[flaja]

Originally Posted by richlevy

Define 'routine'. If there are procedures in place for it and it is being done under the color of law, isn't that routine?

Everyone talks about Jack Bauer from '24'. If Jack Bauer needed to kill a 9-year-old girl to save a million lives, he might do it. Does that mean that someone needs to add a page to every manual on the methods and circumstances for killing 9-year-old girls?

The North Vietnamese were not signatories to the Geneva Conventions. In theory, US prisoners had the same rights we grant detainees, which is whatever we decide and think we can get away with. Any intelligence the North Vietnamese could get could save lives, including civilian lives, so they considered themselves justified in their behavior. Do we consider that an excuse? I don't, and I don't think anyone else does except the North Vietnamese and their allies.

At this point there are probably as many people in the world who agree with the U.S. interrogation/rendition/detention policy as agree with North Vietnam's treatment of American POW's, and for pretty much the same reasons. Of course these aren't the same people.

We've already released prisoners from Guantanamo without charges. This was either a huge security breach or an admission that there was not enough evidence to find the suspects guilty even under a military tribunal.

A few decades from now, history will judge us. Unlike the suspension of habeas corpus during the civil war and the Alien and Sedition Act, or the Japanese-American detentions, this is not an internal issue. It involves foreign nationals and affects our standing in the world.

I consider it simpler to allow prisoners and their lawyers to make nuisances of themselves than to give traction to the idea that America has lost it's values. A lot of talk has been made of civil suits. The fact is that the burden of proof is much lower in civil suits. OJ Simpson is an example of this. I can only assume that if we have detained these people for years, we must have enough evidence to at least deflect a civil suit. If this isn't the case, then the question becomes how flimsy was the case for their detention?

The mere fact that we can have a discussion about the legitimacy of torture as a law enforcement/national security tool in the United States shows how far America has sunk when it comes to respecting the Constitution and the rights and liberties that we have fought and died to maintain for hundreds of years. America is not long for this world.