<div class="MsoNormal">Bill, Joe, Paul, and Andreas,</div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">I don’t think you fully understand my position. Perhaps it was me being unclear. I agree with a person being charged with a crime receiving due process and a fair trial. But that is not the issue we are facing here.</div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal">I also think you guys are only concentrating on illegal incidences that took place at one or two prisons, which I agree obviously were wrong, not the separate issue of whether or not the US has the right to detain persons outside the United States that it believes are a threat to national security. That is a separate issue.</div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">The first issue here is if the “terrorists”, “terrorist sympathizers”, “Family Friends of Terrorists”, or the
“lost guy walking the dog on the wrong block at the wrong time” have in fact indeed committed a crime. The answer to that is “no”, they have not. Nothing illegal about being friends with Osama Bin Laudin, his friends, or his family, if that was the case, half the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> politicians including Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, and George Bush Sr would all be in jail right now, along with about every oil executive in the world. So it is awfully hard to try and convict a person who has not committed a crime isn’t it. There is nothing to try them for committing, because they haven’t committed it yet. </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">So the second issue is, “Does the United States Military have the right to detain a person or persons from another nation or country it believes is a threat to the safety and security of the
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> and/or its citizens?” “Does the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place> or any country have the right to defend itself and to take preemptive action to prevent mass casualties of its own citizens?” I think any reasonable person would believe that yes it does. </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">The <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> has every right to detain any and all person(s) outside its boarders it feels may compromise the security and safety of people in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>, its citizens, and its property so long as it believes that threat is real. That is what it is doing.</div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div
class="MsoNormal">It is unfortunate that innocent people will be detained and we should make a good natured effort to release those we think are not a threat. </div> <div class="MsoNormal">It is unfortunate that grandma, your child, and every Tom, Dick, and Harriett has to be slowed down and searched at the airport along with potential terrorists and forced to buy $4.50 bottled water at the Airport. A good faith should be made to minimize the inconvenience to those that are not terrorists. </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">To answer each of you:</div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">“To turn a "suspected terrorist" into a "convicted terrorist" requires a court of law. To call them terrorists and treating them as sub-humans with no evidence presented to
a court is throwing some of our ideals out the window. Personally, I'm tiring of throwing our ideals out the window.”-Paul</div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal">Again, Paul, there is not conviction, just detention for the security of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>. And no, there is not court because there is not crime. I don’t agree with the mistreatment, and that is illegal and not necessary to detain someone. </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>“<tt><span style="font-size: 10pt;">We are bound to follow our laws, even in war, even in the face of an</span></tt><tt><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></tt></div> <pre><tt>existential threat.”—Andreas<o:p></o:p></tt></pre>
<pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>I agree, we should follow our laws, and we are in regards to detaining those we consider a threat. I don’t agree with the treatment of the detainees, give them decent living quarters. Which laws do you believe have been violated Andreas, besides those of sexual abuse by the guards?<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>“Without a trial, imprisonment has no more moral authority than kidnapping and the death penalty no more moral authority than murder.”<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>Andreas<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>Sorry, but you incorrect on that one. You can imprison someone who is a danger to themselves, without trial. You can also detain someone for medical reasons, such as a being inflicted with an airborne illness. You can also detain enemy troops and in cases of national security you can detain them, and in some cases for the rest of their
lives. That is the law. We are following it. <o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt> </tt></pre> <pre><tt>“Our commitment to process, law, and universal rights is not and never has been a weakness: it has always been the very core of our strength.”-- Andreas<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>That is bunch a baloney. Ever hear of the Japanese Concentration Camps? <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hiroshima</st1:place></st1:City>? Ask Nick Gier how many Black people have hung for being Black? I won’t get into what we did with Communists, Gays, Lesbians, and Women, or how popular the KKK was up until the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">How do you know whether someone accused of being a terrorist, actually is one?—Bill L. <o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre>
<pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">You let them out and see which ones bomb and kill people—that is only way I know to know for sure. But since this result ends in mass murder, disability, chaos, fear, suffering and destruction of the economy, some forward thinking people think we should choose an alternative method of detecting them. <o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">“How many were terrorists? How many were average guys in the wrong place at the wrong time? ” Bill L. <o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">Why didn’t the government in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> prevent them from being taken? Why did the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> see a need to go into a country made mostly of just dirt and “kidnap” hundreds of people? Just for the fun of it, nothing else to do on a Saturday night? If <st1:country-region w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:country-region> is not willing to hand over those that are attacking the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>, perhaps we are justified in controlling the entire country and detaining as many as we can. <o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Why not give them a trial to discover the answer?” ---Bill L.<o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">And charge them with what? Thinking about blowing up the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region>? Is that illegal to think about something now? Does a trial
always point to truth or just who has cash and/or public sympathy? Would you let Michael Jackson spend the night with your kids? He was found innocent. <o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">“Why do you suddenly discard the "innocent until proven guilty" rule?” Bill L.<o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;">I don’t think they are guilty Bill. I think they are innocent. The ones that were guilty of 911 are all dead. They smashed into a building and burnt up in a crisp. They were innocent too until they actually committed the crime. Thinking about doing something illegal is still not yet a crime, Bill. <o:p></o:p></span></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <pre><tt>“Once we
start locking up people independently of being able to prove their guilt in a court of law, we give up the general principles of liberty and justice for which this country stands and the enemies of freedom and democracy have effectively won.” Joe C.<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>Joe, by that same argument, you are saying that when we fight an enemy in battle, we should try each one individually, and let them go, not wait until the war is over and just release them all? I am glad you are not in charge of national security. We would not last long as a nation. <o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>If you have to have a nation before you can have a court system. You have to have to have a crime committed before you have a trial. A person thinking of pushing a button but has not pushed it yet and is such not a criminal until after they push, the only moment of their guilt you and they are dead. National
survival and the protection of innocent human beings from being killed MUST take precedence over that of anything else. <o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>Best,<o:p></o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt><o:p> </o:p></tt></pre> <pre><tt>_DJA</tt></pre> <pre><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></pre> <br><br><br><p> 
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