The future political implications are one potential benefit: "If you don't vote for me, we will lose more and more protections until Al Qaeda has a license to murder and pillage at will".

An other is what Ann Althouse saw in http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/06/supreme-court-invalidates-guantanamo.html
Congress can pass laws that legalize military tribunals for extra-national bad actors. "Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary."

The third is that we eventually update the Geneva convention to directly address terrorists. The "High" Court had to really reach to interpret Geneva as they did. A clearer treaty would make it impossible in the future.

Why would treat people as people when they are accused of terrorist activities? Because they are accused, not convicted. The Guardian UK and the Boston Globe both found an example of a man on trial who said that 4 witnesses could exonerate him. The US said they tried to find them and failed; these two press outlets found them in a few days.

The thing is, there is not some insane level of evil beyond which you lose all of your human rights. If that becomes the standard "they want us dead, they get no rights," then attempted and accused murderers can be killed off, and probably child molesters as well, and so on and so forth.

We treat all people as human beings and then, ta da! We have the moral high ground, and we can point around the world and say that this is how you deal with horrible actions and bad people.

Of course, the terrorists might laugh at our decency, but terrorists are not born, they are raised. And its hard to say that you are the better group when your opponent plays by rules of fair play. Everything we do to be fair and righteous helps us win the war.

Unless this is not real life but just a John Wayne movie where we shoot the bad guys, say something profound, and roll the credits.

DJ,

You might be right about the political aspects but I could see this working either way if you have a good political writer behind ya. But I also agree that the rules of engagement should be the only good islamofacist is a dead one.

"Of course, the terrorists might laugh at our decency, but terrorists are not born, they are raised. And its hard to say that you are the better group when your opponent plays by rules of fair play. Everything we do to be fair and righteous helps us win the war."

Ok, Kimyl, so how does beheading someone like Richard Perl makes the Islamofacist 'the better player'? And that has been the case, time after time. And you are right terrorists are raised -- in the Madrasses of the Saudi's.

They want to kill us for what we are. Their basis for attacking us is religious. There is no rationale for dealing with religious extremists holding a gun. Either you have a bigger gun and shoot first of you are dead.

Kumbaya will get you dead.

Because people twist my arguments so much, I end up having to write paragraphs defending an argument I never made. I am sure that murderers, thousands of years ago, were killed. And then we evolved a little bit and said let's give a trial. And maybe more people are at risk, but then again we don't kill people indiscriminately for committing murder.

I will repeat; there is no act of which you can be accused that causes you to lose your human rights. If you were travelling in Turkey and abducted because some group thought you were part of the conspiracy, wouldn't you want a chance to defend yourself or prove them wrong? Or would you say "Well, if I look like a guy they thought hated their way of life and wanted them dead, I guess I deserve to die."

Being capricious with human life is immoral and unjust. And no, I don't want to sing kumbaya and pray that the terrorists are forgiven. I want to find the people that we think are conspiring against us, put them on trial, and send them to prison for life. If they try to shoot when we come for them, we shoot back. This whole John Wayne bullshit where we shoot first and ask questions later is how you end up with blowback, hatred of the US, and you stumble into war against the country that wasn't a threat instead of the one next door that is.

Beheading people does not make you the better player. But all they have to do is point at the US and say "they kill our people with bombs and guns, they keep them in prisons and abuse them for years, and they put a government in place that favors them and not us." All of a sudden a young kid, maybe one who has lost a friend or relative in a bombing, says that we are immoral and that murder is justifiable in defense of Iraq, or Allah, or my family, etc.

Of course, the John Wayne method seems to be working great. Maybe our President just hasn't gotten to the right Louis L'Amour book, or hasn't seen the right movie to know the plot.

You win by getting tough, sure. But you win big when you are tough AND smart. Bush forgot about the second one.

Give me one reason to take Islamofascists as prisoners now? Intelligence you say..... well maybe, but it is hard to find any in stumps!

Kimyl Oh!

Fact No. 1

For your obviously deficient information, George W. Bush is a Harvard MBA, the first MBA ever to be President.

Fact No. 2

His I.Q. is recorded. It is known to be greater than ALL DemocRat leaders currently in Congress. Most journalists do not even have the intelligence of a member of Congress. That is also obvious.

Wow, I didn't know that you had information about everyone's IQ, even though I have never seen it as part of the public record. And regardless of his IQ, or his MBA, his execution of the war on terror has been poor and confused. His MBA has not saved our country any money or infused any new efficiency in government.

It is obvious that Charles treats all emails in his box as dogma, including the one where our President is a misunderstood genius instead of a lucky legacy who got through grad school with Cs.