Guantanamo Bay Cuba

I don't know how others feel, but I'm appalled by the way some people think that the American's at this base are so bad to the prisoners. So they ruff them up a little.....
First off these prisoners are deadly people that would not stop to think twice about killing an american.
They are associated strongly with terror against the USA.
So what if they just are not given the red carpet, Hilton to be imprisoned at. Like you've been captured and your in prison.
How many americans have been tortured and given violent deaths at the hands of muslim terrorists? These evil people feel the head of an american is a trophy.
How many innocent people lost their lives on that horrid day of sept 11.and by the hands of whom?
I say let these american soldiers do what they want at GB cuba ......gez lets see losing your pants or your head....
I tell people when they get all sentimental about this to look at the 9-11 pictures, the pictures of terrorists holding the cut off heads of americans, the continued fear we americans face everyday of another 9-11........think again

Rotorgirl, there was probably a time that my take on the situation would have been identical to your own, but I think there are some relevant facts which might change your perspective.

Many of these individuals are foriegn nationals, operating in a foriegn country and of these many were "sold" by their countrymen for a bounty. As I see it, one is subject either to our criminal laws or to the laws of warfare. If they are indeed "terrorists" having committed crimes against the U.S. they should be tried. If they were P.O.W.'s they need to be accorded such status and receive commensurate treatment under the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

Instead, Bush has created a third category; the "enemy combatant".

Having served in this nations armed forces, I was on active duty and stationed in Scotland as a sailor in the U.S.N. during the first gulf war, I've often wondered what kind of pure spite motivated the North koreans, North Vietnamese, and their keepers to hold on to our p.o.w.'s after hostilities had ceased. I remember being gratefull that my own government had never done this and never would. I was wrong on both counts. Years later I would read James Bacque's "Other Losses" which details the spitefull treatment and deliberate murder through starvation and exposure to the elements of captured german soldiers held in american p.o.w. camps after the german government under Admiral Doenitz had capitulated, and we're doing similar things to foriegn nationals in gitmo now. As a former american serviceman, I cannot help but think that this may at some future point, along with the shenanigans at Abu Ghraib, such actions on our part may be used by a foe to justify whatever is done to our own sons and daughters who are captured and held in enemy p.o.w. camps.

There is also the issue of american citizens being held without trial in Gitmo. This fellow, I forget his name(Jose Pedilla?), isn't really an american in my book as I do not recognize most 14th ammendment americans as my countrymen or kinsmen, but it still sets a precedent which might at some future point be utilized to bypass the constitutional right to a trial by jury of other americans.