fight and kill after all. Being detained in, what did you call it, protective custody, for no reason other than those that detained you say "WELL, I have no evidence that you had any connection to jihadist terror networks or planned an attack on us, but I can only release you to those that you are fighting against in your homecountry and they would kill you right away, so bummer for you. You have to wait until someone has enough pity to say that they'll take you in and grant you political asylum - something that WE can't do because it would piss off a big global player and superimportant business partner of ours." Not extraditing them to China is not exactly what I'd call generous and the detention did violate their civil rights. Arrested without evidence, no trial, detained without a trial, no access to a lawyer, no habeas corups rights, no legal measure available to plead their case or to protest, no communication to the outside.. apparently, guilty by association and the reversal of being innocent until proven guilty seem to be no problem here. It is a big problem if someone treats US citizens that way abroad though - then it is no problem to call all of the above violations against basic civil rights.

And so what that they wanted to learn military measures and paid the Taleban to train them in order to fight against the Chinese - you yourself just advocated the use of violence against islamists. So it is only OK if the US military does it to fight fundamentalists (using drones, special forces etc - and there are always innocent victims like family members that are considered acceptable losses), but not OK when others want to do the same to fight off a dictatorial regime and gain their independance or at least autonomy? It isn't like opressed minorities in China have many options. You're a tad hypocritical.

 

you are wrong, they were arrested WITH evidence. Which when examined showed they were terrorists intending to attack china, not the USA.

Yes, yes it IS only ok when you do it to fundamentalist murderers. What you are doing is called moral equivalency... you surmise violence is bad no matter what, and that there is no difference whatsoever between murdering people because your religion says so, and killing murderers. Killing a murderer is not the same and is perfectly fine.

Terrorists are not freedom fighters, never been, never will be... Freedom is not gained by suicide bombing of civilian targets.

No, I am just a moral person with at least a shred of human decency and the most rare super power of them all, common sense.

And being caught training in a taleban training camp is "no shred of evidence" to you? It is actually very damning evidence. It is utterly amazing to me that the USA went to such length to investigate exactly what each person was doing in the taliban training camp to conclude that certain individuals were there planning to attack other countries and not us.

I'd have tortured every shred of info out of each and every one; followed by a summary execution.

PS. waterboarding isn't torture, I meant REAL torture.

No, it isn't. If you are a USA citizen, go try smuggling heroin through argentina and see how much either the USA, argentina, or any of the so called human rights groups cares about your human rights as you are tortured in their prisons for years. Although the punishment is overly severe, I am not terribly concerned with those people...

The people I am most concerned about right now are the pro democracy protesters being abused in Iran. and others who actually deserve my sympathy... terrorists who bomb china? not so much.