Quote Originally Posted by daihashi
The problem is that these people are considered "enemy combatants" by our government. Which if you ask me sounds like a POW. They're in our prison camp, they're an enemy combatant and therefore should fall under the guidelines of POW.

Everyone is lashing out at McCain when McCain was one of the few people on both the Republicans or Democratic side who were against Guantanamo since DAY 1!!!

McCain is right, these people should not receive our rights... they should fall under the guidelines of POW which have their own set of rules.

but that's just my interpretation/opinion on it. :hippy:
Quote Originally Posted by Psycho4Bud
VERY well stated!:thumbsup: And I have to agree with your idea on treating them as POW's....how many past POW's have found safe haven in our court systems?
Guys, the Bush administration has argued that these people are NOT POWs. That is the whole point of calling them "enemy combatants," so that they don't have to be afforded the Geneva Convention rights of a POW! The "enemy combatant" designation is something the government came up with so that these people can be considered something other than a POW but not quite a criminal.

Quote Originally Posted by Psycho4Bud
Seems that the left wing can't decide whether these people's rights fall under the Geneva Convention or our own Constitution. I think this is where McCains stance is....these people SHOULD be treated as POW's and therefore have rights based on the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
What a load of revisionist history crap. It's not the left wing who can't decide what to do with these people. It's the Bush administration arguing that these people's rights fall under neither the Geneva Convention nor our own Constitution. I don't think this is a left-wing vs right-wing issue. It is an argument between people who believe in the rule of law and those who would rather sacrifice the rule of law for safety. And I think that is a false choice.

You aren't going to make yourself safer by sacrificing your rights. It seems foolish to me to say we need to protect our way of life from these terrorists by giving up the way of life that make us different from them. The Bush adminstration would have us remake our legal system to be closer to what they had in Iraq or Afghanistan. If we go very far down that path, the terrorists won't have to destroy our way of life, we'll do it ourselves.