Tim Blair

Would we score better on a Jihadi per hundred thousand population basis?

The one was in league with Ramsey Yousef the other in the trenches with the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Sounds like their in the right place to me.

My question is this. The Gitmo folks were captured in battle. What exactly are we supposed to do with them?

I say we should parole them, but only if they can stay with a a Guardian or Independent subscriber.

BSC: I think you mean "If they can be handcuffed to a Guardian or Independent subscriber". Gotta make sure they don't violate parole...

Set up a modern day Austrailia or Georgia, a penal colony where they can work the land, even own it. Now, where to place them....Aha!!! How about Antartica?!?!

Equip them with concrete overshoes and a JDAM guidance system and drop each of them from 30,000 feet onto the mosque in his native city during Friday services.

Be nice folks. But it is a serious question. These people were captured in battle. And while we have paroled many of them, the hard core ones -- what do we do with them.

I admit, there is the issue of illegal combatants. But frankly, unless they have proof of something, I am wary of trying people for that.

If this were a conventional war, they would be held until the cessation of hostilities, unless there was an exchange or parole. But the fight is not against another country, it is against a rather formless thing.

So, what do they want us to do? I say again, we should release them into the personal custody of Independent and Guardian subscribers.

Set up a modern day Austrailia or Georgia, a penal colony where they can work the land, even own it. Now, where to place them....Aha!!! How about Antartica?!?!

How about France?

Be nice to members and supporters of the same organization that flew jetliners into occupied buildings? You got one thing right, we captured them in battle. They didn't meet the criteria for lawful combatants, so we don't have to treat them as prisoners of war. In my opinion, we owe them nothing. Life in prison would be magnanimous. A quick, painless death would be generous.

Well, if you don't like the human bomb idea, how about:

Break their arms and legs and feed them to the hogs. Then dehydrate the hog manure and send it home to Ma and Pa.

Flay them, dip them in hot, sticky pitch, roll them in crunchy magnesium nuggets, and set them on fire.

Sell them to San Francisco S&M clubs.

Cut their abdominal cavities open and drop them in shark infested waters.

Run them through a plastic grinder. Flip a coin to decide head or feet first.

Impale them on a short stake.

Use them for ballistics experiments, or training attack dogs.

Toss them off a balcony. If they survive, move up one floor and repeat.

The point of all this being to persuade others who might be considering it, that opposing the US militarily while dressed in civilian clothes is a really, really bad idea.

BSC: I think you mean "If they can be handcuffed to a Guardian or Independent subscriber". Gotta make sure they don't violate parole...

Handcuffed to a Guardian subscriber? That's violating human rights, not parole.

>Handcuffed to a Guardian subscriber? That's violating human rights, not parole.

To whom, the Guardian subscriber or the terrorist. Personally, judging from the few Guardian subscribers I have met over the years, I'd say it violates the terrorist's human rights.

In any event, my point is to the extent we capture them, they should be held at Gitmo. Until when? I am not sure.

But I almost laugh at those who want them provided with lawyers. Did we providfe German and Italian POWs with lawyers in WWII?

>Handcuffed to a Guardian subscriber? That's violating human rights, not parole.

To whom, the Guardian subscriber or the terrorist. Personally, judging from the few Guardian subscribers I have met over the years, I'd say it violates the terrorist's human rights.

In any event, my point is to the extent we capture them, they should be held at Gitmo. Until when? I am not sure.

But I almost laugh at those who want them provided with lawyers. Did we provide German and Italian POWs with lawyers in WWII?

Didn't the PLO score on top of the pops chart?

Well, schmucks, they are all good guys, ABC , after all, continually teaches us three basic truths:

Israel is a cruel oppressor of the entire Arab-Muslim world, thus the decent chappies holidaying, at U.S. taxpayer expense ( what an outrage given the moolah they have to spend on so many fripperies like rockets, rifles, grenades, explosives) really are defenders of truth, liberty and the camel stuffing way.

U.S. is The Great Satan and must be overthrown.

Israel and U.S. are in it together, spreading satanic devices, like , er, um, decent civilised ways. So, they must be damned and bombed together.

Yes, BSC, I was referring to the terrorists' human rights. The Guardian suscriber would be swooning with pleasure. It would also double the numbers at protest marches, pleasing them no end.

However, amongst that rabble, the terrorists would unfortunately begin to think they were right in wanting to bomb the crap out of the West.

"Set up a modern day Austrailia or Georgia, a penal colony where they can work the land, even own it. Now, where to place them....Aha!!! How about Antartica?!?!"

Why do you think there are so many probes on Mars right now?

Of course the "Phone Sanitizer" solution would be the ultimate punishment - letting them make their ideal society where they can't blame or annoy anyone else for its failure. It would make great entertainment watching them rot in it . Sort of like "Survivor" - except no-one would.

BSC: In any event, my point is to the extent we capture them, they should be held at Gitmo. Until when? I am not sure.

Until a cessation of hostilities between Al Qaeda and the US, of course. History tells us that this will occur after the surrender of Bin Laden and Mullah Omar to the US, and then a peace treaty will be signed.

Of course, the 'detainees' are probably going to die of old age before that happens...

What to do with the prisoners at Gitmo? They resemble pirates in their status as waging war without being soldiers of a recognizable political entity. Give them a drumhead court martial then hang them. This is the traditional punishment for pirates. I am not in favor of exceptionally cruel punishments no matter what the provocation. Compared to Eternity the most lingering death is too short for scum such as the Al Qaeda types. Just give them a fair court martial and execute them quickly.

For those who are exceptionally cooperative with our intel efforts we can commute the sentence and let them live, imprisoning them for life. Again, remember they are not soldiers of a political entity that has standing to declare or wage war, but are like pirates, the enemies of mankind in general, so ought to be punished accordingly.

For Afghans who are not Al Qaeda members, once we have gotten all the intel we can from them, and when Afghanistan has a functioning government again, we can release them to go back to Afghanistan. What the other Afghans do to them at that point is not our responsibility.