Hey, no fair. You wrote to me but answered Mikes post and not mine.

>>>>>Yeah, we're pretty much on the same page on that one. If they were a legitimate green-light with a red-dot on them I would think their welfare isn't the top priority..l
>>>>
>>>>Qustion is ;
>>>>Were they leigitimate 'green-light with a red-dot on them' targets at first place ?
>>>>It is on thing to capture and then detain real terrorists as in let say those ex intelligence 'assets',
>>>>(hence that Omar Khalid Al-Whatever and allegedly even OBL himeself), while it is different to 'red-dot' and then detain some angry Afganistan sheppards for holding guns in vicinity of their own homes.
>>>>Circumstances and indept unbiased examination would of big importance here.
>>>>
>>>>{Political satire on}
>>>>If you are talking about true AQ hardliners with some of them being even 'ex assets' , then I might even support that 'middle of the sea idea', provided that they are dropped there along with entire hierarchy of their ex recruiters, from the middlemen and all the way to the
>>>>top {vbg}
>>>>But Naah. That is barbaric.
>>>>{Political satire off}
>>>>
>>>>Fair trials (preferably public) in a proper courts would be perhaps much more productive (and interesting) for everybody.
>I agree with everything you say and anyone who has had anything to do with intelligence overseas knows one of the biggest difficulties is that you deal with a lot of weasels who are using you to further local parochial agendas of which you know nothing. Anyplace where tribalism and blood feuds have been the order of the day it is just worse. Very very difficult work. But what are the alternatives? It is not "bi-partisanship" that is going to solve it. There is no partisan reason to incarcerate the wrong guy. It is just very very difficult to know who to trust, what the game behind the game is, and what the consequences are of getting it wrong.
>
>I know a lot of people see CIA/DSC etc people as bungling fools because they don't get it right all the time and mistakes show more than successes by their nature. It is also easier to hollywood a script that way. But the task is so daunting that even some of the smartest and most motivated people I've ever met are going to be wrong a lot.
>
>But who can do it better?
>
>
>>
>>>And it would be really cool when we layed out as part of the evidence all sources of intelligence ( I mean those that haven't already been published in the New York Times)
>>>
>>>AQ would be feeding us people just so they could watch the trials on TV and take notes.
>>
>>Are you certain that others aren't doing that already? Have you heard of Jan Baz Khan who was turning over innocents in order to get in good with the U.S. military. Then the military was torturing the prisoners for information. Lovely.
>>
>>Are you also familiar with the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) and the accidental declassification of information on Murat Kurnaz where the information showed nothing detrimental at all but for a single unsigned, unsourced memo that said he was a terrorist, but the CSRT classified him as an enemy combatant anyway? How many more of these might there be? How can this stuff be defended? These are real people whose lives are being destroyed by what appears in some cases to be mere overzealousness.
>>
>>There ought to be a real, honest, non-partisan, objective look at the detainees to see who is a danger and who is not. Clearly the CSRT isn't doing a proper job of it.
>>
>>>
>>>But of course we'd feel good about ourselves and the man on the street in Karachi and Kandehar would think well of us, and that's what's really important <s>