Evan Feinman says:

No one was freed on Friday, likely few will be, but do we honestly want to be a nation that holds people indefinitely without trial? Last I checked we frowned on King George’s star chamber.

What rubbish !

The system that was set up provided that any decision against the incarcerated could be reviewed by the D.C. Court of Appeals. It’s only been 6 years that some of these people have been held without being processed – I’m sure if they shouldn’t be held, the D.C. Court of Appeals might let them go once they get before that tribunal; and if they don’t ever get processed and have no independent review and die in captivity — to quote Cheney — “So?” The Supreme Court now says that when the government imprisons anyone the government has to tell them why they are being charged and they get to try to show why the government is wrong. Why shouldn’t the government get to imprison anyone they want? They won’t come after me or my family, only those enemies of the state (well they might come after me when a different leader is in power, but I won’t think about that).

Why shouldn’t we be able to imprison anyone anytime based on the fact that the military or the President says he or she an enemy combatant. If our leaders say they are enemy combatants why should they be able to challenge that classification? Can anyone think of even one time when Bush or Cheney or Scooter Libby ever lied or misled the American people? They are our leaders and will only do what is best for us, and they would never mislead us, even if we can never check up on what they say.

So what if we have found out already that about a third of those imprisoned hadn’t done anything wrong. We are the land of free — everyone in the world looks up to us as the champions of freedom. Locking people up without charges, based on secret evidence they can’t see or challenge, paying $5000 or so to those who turn them in, and holding them in isolation (with maybe a little torture here and there)is the example we set when challenged by a few thousand followers of OSB.

We are a great country and anyone who criticizes what we do is a traitor. Anyone who can’t understand that this is how a great nation acts is a liberal.

Those wimps should be happy we haven’t just shot them. I mean, if they don’t have any rights, we can just shoot them right? But we didn’t do that (maybe we killed a few of them in custody) — we just are imprisoning them for a long long time with no hope of ever being released. We could have just lined the up and shot them since they are US citizens. I think McCain and others have noted that we’ve never given foreigners the rights of US citizens so it seems to me we could just shoot them, or torture their children until they confess to whatever crimes decide they are guilty of.

This decision to let them present their evidence and testimony before an impartial court is a travesty of justice. If we really have evidence that they are legitimately incarcerated then the Judges will keep them in jail. But if they can show that they are “enemy combatants” or don’t belong in jail, the Court might set them free! Why should they get to go free when the President or some Afghan warlord said they were Taliban just because they could prove they weren’t. Letting them have the chance to prove this to a court will threaten the very existence of our country.

I just wish someone else could state my arguments better, when I go back and look at them, everything doesn’t seem so clear. This is sort of complicated stuff and my first reaction seems like it might not be quite right. Won’t someone help me and state a little more clearly why our government should be able to lock up anyone just on the word of whoever turns them in, and why they shouldn’t get to prove they are innocent. Please this is really important if I am going to get to continue to say the Supreme Court was wrong.

Thanks

Dad