I didn’t realize that RELEASING the Gitmo prisoners would be bad world public relations for the US.  It is not only that the prisoners would be welcomed back as heroes, but they would then detail all the brutal and degrading treatment that the US power system routinely inflicts to subjucate populations under the codewords of Freedom and Democracy.  It would further expose the US pretense of Human Rights.

Since most of the prisoners at Gitmos were NOT terrorists, simply turned in for bounty, it would further destroy US credibility in its Justice System.

I don’t think you need to worry unless Dick (Pinochet) Cheney becomes President again!And he can’t. Can he? Tremble. But there are some shocking laws still in place and while I salute your courage and insight, I wonder if there are enough people like you to really rattle the cage.Unless the average person understands what’s really been done to them it will all be swept under the carpet until the right can get their hands on the levers of power again. The slaves of the right in the MSM are already hard at work re-writing history. They can’t be allowed to get away with it and until they tell the truth about Guantanamo and what went on at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and what really happened at Abu Ghraib on Fox News there are people who will never believe it. I think most Americans assume that the people in Guantanamo must be terrorists or they wouldn’t be there. They’ve probably never heard of Maher Arar and don’t know about the Afghan taxi driver (doco called ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’) beaten to death at Bagram by US soldiers or the many other innocent people who’ve been imprisoned, tortured, rendered or killed as part of US foreign policy. Or how unjust and illegal all of it was from the start. That’s the problem. To the people in power things like this are always just a ‘PR’ problem, when what they really are is a sign of deep malfunction in a democracy - and they can’t be ignored any more than a crack in a wall of your house can be ignored.

Diamond, I posted on Politico’s Arena days ago that the detainees should be given fair trials and sentenced and the innocent should be compensated and released. My biggest fear is being detained by the feds for being outspoken and held with out due process. I am willing to take the risk. I love this Country and am willing to risk everything to get it on the right track.

Fine and dandy coloradokarl, but you’re overlooking one essential fact. Most of the people in Guantanamo can never be put on trial in a real courtroom because there is not ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE that would see them convicted. If you want to know what really went on with these people have a look at the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen kidnapped by the Americans and sent to Syria to be tortured. He was, of course, completely innocent of any crime but that was a minor detail to the Inquistion that ‘rendered’ him to a living hell in Syria.The best part of this story is that in the end he was rescued by his wife, who never stopped pestering the media and the government in Canada and also by the Canadian public who finally exploded in rage when the Mounties took it upon themselves to search the house of a journalist named Juliet O’Neill who had written an article describing what had been done to Arar. The Canadian public had had a gutful by then. Arar was eventually completely vindicated by an inquiry and was paid a lot of compensation by the Canadian government. I wonder how long it’s going to take for the average American to allow themselves to really think the unthinkable about Guantanamo. On the plus side, I bet when Mrs. Arar tells Maher to take out the garbage he jumps to it.

Due process (or lack of, actually) was one of driving forces in our forefather’s fight for independence from the tyranny of our british task-masters. to think that 250 men can cause this must consternation is laughable at best and a scam at worst. I know people that helped build Super-Max here in Florence and once entering as an inmate the light of day is but an illusion until release. I wouldn’t fear these guys in public myself but then, I have been in the streets for years. The false fear mongered buy the so called leaders of this Great Nation is Pathetic and leaves me sick to my stomach. Colorado Springs (Elpaso County) has 16,000 concealed weapons permits for a population of 350,000. This simple fact detours more crimes than all the tough laws or police ever will. Send them all here we need the revinue.