Gitmo Assaulted Constitutional Norms

Gitmo Assaulted Constitutional Norms via NEWSMAX by Judge Napolitano

MY SAY: Judge Nap is biased against the Bush administration and uses hyperbole to disparage the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and its purpose. Gitmo is the finest military detention facility on earth. ICRC physicians I worked with there in 2002, told me, "No one does [detention operations] better than the US." Of just under 800 unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill us held there, over 740 have been RELEASED, and NONE have been executed, beheaded, blown up, hacked to death, dragged naked and lifeless through the streets, drowned or burned alive. All things our enemies have done to us and/or our allies. There is no moral comparison between Gitmo and how our enemies treat their captives. Since the detainees are all at least unlawful combatants, they are not entitled to the rights and privileges of lawful combatant POWs, but early on in the mission, our boss at the time, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told us we would treat the detainees "within the spirit of Geneva [Conventions]." Even lawful combatant POWs may be held without charge or bail, "until the end of hostilities," according to the Geneva Conventions and Law of War. No one deserves to be tortured for any reason, however, at the time they were performed, EIT, including waterboarding were legal, approved, and did not meet the internationally accepted definition of torture. Only a handful of Gitmo detainees were waterboarded in order to obtain valuable in formation that saved many lives. Gitmo continues to be a small piece to the big puzzle of how we win the Global War on Terror, which should be the Judge's goal, not disparaging lawful efforts of our government seek justice for the perpetrators of 9/11.