"Peter Wiley" wrote
Except that you *have* done it and there's no reason to think you've
stopped doing it. Your personal refusal to believe it is irrelevant.

There is good reason to think we stopped it long ago. Witness our response
to the Abu Grabbe (sp?) scandal. It is NOT our policy to physically torture
prisoners. It happens but is generally punished.

The Auzzi held at Gitmo is not being physically tortured. He was
captured in
Afganistan by Afghans whilst fighting for al Qaeda and the Taliban,
having
left his family in Oz unsupported and gone there to support a gang who
killed women for being literate and no, I do not pity him. Why do you?
He
gve up his rights as an Australian when HE eagerly adopted the radical
Muslim system.

No, he didn't give up his rights as an Australian. In fact he's not
committed any crime under then existing Australian law. We have
freedom of religion in Australia so his being a Muslim is irrelevant to
what he does, legally. When did the USA outlaw Islam?

He is NOT being held over religion. He went to another country where he
helped impose the customs of a particularly radical sect upon people who
didn't want it. Afghans are Muslims like Aussies are Christians. They don't
believe in murdering women for being literate any more than you do. Yet that
is exactly what the Taliban did. And when Afghans rose to oppose the
Taliban, this man fought for the Taliban without benefit of uniform - a
capital crime under international law. The US Constitution forbids our
government to prohibit the free exercise of religion, but that does not
allow us to murder "infidels", overseas or otherwise. I'd be surprised if
yours does.

Now he has been tried under that system and given to us for
deprogramming in liu of execution. Would you rather he'd been beheaded?

If he was caught on the field of battle, shooting at people, out of
uniform, he could have been shot or summarily executed and I wouldn't
care at all. Once you bring him into the system, that's different. I've
come to the conclusion that you're never going to see this.

No, I dont 'see' that he must either be killed immediately or granted the
same rights as a soldier. I think that we can infict a lesser punishment or
hold him for a time before doing so. In my own personal opinion the man is
insane and might be cured by "deprogramming" and that this is better than
executing him.

There are US Citizens in foreign jails a we speak - perhaps some in Oz.
They are there because they broke the laws of their host country and were
tried and convicted according to that countries customs - customs very
unlike our own. IMHO, the same applies here. The man in question left Oz to
engage in a civil war in a Muslim country. He was captured in battle without
uniform, tried and convicted IAW Afghan custom. He could have been beheaded
but instead he is being held at Gitmo where, perhaps, he will come to his
senses.

The fellow Capt. M. mentions apparently held dual Canadian/Syrian
citizenship, the latter by birth. .....

You've got nowhere to go in that one Vito, except denial. It happened.
It was illegal. It isn't the only case. Nobody is safe transitting a US
airport if your Govt thinks they know something.

Obviously it happened. Would it have been legal to deport him to Canada? If
"YES" then the only question is "why Syria instead of Canada?" There are
two possible answers - either somebody had a hard on for this person or
somebody bungled. He was, after all a Syrian citizen too so I'd rather think
the latter ... that somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot.

And no - Nobody is safe in a US airport - period! I won't go near one and I
advise you to do the same. At best you will be treated like a criminal,
possibly detained til you miss your flight and even strip searched. At worst
you too could end up in Syria.

People like you are pushing people like me away. I'm a right wing gun
nut by Australian standards. What do you think the long term
consequences of this sort of bull**** is going to be? ....

A set of principles, largely inherited, made the USA the greatest nation
ever seen. That our leaders and some of our people have abandoned those
principles, to our detriment, does not mean that you should abandon them as
well, especially to accomodate China. Someday somebody will take our place
just as we surpassed England. I hope that it will be Canada or Oz or some
combo of them - someone sharing the principle that government derives power
from the consent of the governed vs the national socialist principles we
seem headed toward.

Where is your space program?