Someone is being foolish.

I concede that the House is foolish on a regular basis, but I’m pretty sure we can trust the guys at the dictionary. If you think it’s some sort of conspiracy, go the library and look it up in a pre-2000 dictionary.

I have undergone a near drowning experience and I can testify that I was fully terrorized but not in pain.

That would prove your point if we accepted your definition. If we accept a credible definition, it proves mine.

Please! Stress is mental agony so I guess the police can arrest my employer for torturing me. Someone is being foolish. I have undergone a near drowning experience and I can testify that I was fully terrorized but not in pain. I supposed we should also arrest those who say boo when I do not expect it.

You seem to think it is the system that is lacking when it is the person controlling the system on the one end, and people who think the system is broken on the other.

I’m not sure what you mean by this, but I place the blame on the people who, over the past few years, created the system and those that cheer it on. I would be thrilled to have “the system we have operated under throughout our history.”

No, I don’t expect perfection. Just a fair process with adequate checks and balances.

Couple that with theory of probability and you may be able to wager that the system you envision will be more perfect than the system we have operated under throughout our history.

Regardless, you would fair no better. You seem to think it is the system that is lacking when it is the person controlling the system on the one end, and people who think the system is broken on the other.

Are you really asserting that our troops have been and continue to be perfect?

No. But they are as close as we are going to get and infinitely better than you and many others give them credit for.

Are you asserting that in any group, with the volume of troops our military has, is capable of perfection? If you are shooting for perfection, you surely wouldn’t want to model it after our criminal justice system.

Maybe it would help if you would define “rigorous process”

One that at least remotely resembles our criminal system. I’m not saying it has to be the criminal system, but it damn sure has to have many of the same characteristics: competent counsel, independent arbitrator, face accusers and (except in rare cases) evidence, meaningful appeals, etc.

how, in the absence of such a process, you have determined that individuals have been wrongly believed to be terrorists.

The law of large numbers. Are you really asserting that our troops have been and continue to be perfect?

Jeff, I assume you are referring to the folks at Club Gitmo.

I don’t believe the legislation is specific to any particular people or location, but Gitmo certainly comes to mind. It wouldn’t surprise me if most of the dirty work was done in the secret locations, though.

Gitmo. Just in case you missed it, they were caught fighting in Afghanistan against us

Oh, it’s that simple? I take it all back.

No, IIRC, we relied heavily on proxies to fight that war. In fact, I think we actually paid them per arrest. Nooo, no incentive to settle old scores there. I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to assume the everyone was detained on a battlefield. (As if those were clearly defined either)

When you catch someone planning a terrorist attack, guess what? They are a terrorist.

Let’s try to have some respect for the English language. A person who attacks our military is not a terrorist. An enemy combatant? Of course. An insurgent? sure. An illegal combatant? Probably. A terrorist? No.

When you catch someone planning a terrorist attack, guess what? They are a terrorist.

I’m having difficulty determining exactly where you are coming from, Jeff.

Maybe it would help if you would define “rigorous process” and then explain how, in the absence of such a process, you have determined that individuals have been wrongly believed to be terrorists.

Like a gambler who only mentions his successes, you keep focusing on the time where all of your assumptions are right. What about the times where you rough him up and he still doesn’t speak? When he doesn’t speak in time to avert the tragedy? When he doesn’t actually know enough to help you avert the tragedy? When he isn’t even guilty of the allegations? When there is impending tragedy?

Don’t even get me started on when we start wars using the same faulty logic.

You brazenly label our enemy “evil”, but the truth is that you’ve made the exact same deal with the devil. They too claim they’re acting in self-defense. Everything is justified once you’ve demonized the opposition, right?

You even go so far as to imply that we might have a perfect track-record just because I don’t have access to highly classified information. Do we have a government full of Jesuses all of a sudden? I can’t possibly know what the actual percentage is, but you and I both know damn well it’s above zero.

You’re willingly commit such sins yet I’m going to hell because I haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as my savior?

I certainly don’t always live up to my morals, but I’m not going to sit here and try to rationalize my sins away. So yeah, my morals are inflexible. Aren’t they supposed to be?

Another thing, Jeff. We leave it to our military to determine who is and isn’t the enemy. Do you have a better idea? Is there someone else you would trust more with that decision.

Jeff, if it makes you feel better about yourself to stand on a principle so unflexible even to save hundreds, then go ahead…no one is trying to change your opinion. Mine is just going to be different.

Oh, and the rare times we used this were on the worst of the worst to get info we needed. Of course you would be an absolutist moralists on this, and argue a slipperly slope…or just spout that I can’t prove it, and believe whatever the government tells me. Of course, you can’t prove anything the other way around, are so inflexible on your moral standing that it is sickening the consequences you could watch happen. You can’t prove any percentage of how many innocent we capture, etc.

*sigh*