OT: US President (US Dom Players only)

[chrispedersen]

I agree with a lot you say here.

Originally Posted by Boronx

Bush's illegal operations in his War on Terror will lead to the eventual dismantling of almost everything he has done, including compromising any cases to be made against terrorists.

Don't agree much about this paragraph, interested in what mean by 'illegal operations'

Efforts against international terrorist need to based on a legal frame work. If current laws are inadequate, the hard work needed to improve it must be part of the anti-terrorism process. Such an effort would last far beyond the administration that pursued it and would have the US courts aligned with it instead of against it. A law based reaction would have de-legitimize terrorism as a pollitical tool where Bush's reaction to terrorism (torture, illegal invasions) has legitimized it.

Completely agree.

Within the current system of laws: If a prisoner is a fighter, he should be held as a POW with full red cross access, without torture. The kid held at Gitmo because he threw a grenade at American troops should instead just be a regular POW.

Why instead? By which I mean to say, why do you think he is something other than a regular POW at Gitmo?

POWs should be held until the Taliban surrenders and Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan are all wiped out.

I agree; I might even be more liberal than you. I would be inclined to release them into the custody of a functioning state - if that state could demonstrate it had control of its territory; respected basic human rights; perhaps had an amnesty program for its fighters.

If someone is a suspected terrorist, a case should be made and they should be tried in federal court. If acquitted, they should be returned to their own country or to a POW camp as appropriate. If, like Uighurs from China, they are acquitted and they are not POWS, but their home country would kill them or torture them, they should be released in the US through normal political asylum procedures.

Federal courts as constituted don't have jurisdiction - this is one of the many reasons why the Nuremberg trials were convened for WWII.

Letting terrorists jump the queue for asylum in the US is a bad idea. And again, the US has more than 250 such individuals approved for release - but no country wishes to *take* them.