This is not jump before the evidence just because you don’t believe a Sgt. And let’s be clear here, YOU don’t believe the Sgt., not me.

It burns me how easily you guys twist this stuff around…

probably upright citizens who pay their taxes on time

Don’t ever accuse me of paying my taxes on time. I do everything I can to delay and screw the government on my taxes and, thus, I DO MORE THAN MOST in shutting down Gitmo. I consider it my patriot duty.

Nyk, some of us just are not as quick to indict the US military. I have faith in our military justice system, in part, because I’ve worked in it. I have experienced the tremendous integrity of the vast number of officers and enlisted personnel in the armed forces. Make no mistake, this kind of jump-before-the-evidence-is-in (based on hearsay) mentality exposes an anti-military bias and is one of the reasons the Dems have problems with patriotic Americans.

You see, it isn’t so much a question of whether these detainees deserve worse than what we are giving them, it has never been and should never be about that. What this has been about is the manner in which we uphold those values we claim to be fighting for. We are a nation of laws, a nation that values human life (as opposed to our enemy in this conflict) and as such we need to act on those values, even in the case of enemy combatants we have captured. Can we interrogate them? of course. Can we exert some pressure on them to get them to divulge what they may know? yes. But while doing that we need to ensure that we stay true to our ideals, meaning that whenever our people are seen to be stepping out of line and doing things that we would consider reprehensible (like purposely denying detainees privileges even when they were good) then it is our duty to correct and punish those who are taking it upon themselves to do such things. The reason is that the treatment of detainees, even under the best of circumstances opens the door to a very slippery slope that could very well lead to torture and war crimes. There are rules with regard to the treatment of detainees for a reason, and those rules need to be followed otherwise such deviation from the rules becomes permissible and discipline within our forces is lost, as are the values that call on us to treat our enemy captured with at least the minimum amount of decency. Any officer, guard etc. who violates such rules needs to be punished accordingly.

That said, we need to make sure that these allegations are investigated and if the guards are found guilty then punished accordingly. If found innocent, at least we demonstrate to the world that we practice what we preach. Otherwise, the human rights reports our State Dept. issues on a yearly basis will be nothing more than a joke.

But let me ask you this…do you believe it? And what does the Sgt. have to gain by making something up?

Back to reality for the rest of us – yes, they are most probably “bad guys” (although in most cases we don’t know that) and they might be representing a barbaric, evil way of life.

But thats not us or the US. We’re better.

Remember – you’re beliefs are not what you say, you’re beliefs are what you do. Either we represent a system of higher justice and humanity to the world or we look just like every other despotic empire in history. The choice is ours.

I think every time one of them throws feces at a guard, he SHOULD have his head bashed against the wall. Screw them, they don’t deserve any form of coverage from the American constitution or the Geneva convention.

Assuming that everything Heather heard others talking about, but apparently didn’t witness herself, is true, I’d still rather be in Gitmo than any Dept. of Corrections facility in the state of Missouri.