09-29-2006, 10:15 PM
Quote: I see no reason to give such agents, if they are actually linked to terrorist organizations whose aims are no secret, any special loophole to hide behind.
What is happening now, and has been happening, is wrong, wrong, wrong. Your apparent characterization of the complete removal of any right of habeas corpus (for someone who may in fact have done nothing at all) with the closing of a legal loophole only illustrates how deeply wrong things have gone.
I don't expect to persuade you of the lack of morality and legality of this, not to mention Guantanomo Bay, secret CIA prisons, renditions, torture... (and I do not intend to here to start a fruitless discussion about torture, since I know you disagree with the description, but I will call it what I believe it is).
So I will only say that not only are many of the policies of the Bush adminisration immoral (albeit strongly supported by a pretty fair fraction of the US population, who seem to be quite happy to torture any suspected Islamic terrorist, guilty or not), they are also counterproductive.
For every prisoner held without any recourse in Guantanomo all these years (as one camp commander was quoted as saying "we have more goatherders than terrorists here"), how many new potential terrorists have been radicalized by the way they have been treated?
The Bush administration's policies are in complete contradiction with their stated goals of winning hearts and minds --- in part because they seem to feel that it is just a PR problem, not a policy problem.
One effect that all this has had (as far as I can tell anyway -- I do not claim any first-hand knowledge) is that it has destroyed the credibility and possible influence of moderate, pro-western groups in the Islamic world. As I heard some say on the radio recently, the leaders are now divided between autocrats and theocrats. Maybe those moderates would have had a tough road to hoe in any event, but the US has simply been driving nail after nail into their coffin.