So would it be OK for an Islamist state to setup a new "detention" center where they would kidnap Americans as ennemy combatants and stay there forever.

How is Guantanamo different from Esbola kidnapping in Lebannon in the 80s ?

No "detention" center needed when you behead somebody.Probably because they are dead.

Wrong answer, didn't happen back then. Google Esbola and Lebannon

wrong answer according to you!

You were probably not born yet, so you wouldn't remember

Carter told CNN in an interview that although Hamas were "so-called terrorists," so far "there have been no complaints of corruption against [their] elected officials."

From the Gitmo Files at the Christian Science Monitor we have below some of the ridiculously funny excuses given by prisoners at Gitmo for what they were doing when they were captured in Afghanistan. I especially like the last one: don’t leave home without it ....

"I did have those guns - but they belonged to the government of Afghanistan."

"I was just showing off when I talked about Osama bin Laden."

"We lost our goats. That’s why we were looking through binoculars."

"I’ve never even picked up a gun. Well, once. I cut my finger."

"I needed to survive, so I did work with the government, which was at the time the Taliban government"

"I was unhappy in Qatar, and thought that in Afghanistan I could more easily find a wife."

"Why would I kill Americans when I have a friend who worked for American Express?"

US urged to abandon force-feeding at Guantanamo

The alternative, of course, is to simply let them starve to death.

LONDON (Reuters) - "More than 250 doctors from seven countries urged the U.S. government on Friday to abandon force-feeding and the use of restraints on hunger strikers at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

The doctors from Britain, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Italy and the Netherlands said prisoners at the camp in eastern Cuba have the right to refuse treatment and that physicians must respect their decision.

“We urge the U.S. government to ensure that detainees are assessed by independent physicians and that techniques such as force-feeding and restraint chairs are abandoned,” the doctors said in an open letter published in The Lancet medical journal

Link

Remember awhile back how we argued about whether the prisoners at G'tmo were POWs (entitled to Geneva Convention rights) or "non-combatants" entitled to no rights at all ?

Remember how someone argued that as "non-combatants", they could be held indefinetly, without trial, until the "war" was over ?

I think I mentioned that the "War on Terror" would never be over.

Even if Iraq and Afganistan started behaving like civilised, western nations overnight, the War on Terror would go on as long as there was a group out there that didn't totally agree with everything the US said. As long as that was the case, the people in G'tmo could literally be held forever.

Now we have GWB saying that it will be up to future presidents and future administrations to decide when to pull the troops out of Iraq (and Afghanistan I assume). Who knows when that could be ?

And then there is this interview with General Pace (from the Associated Press, 24 March 2006).

"The war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan are stable, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told military officials from around the world Friday.

"Iraq and Afghanistan will over time become stable," he said in a keynote address. "But the war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments"

"We are talking about years and years to come of vigilance," said Pace, "Today's tactical victory does not guarantee tomorrow's strategic success"

He also said the U.S. military is not taking any steps to invade Iran, saying, "there is a lot more to be done before we consider military action."

Years and years to come. I guess that will teach those goat herders for using binoculars to look for their missing flock !

Years and years to come. I guess that will teach those goat herders for using binoculars to look for their missing flock !

Might make the "goat herders" who are setting off truck bombs think a little.