Today's Poli-Poll: 9/11 TrialsFollow

That's not the extent of the harm which said trial could cause. It has a lot more to do with the precedent set in terms of enemy combatants, specifically ones which don't follow the "rules" of war. You're essentially telling them that they will receive better results if they conduct terrorist attacks against civilian targets than if they conduct above-board military operations. What you'll see as a result is an increase in state's sponsoring terrorism as a means of conducting warfare.

Obviously, this doesn't all hinge on one trial for one guy, but it's about the legal direction of the issue itself. Each decision we make pushes our response to future situations in a given direction. And the direction we're going with this one isn't the direction we should be taking.

Interestingly, we are pretty evenly divided. I brought the civilian court vote to 16, but before that it was 50/50.

Of course, there's the one person who wants to hold them in a cell indefinitely.

I went civilian because it is, presumably, more just.

Man, those words sound familiar.

It doesn't make sense to you that actions we take today set precedents which will guide future actions in similar situations?

Or is it that you're unable to understand how reducing the penalties for engaging in warfare by getting poor disenfranchised people to strap bombs onto themselves and blow up random citizens will tend to result in those things happening more often?

It is not about whether or not they're getting a "fair trial". That's just a giant red herring. Both civilian trials and military tribunals have a long and legal history in this country. Both are "fair". And both have a specific set of conditions in which they should be used. But for some unfathomable reason, some people seem to think that one is more "fair" than the other, and to not apply civilian trials in situations where military tribunals are clearly the correct venue is some kind of rights violation.

It's the secondary aspect of the issue that is the danger. Not the specifics of a single trial. It's the ability to play on the ignorance of the public by first insisting that only civilian trials are "fair", and then leveraging that assumption to argue that all combatants being detained must therefore be granted a trial or be released. As I stated in my last post. It's not about the specifics of this trial, but what the reasoning behind the decision about this trial means down the line.


I get how the whole "cause and effect" thing is complicated for you... ;)

What "reduced penalties"? And you honestly think that a military tribunal is going to cow governments that were otherwise planning on supporting terrorists? Really? Did you huff paint before typing that?


I'll admit that I have a hard time following along when you just make up unsupported shit.

Okay, I may be misunderstanding this, and if I am, then I'll admit that I'm wrong. But I'm under the impression that a military tribunal uses officers with some legal background as the jury. Do I think someone with legal background can be more capable of making a judgment based on the presented case than personal feelings? Yes. If it were between a civilian trial by judge or a tribunal, then I wouldn't care, but I have far too little faith in the average juror to believe that the guy would get a fair trial with a civilian jury.

A precedent for civilian trials for suspected terrorists needs to be set considering the amount of people being held without charges or even evidence to back up the claims of terrorism by the US.

Why not use this opportunity to show that even those being held when they didn't do anything have a chance to prove their innocence?

Why would a military trial not give the suspect a chance to prove their innocence?

I fail to see why it matters where he's tried, just as long as he gets a trial.

You should have added another option: I don't give a shit.

We, collectively, have surrendered personal revenge, so that the state can extract justice, and keep innocent people as safe as possible, instead.

If you do what the bad guy has done unto you, then you become no better than him.

But he wouldn't get a slow, painful shuffling loose the mortal coil. He'd get put to sleep. I'd rather spend less money and see him bouncing off the walls of an 8X10 cell for the next 40 years or so.