CapelDodger said:
Apologies if this point has been made, but how do we know these guys returned to terror? As opposed to taking to it after release? Presumably they wouldn't have been released if there was any actual evidence of them being at it before. Unless, of course, they were known to be stupid bad guys that could be tagged, released and busted to give Gitmo apologists something to work with. I'm a skeptic; I don't dismiss any possibility out of hand.
That's just the problem, isn't it?
If someone claimed Elind was a baby raper, DUE PROCESS means that we investigate those charges, and if they appear to have merit, Elind gets his day in court, and after that, if they had enough merit to convince a jury of his peers, he is convicted and put away where he can't reach any more babies. What Elind seems to want is the assumption that Elind is a baby raper because the charge is so terrible, and that he should be punished for it outright without troubling to investigate, try or convict. This all seems fair to Elind's POV, so obviously we should brand him a baby raper and be happy if he's forever imprisoned.
Because the United States of America has abandoned due process and simple investigation of crimes (except for torturing victims until they would confess to well, anything at places like at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib), we have no way to determine whether they were 'terrorists'
before they were rounded up.
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/terr18e_20041018.htm
All I see is evidence that el presidente's security directives
are not working. We lazily round up 'whoever' and we just as lazily (eventually) release them back into the wild as willy-nilly as we round them up. Just wonderful. This is simply evidence that our 'anti-terror' policies are garbage. Of 'about 146 people' released, 4% have returned to (or turned to) terrorism.
No due process means no justice. Our administration's policy seems to be just randomly flailing around and not doing anything effective, while making martyrs of people (some of whom MAY be dangerous, but we have no way of knowing that, because they don't bother with realistic investigation or trials) at the same time.
The vcery dangerous precedent is that once you begin making exceptions to human rights, you've driven in the wedge that allows these 'exceptions' to grow. Perhaps until eventually the exception is people who are treated as human beings should be treated. (A bit of 'slippery slope' argument, but I'd rather not give scoundrels the excuse to experiment and 'find out' for sure.)
But what does that mean to unprincipled idiots who believe that their own rights are inviolate, while they happily watch other people stripped of the same rights? Nothing at all. They are immune to any sense, including common sense.