>Edward,
>
>>I am glad that we agree about Osama, in the sense that person like him will exist anyway regardless to social conditions.
>>There are two ways to exclude 'young misguided recruits' from coming: either eliminate place where they are coming in, i.e. terrorist cells/camps (unfortunately, for bleeding-heart ilk, it will essentially require eliminating everyone who already came in), or eliminating every young person on this planet, because under certain circumstances any youngster could become misguided.
>>I don't think that second plan is sufficiently feasible, so criticizing people who try to implement the first plan is not very fair, imho.
>
>I am one of those thinking the US made a mistake in Iraq but had to go to Afghanistan because of 9/11. Gitmo I see as something between a mistake and a cop out: You don't have a war and are not on US soil, so you can do whatever you please ? The elaborate checks and balances served the US quite well and putting entire new areas out of it is wrong IMHO. Either group terrorists into criminals or enemy soldiers OR create new procedures for "crimes against the nation" with clear procedures and able to stay on US ground.
>
>Getting relevant information (torture or unwanted drugs) is getting more important because of the destructive abilities of today technology and cheapness of WMD - while previously the balance/keeping the lid on unnecassary frequency was "it is forbidden and must never come out". This might change - and I am realistic enough to foresee mistaken torture *and* accept it because in another instance it saved a couple of hundred lives. But the balance is currently missing. This is the main point I don't like about Gitmo. And in a weird way I see that imbalance being accepted as a norm of thinking as a partial root of the Iraq invasion.
>
>regards
>
>thomas

I suspect that this 'balance' never existed, just because USA has never been involved in this situation before. However, similar situations are abundant in European history and they don't give many examples of balances. Basically, POWs can be kept in detention indefinitely, i.e. no trials, and terrorists go on trials (martial trials by historical examples) for very serious crimes. Either this or that, but nothing in the middle.