Blahblahblahcraprant.

This annoys me, not as a political position but as a simple matter of facts vs. blind assumption untempered by bothersome logic, research, or education.

People claim that it's inhumane to allow individuals captured in the ongoing war on Terror (or war on Extremism, or whatever the hell it's supposed to be called now) to remain in custody without civil trials, and then to face them with military tribunals.

Violation of human rights, they say. Illegal, they say.

It reminds me of the time the press went stir-crazy over video of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a captured N. Vietnamese soldier in the head decades ago. They claimed this was illegal, a sign of the blood thirstiness of the S. Vietnamese and their allies, us the Evil Americans Who Club Baby Seals.

Well, that fellow the SV officer shot had been captured in a war zone in civilian clothing - he was a SPY, SABOTEUR, whatever you want to call it. The Geneva Convention allows the summary execution of such individuals.

(Insert brief pause while certain individuals begin arguing that this means the Geneva Convention was evil and should be eliminated and replaced) WHO CARES!? It's 'settled law' [heh] at this point.

And those same laws apply to all those Taliban and Al Quaeda, Fejahadeen (or however it's spelled) fellows we caught with no distinquishing devices or uniforms. They are not captured soldiers, they are captured spies and hostile operatives. They are not US Citizens. They have no rights on US soil. They are not guaranteed protection under our laws.

They = bad guys.

The legal precedent for military tribunals I need not even mention. But I will anyway, becuase I'm a smart-ass no-it-all. Nuremburg, the Hague, the post-WWII trials in Japan, etc.

And if we're going to use international precedents (the stupidest thing I ever heard of coming from the Supreme Court) then going back about 2,500 years of western history if they're in the custody of our military or civic authorities, than anything from the local constable/magistrate on up can do just about anything they want. (English Common Law precedents... ah, they make my heart sing.)

The twisted political views (rightist or leftist) we all hold aside, legally, what's going on at Guantanamo is perfectly legitimate. The issue is, rather, that certain people don't care what's legal, they care about what they individually think is the holy grail of social justice.

I figure it's the same thing with the constitution - they really hate it, and hate what it says, but they realize that's not kosher, so they read it and claim that it says things that I haven't found in their after five years of investigation.

Would that they were honest enough to say, "I hate the constitution, I hate the way our legal system works, in fact I hate anything that promotes any kind of general ethical outlook on society."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's all.