I’m sure it will surprise no one that the NYT wishes we would return to the days of Clinton and treat terrorists as a law enforcement issue:
If legitimate legal cases can be made under American law against any of the more than 500 remaining Guantánamo detainees, they should be made in American courts, as they should have been all along. If, as the administration says, some of these prisoners are active, dangerous members of a conspiracy to commit terrorism against the United States, there must be legitimate charges to file against them. Those prisoners with no charges to face should be set free and allowed to go home or to another country. The administration must not ship them off to cooperative dictatorships where thuggish local authorities can torture them without direct American accountability – as they have reportedly done recently in places like Uzbekistan, Syria and Egypt.
The author then goes on to cry about the supposed abuse in the detention centers, basically agreeing that they are a present day gulag. Even more amazing is that they want us to answer to Asshat International. One of the most idiotic idea’s I have heard from a leftist in oh..about an hour. The Captain has a few words for the author:
The notion of relying onamnestyy International to supply a fair and impartial survey of any wrongdoing should have died with that idiotic and historically inept reference to Guantanamo as an American gulag. In any case, the US military doesn’t answer to Amnesty International but to the elected leadership of the United States, which answers to its people. The military has performed investigations which have not only been supervised by the executive branch but also by Congress, and while some have been left unsatisfied by the results, the reports have shown that abuses have been isolated and the perpetrators punished when discovered.
What the Times argues is that terrorists captured out of uniform, bearing arms against US forces in a field of battle, and/or purposely conducting attacks on civilians should be arrested rather than captured and jailed rather than placed in detention camps. The Times evidently wants to return to the Clinton-era strategy of treating al-Qaeda like a criminal gang rather than a worldwide terror effort that has already proven catastrophically deadly to Americans at home and abroad.
The “shadowy parallel” system that our military uses is no different than any other POW or detention system used in other wars, except that in other wars, we would line unlawful combatants against the wall and have them shot rather than lock them up. Part of that is to gain as much intelligence from them as possible, but the other reason is the increase in delicate sensibilities of the media and the public. The Times wants these terrorists released, and not to their countries of origin — where they also take a dim view of Islamofascist fanatics — but to unsuspecting third countries where they can return to their terrorism without fear of prosecution.
And that’s supposed to make people like America
more?Prisoners captured during war have never had access to American courts, no matter what the Times might argue about the “basic principles of justice that served America so well in the past”. The Geneva Convention clearly states that unlawful combatants can be shot after capture and are only entitled to a military tribunal to determine their proper status. It doesn’t require access to civilian court systems for good reasons — unlawful combatants aren’t criminals, they’re enemies out of uniform, and they put civilian populations at unnecessary deadly risk.
What the Times and the crybaby Leftist establishment it represents refuse to accept is that America is at war — a war it did not seek but a war that its enemies insisted on forcing on us. We tried the Times’ strategy for more than a decade, and it resulted in stupid legalistic decisions to arrest AQ leadership rather than just killing them when we had the chance. Even arresting them was too controversial for the prior administration, which balked at a deal to capture Osama bin Laden in the mid-90s because of the
lack of an indictment. That strategy led to 9/11 and the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans by the lunatics that the Times seeks to protect.An editorial like this would have been clueless enough on 9/10. Less than four years after the bloody massacre that occured the next day, it’s pathetic and embarrassing, and a demonstration of moral cowardice.
Why do these leftists not understand that those prisoners in the detention camps are unlawful combatants? Is it that hard to understand? They are getting much better treatment then in times past where these jackass’s would be lined up and shot. Now they get Korans and low sinks to accommodatee their religion.
This author wants us to return to the days of treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue, even tho the last time this was tried we suffered the worst terrorist act in our history. But hey, lets try it again. Sigh.

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