The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that suspected terrorists and detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have a right to challenge their detention in U.S. Federal Courts. This decision marks the third time the court has ruled against the U.S. Government in matters dealing with the "enemy combatants" it has held since the beginning of the war on terror.
Now, I’m all for getting these guys being tried and punished for their various and heinous crimes, but we need to speed justice up. These guys have been rotting in Guantanamo for 6 years. Granted, getting three square meals a day in paradise can’t be terrible, but this still smacks of U.S. captives held during World War II, Vietnam, and Korea. I’m not trying to say that detainees in Guantanamo are treated horribly, but their families deserve to know what’s happening to their loved ones. Even if their loved ones are uneducated and unevolved who insist on waging tribal wars, opressing their own people, and killing innocents.
Reality check, these guys are getting better than they deserve, but we owe them swift resolution. U.S. Federal Court is NOT the place for justice though. Why do certain people believe that these foriegners ought to be subjected to the same rights as Americans? Why, for that matter, do we believe that every human on the planet deserves the same rights as we celebrate in the U.S.? Groups that fight for these people’s rights need a dosage of reality. We have those rights because our nation was built on them and our proud soldiers have fought and died to maintain them. While the thought of the entire world living with the same rights is a glorious one, we should not automatically give these rights to complete strangers who have no idea what they are or what they entail. Furthermore, why should we bestow the gift of our freedoms on someone who seeks only to do us harm?
I’m for swift justice of the Gitmo detainees, but don’t sully the freedoms that I enjoy and that I am willing to die for by giving them to someone who sought to rob American families of their loved ones. To do so would be an insult to the men and women who fight to protect our freedoms. Swift justice for Gitmo detainees – through a military tribunal at the earliest convenience.