Frankly writes that prisoners of war "cannot be imprisoned." If you "cannot be imprisoned," you're not much of a prisoner, now are you?

I'd keep in mind that under the Geneva Conventions most of the fellows held at Gitmo are liable for summary execution as illegal combatants (ununiformed, uninsigniaed, hiding among civilian populations, etc.) which, really, is probably the best answer to that particular problem.

No prisoners.

I'd be interested to discover what propoganda arm Al Qaeda is operating in the US, but this being a troll-idiot I can already tell that the forthcoming answer is the New Yorker and Time magazines.

Anonymous commenters on this blog are not morons in the traditional sense nor are they idiots, since they do not meet the official standards for these measurements of intellectual capacity. That is why a new category has been created for them: dingbat dumbwads.

They are not offered special education programs or managed care facilities because they do not remotely meet the definition of "cretin" or "differently abled" as defined in our health care guidelines, and clearly they are not retards, either, under the same definitions.

They are not "trolls" in the traditional sense, either, since their acts took place outside of the structure of a message board. In effect, there is no "crime" to charge them with other than general accusations of dumbitude and loserdom.

But because they fight under an ideology and a loose affiliation of an organization that wishes to destroy rational discourse, that makes them especially dangerous; there is no central power we can defeat to make them stop posting.

The only alternative is to ignore them, well, forever. We already know what happens when we answer them; they go back to post their inanities again, as evidenced by some who have posted here repeatedly.

And frankly, "Anonymous," I simply don't believe most of the “facts” you state. Remember, noise-machine types were trained to claim the most ridiculous assertions as facts, and credulous press types and blinkered "crusaders" like shooter242 simply ignore that and gullibly lap up whatever propaganda they've been fed.

--Rufus X

... people like Rufus X don't actually deal in facts. They simply resort to name-calling, the ultimate calling card of someone with nothing really to say.

Dear anonymous

I'm an Australian and I am furiously angry at your denials of what was done to David Hicks. He was tortured, anally penetrated with objects and subjected to 10 hour beatings. You may live in a state of denial but I don't have that luxury. Your present government is a disgrace and a danger to all of us wherever we live. The whole truth about your government would blow your narrow mind. These people are a bunch of treasonous criminals which is why they have no respect for the Geneva Conventions, constitutional law or any other law and routinely break the law -with impunity, thanks to your useless, on-message media. There are three basic reasons for the moral mess America is now in, Cheney, Cheney and Cheney. He's a one-man Guantanamo.

I just commented on the lower-book post where Glenn is pushing his new spiel.

I have heard that if a wild duck eats fruit droppings that fall from a Fruit Tree, the fermented fruit can make a mallard duck pass out. A hungry wife wondering what to cook for dinner will pluck the duck of all her feathers.

When the stripped naked duck is tossed into a cook pot, then the pleasantly inibriated naked duck squawks, "Yow!"

I have ate more blueberries than I've gathered for half-pint flats today.

I need to be careful I NOT get skinned when my lady comes home and ask, "You catch a helgramite at the creek or digs a fishing worm?

Did you and bamage hang out at the local Pup?"

I plead the 5th and wisely go to a 18 X 20 guest house.

You can get skinned alive for reading blogs on a hot summer day.

Why I want to call you Mr. barnacles, I bet only spy-frog, guppies, and minnows, may know? I hope not.

Thanks, O, barnacles bamage.

No eat too many anti-oxidant Al-blueberries.

You must know Fruit will dangerously ferment in a human belly.

The wrong person may assume wrongly WHY are you laying in the berry patch or remain flopped over a Salon keyboard...and she will surely pluck you! Be careful. These are surely dangerous days. Getting skinned or plucked makes one very-very darn sore.

Seriously,

One of my middle names is Vinton.

Paris got out of a jail in California that may be a personal bad omen?

No. I hope not.

"...the rights afforded Americans are not the benchmark for assessing rights afforded enemy combatants in military tribunals." from the NYT op-ed

He followed with a paragraph devoted to the topic of hearsay -- which gave the impression that constraints on the admission of hearsay evidence is the only significant "right afforded Americans" that isn't given to enemy combatants in these tribunals. Is that so? I'd kind of suspected otherwise, or else he would have said it plainly, rather than just implied it.

Off the top of my head, the inadmissibility of evidence obtained by torture/coercion, the right to confront witnesses and compel testimony, the right to see the evidence, and the right to counsel of one's choice. And these are just the protections given U.S. servicemen (and enemy POWs) under martial law (the U.S. Code of Military Justice). I may have a few of these wrong (at least in detail) as I'm not completely familiar with courts martial procedure.

In a court martial, the judges are the "prosecution" in that they're all military. For the "military commissions", it's worse yet; your police is your prosecutor is your judge is your jury is your defence attorney. Talk about a stacked deck, even if there's plenty of folks in the military that take their obligations seriously and do try to administer justice. But having to rely on the luck of the draw, particularly if the maladministration want to "stack the deck" through appointments, dismissals, threats to careers, etc., is not a winning bet.

In a criminal trial in an Article III court, one has further protections, such as trial by jury, right to a speedy trial, etc..

Cheers,