Bowling for children

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Xantar

You can't tell me that there aren't innocent people being detained in prison. People on death row go through a decade long process and we know that there are still innocent people occasionally getting executed for one reason or another. Not that I want to get into a capital punishment argument as well, but are you going to seriously tell me that every single person in Guantanamo is plotting the next 9/11? No system is that perfect. You can tell me that some people were released and then went back to bombing innocent civilians, and certainly I think that's a terrible thing. On the other hand, I also know for a fact that some innocent people were detained. Five of them in particular were detained for two years and then released after it became clear that they were innocent of anything related to terrorism. I'm not one of the liberals who decries rough interrogation in itself, but I have to wonder what we're supposed to say to people who received that treatment every day for two years without really knowing why. Oops, sorry?

Yes, thats exactly what we say. If a few inncocents are detained along the way, I'd rather have that happen then we release the next Osama because we didn't afford him legal rights that don't exist. I;m not going to start redefining the way we treat this war and those held during it because it falsely detains a few inncoent people. I am prepared to to do that. I understand where you are not, but that is just a difference of opinion.

And how do we know that these detainments "need to be done" or that they're producing results anyway?

Thats an unfair question and you KNOW it. There may never be tangible proof that they are working as the very fact that they are working may prevent anything from ever happening again. We have not been attacked since 9/11. I'm prepared to call it a success so far.

I thought conservatism was supposed to be founded on distrust of a powerful, unanswerable government.

How is this government unanswerable? This administration is rediculed everyday in the press and through political adversaries. The Bush administration was RE-ELECETED by Anerican citizens who agree with his policies. I know that is a hard pill to swallow and you'd rather paint him as another fascist dictator, but his policies are under constant evaluation by those that are his constituency. If they agree, they will vote for you. Apparently they agree. Also, the effects of this "powerful, unanswerable" government are not putting its foot down on American citizens. That is the very big part of this.

The problem with this whole line of argument is it basically means we should all just sit back, relax and shut up while we wait for results which could be a few decades from now since the War on Terror is long and secretive. Sorry if I'm not willing to do that.

Then you are willing to be attacked again. To think that a war of ideaology will be short is absurd, To think that it shouldn't be secretive and we should just lay everything out on the table is laughable and would endanger everyone we have fighting right now.

We have a system here in which some people are released because they were thought to pose little threat and went right back to trying to kill infidels and others are released and go back to being law abiding citizens missing two years of their lives. Either way, we lose, so it seems to me that there's just a little something wrong here. This is a system handled by a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies always screw up even if it's their job to handle it.

You don't know whether or not its working, and thats what bothers you. You default distrust of those whose job it is to run this effort. I'm a little more positive than that and I'm prepared to trust those that have been TRAINED to do so and let them make the hard decisions and not let my civilian ethics get in the way of WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. If it sounds severe, than I believe it nees to be severe. The more we analyze and attempt to civilize soemthing as barabaric as war, the longer it will take and the less chance of success we will have. I find it no coincidence that the wars that we have had the hardest time completing have been the post WW2 wars where the government has not had the copperation (and honestly control) of the press. No war can survive such scrutiny. In WW2 over 1,000 servicemen were killed in an EXCERCISE preparing for the european invasion. Something like that could never be tolerated by the public, so it was kept SECRET so that what needed to be done WOULD be done.

But we'll still have people like Durbin undermining the effort and increasing the danger that our troops are in, and the media will continue to report only horrible news, and combined they will do everything possible to help destroy what is going on in Iraq. An effort that could achieve no less than world peace if successful. But no, I'm a horrible person for believing that the freedom of a small percentage of innocent GITMO detainees is worth something that insignificant.

And before you say all that is hogwash, why do we KNOW that Al Quieda trains their murderers to manipulate our media? Its because its their belief that we cannot stomach a war on their terms and that if enough pressure is put on the US government by those listed above, we will tuck our tail between our legs and leave. Why do you think Saddam never left or even put up much of a resistance? His plan was to wait out the US and take back power once they ran from their own media and public opinion, not Iraqi troops. It's turning out he may be right. We may be just that weak.