Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
There's a thread in the Politics forum about closing Gitmo and releasing the detainees. For this issue and related ones, does the question come down to following the law or risking lives?
Laws exist to protect the citizenry; that is their purpose. No right is more important than the right to life, how can a responsible government allow an avowed terrorist to be freed to continue to do murder?
No society has 100% civil rights, there must be limits for the common good. Free speech is a great thing, but you can't go into a crowded theater and holler "FIRE"!". And so it is that an individual's right to due process can and should be limited if there is a reasonable chance that the person may engage in harmful activities. It is that reasoning that allows us to imprison enemy combatants in a declared war. The same reasoning should apply to enemy combatants in an undeclared war, which describes the Gitmo detainees.
It may be that we have no good alternatives here. It's true that the right to due process should not be abridged, whther the accused is an American citizen or not. But it is also true that lives are worth more than laws; laws exist to protect lives, not the other way around.
Laws exist to protect the citizenry; that is their purpose. No right is more important than the right to life, how can a responsible government allow an avowed terrorist to be freed to continue to do murder?
No society has 100% civil rights, there must be limits for the common good. Free speech is a great thing, but you can't go into a crowded theater and holler "FIRE"!". And so it is that an individual's right to due process can and should be limited if there is a reasonable chance that the person may engage in harmful activities. It is that reasoning that allows us to imprison enemy combatants in a declared war. The same reasoning should apply to enemy combatants in an undeclared war, which describes the Gitmo detainees.
It may be that we have no good alternatives here. It's true that the right to due process should not be abridged, whther the accused is an American citizen or not. But it is also true that lives are worth more than laws; laws exist to protect lives, not the other way around.