There’s the option of driving them to the edge of the base and telling them to start walking. Sort of a Mariel boat lift in reverse.
I know that Charles Manson hasn’t; when’s he get out?
Sarcasm.
I am always amused by the close Gitmo advocates as if that is just the end of the problem. No one wants them, the recidivism rate is high, for sure a number people somewhere will be killed. But hey, all that is someone else’s problem, let’s just shut down Gitmo.
And as long as the only ones dying off are the ones imprisoned without trial indefinitely at Gitmo, whose problem is it? Gitmo doesn’t solve the problem-Gitmo is the problem.
A government that has the power to lock people up without a trial is a greater danger than all the prisoners in Gitmo.
That’s not sarcasm.
Halleluiah!
If these guys are so bad, then surely there’s enough evidence to convict them in a fair court, right? So give them that. If we convict them, then keep them in prison. In some other prison, that is, one on American soil, where it’s unambiguous that they’re due the rights of other American prisoners.
And if we don’t have enough evidence to convict them in a fair court, then we really need to seriously consider the possibility that just maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Shove them out the back of the plane at 30K’ with some fabric and written instructions (in Chinese, of course) on how to make a parachute?
Halleluiah!
I agree with you 100% for US citizens. The folks at Gitmo are not, they are enemy combatants.
I don’t share the general attitude here to extend US citizenship rights to everyone in the world.
I agree that we don’t have to apply the US constitution to non-citizen on non-US soil, but as a signatory to the Geneva Conventions, we sign up to NOT detain folks indefinitely.
But the law of armed conflict clearly allows combatants to be held for the duration of the hostilities. The problem here is that we can reasonably expect the hostilities to continue for a long time.
To the extent that someone was plotting some sort of terrorist attack, yeah, put them on trial. To the extent that some guy was picked up on the battlefield for, say, attacking US troops - are we really supposed to prosecute such guys? Isn’t that antithetical to the principle of the laws of armed conflict - “if you shoot at our soldiers, you’ve committees attempted murder and may be imprisoned for life!”
Frankly, I’m not sure which is better. Treating battlefield captures as combatants, but potentially holding them for the duration of hostilities which could be a very long time; or treating enemy combatants as criminals for no more reason than they carried out war against us, which is not how enemy combatants are supposed to be treated unless they committed a more serious crime.
The problem being we no longer pursue war with nation states.
As an aside note, I have always felt the Geneva Convention War Rules rather silly. There are no rules in war. Those in the Mid East and Asia know well enough to laugh off that silly notion.
This isn’t an issue of citizenship. This is an issue of believing the American government should follow American law.
I believe that is true only of POWs. We don’t designate these guys as POWs for a reason.
Well, it’s nice that you think that, but it hardly matters. The US is the biggest baddest kid on the block, so we get to do whatever we want. But that doesn’t make it right.
They’re enemy combatants. They’ve been captured and held until such time as the war they declared against the US is over. Gitmo is the solution.
The solution to what? Why not a military prison in the mainland?
They are enemy combatants in the same sense that someone who never went to trial is a criminal. Gitmo is anathema to the idea of rule of law.
The solution to being held morally/ethically responsible for our actions, perhaps?
Not true. This is from a pretty civil libertarian group:
“The law of war also recognizes that there may be individuals captured fighting in an armed conflict who may not be entitled to prisoner of war status because they have not abided by rules, such as wearing uniforms and carrying their arms openly, that are intended to allow their identification as enemy soldiers.13 Such “irregular” combatants, while they will not be entitled to immunity for acts of killing (unlike enemy soldiers) may also be detained until the end of the conflict.”
Bottom of page 6. http://www.acslaw.org/pdf/enemycombatants.pdf