The idea in this country isn't that if don't know, and aren't sure that you lock them away without a real chance for them to present their case in order to clear it up. They have already released some innocent people from gitmo. Others that are there aren't allowed to access to their lawyers. Imprisoning someone for an indefinite period of time without a trial and legal representation because we DON'T KNOW is totalitarian, and unAmerican.
INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY is the foundation of our legal system! i can't believe i even have to defend that. the interment camps are considered a low point in american democracy. Even FBI director J Edgar Hoover believed that it was useless and un-american idea at the time: it was just a panic reaction. And this is an example you are bringing up to make your point?
These people are not in our legal system because they are viewed as Enemy Combatants. I'm not defending the internment camps, although I do think they are defendable. My point is that freedoms were indeed returned. Some here are saying that they never will be.
American citizens arrested in america not allowed to be covered by our legal system? Is this the america you want?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with Certain unailiable Rights, that among these are LIFE, LIBERTY and the pursuit of HAPPINESS." Sounds pretty similar to me.
Warfare is outside the scope of the law. Enemy combatants are participants in a war not a rumble. The America I want is pre-9/11... but that just ain't possible.
Similar maybe, but not the same. Bush's version is a little too steeped in his own version of Christan faith to make me comfortable. Why after 200 years are they just now one? Because he decides what they are and will make it happen? It creeps me out.
Yes it is. Where I see suspension, you see erosion. We won't know who is more accurate until this thing plays out some more. If we weren't in such a politicized climate, who knows if these steps that have been taken would have been taken? Nine months into his presidency, anti-Americans strike a blow against this country-- again, 8 years after the Towers bombing. Bush gets blamed for not listening to the warnings while Clintonistas are busy deflecting criticism for that administrations lack of action against bin Laden et al over those seven years following the 1993 bombing. Bush gets bashed for not listening to Richard Clarke when almost no one was listening to Clarke-- at least not listening enough to follow through. That's the game we are engaged in.
There is no need to suspend those freedoms. Not one person has been convicted of anything because of Gitmo. The reason why it might not be just erosion with the current gang in the whitehouse is because they are telling us they aren't even eroding liberties, and that everything they do is totally consistent with the declaration of independence and the constitution, geneva conventions etc. If they said we need to temporarily do some things I might be more inclined to see it as only suspension. But that isn't what they are saying. They are claiming their acts would never need to be undone. As for blaming Bush for not listening to Clarke or anyone else listening it is simple. Bush gets the blame because he was President. It was his job to listen. You are right nobody else was listening either. But Bush hasn't held anyone accountable for not listening. Instead Condi gets a promotion. Bush doesn't hold people accountable for mistakes.
The bill of right when it is convenient? You see nothing wrong with this? What if the government just arrests a few people every so often, of course they never get a trial, but as long as you don’t know them and the government tells you its necessary it’s ok?
