Dear anonymous

My outrage is not fake. I have a masters degree in German and an undergraduate degree with a double major in English literature. I think I know what 'gullible' means in both languages and I am not it. I know exactly what went on in Guantanamo Bay and it's got nothing to do with soap! Unless the torturers may have used it to facilitate rape of the inmates. Furthermore, there is another Australian who was sent to Egypt,by the CIA, with his head in a bag and wearing a diaper. Don't ask. He was subjected to the most horrific tortures but was, like Hicks, fortunate enough to have his story in the Australian media and was eventually released. Your media lies to you all the time. That's what you're used to but just because they don't tell you what's being done to others in your name doesn't mean it's not happening. And by the way, I'm a woman. A very angry woman.

I'm embarrassed to have a degree from the same University that hired that fascist thug to teach "law". It's like having Albert Speer teach architecture. Just disgusting. This country needs a firehose political enema.

The people in Gitmo are not criminals in the traditional sense nor are they POWs, since they do not fight in uniform under a recognized state. That is why a new category has been created for them: foreign enemy combatant.

The term you're actually looking for is "Unlawful combatant." That was the term the Bush Administration manufactured to cover themselves while they do what they want to those captured on the battlefield.

This distinction, of course, violates Geneva and therefore violates US law. Here's what Geneva has to say about prisoners who do not readily qualify as prisoners of war (per Article 4):

Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.

I don't recall any such tribunal (much less a competent one) determining the status of the Gitmo prisoners, do you? Without such a tribunal, Bush's policy regarding these "unlawful combatants" is just plain illegal.

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

The majority of prisoners in Gitmo were picked up in Afghanistan fighting with the Taliban. In other words, they were fighting an invading force of their home. That's not quite the same as "wishing to destroy our country," is it?

Granted, there are quite likely prisoners in Gitmo who do want to destroy the USA. But being able to distinguish the dangerous ones from the non-dangerous ones is the difference between countries with real judicial systems and a real concept of justice, and countries like Iran. If you'd rather live in the latter, couldn't you just go to one of those countries and leave us with this one?

The only alternative is to hold them, well, forever. We already know what happens when we release them; they go back to fight us again, as evidenced by recapturing some guys who had previously been released from Gitmo.

Based on the evidence coming slowly out of Gitmo (and those who have already been released), it is quite likely that at least some of those people were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yet you're happy to imprison them forever. Is this a good moment for me to wish that to happen to you?

As for releasing prisoners who end up fighting us again, that's an infinitesimally small number compared to the new recruits who have been inspired to join Al Qaeda based on our own foreign policy. And let's face it; if we didn't torture them while they were imprisoned, the number would probably be much, much lower.

Keep in mind that during WW2, the German and Japanese POWs were actually shown democracy in action in the treatment they received. We did not make them into enemies for generations, as we've done in our war on Islam. And that serves the cause of peace far better than anything we're doing this time around.

And frankly, "Frankly my dear," I simply don't believe most of these accusation of torture. Remember, al Qaida types were trained to claim they were tortured if captured, and credulous press types and blinkered "crusaders" like Glenn Greenwald simply ignore that and gullibly lap up whatever propaganda they've been fed.

Tell me, did these Al Qaeda types cause this?

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/

Are those photos some kind of Al Qaeda propaganda, where the "Americans" in the pictures are just fair-skinned actors? Please explain.

(Or, if as usual, you have no explanation, feel free to resume your fetal position under the bed.)

I'm concerned about these "flat balls" anonymous is going on about. Is that done with a vise or just one of Orwell's well placed boots?

http://dadmanly.blogspot.com/

Again you step boldly into the mire. Anyone who uses the phrase "Al Qaeda types" in a sentence has already given away the game in that his problem is with Muslims generally and has is not confined to those who actively wish to harm us. That he would refer to "propoganda" when its clear that we Americans are subjected to news coverage that would make Pravda green with envy over purity of message likewise leads me to conclude that he-who-is-too-cowardly-to-choose-a-name is also to divorced from reality to be susceptible to reason.

... I went shopping a couple of hours ago, just after voting in the special election for Congress (CA-37). There, in front of the Trader Joes, was a bustling little table of anti-Bush organizing... by the LaRouchies. Possibly the only outfight in America more psychologically unfit to run the country than the gang that's actually in charge. ...

It is interesting that Paul R. uses the LaRouchies to make some obscure point that antiwar.com is not worthy of his big tent. Fine, if you are so partisan that the fellows over at antiwar.com are not good enough for you that is your business.

... Bourne was 14 in 1900, but was never remotely a libertarian. ...

If you read what I wrote, I said that he would be a liberal in the classic sense; which today is called libertarian because of the socialists that came to dominate the group we moderns call 'liberal'.