The only thing torture prevents is people questioning their government.

These are the unfortunate casualties of war. Many innocent people also get killed too.

Among these that were "swept" in the conflict are also terrorists and criminals that want to do us harm, so we have to be very careful before releasing them. We already know that a number of detainee at Guantanamo have gone back and are actively engaged in terrorists plots.

What we cannot afford to do is to give a blanket protection as we do our citizens. At least not in time of war. Our constitutional system is geared to avoid condemning the innocent even at the expense of releasing the guilty once in a while. That may be fine even for capital crimes. But in the context that we find ourselves in. When our very survival is threatened by people who want to blow up an atomic weapon or release biological germs in the midst of our cities to clean thousands if not millions, our defensive posture has to be different.

With those that were innocently swept in the dragnet, we have to make sure that none of the guilty are released even if we do injustice to many innocent while we are at war.
...

During the second world war many Americans were caught in enemy territory and were held in concentration camps until the end of the war even though they were no where to being enemy combatants. Likewise, many foreigners were caught on this side of the Atlantic from Germany, Japan and Italy, and many were interned for the length of the war. I know that many today naively criticize such a procedure as wrong. But you know what, there were no major acts of sabotage.

Our e-mail exchanges have been quite enlightening for me.

I've learned that you have no problem with holding an American citizen in indefinite detention and without access to lawyers.

I've learned that citizens of this country enjoy human rights that you believe we should not extend to humans in any other country.

I've learned that you do not agree with our Declaration of Independence which states very clearly and unequivocally: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I've learned that you completely support the idea of Japanese Internment Camps and that you would have no problem extending this to others.

This has been a total surprise to me.

Did you know that President Ronald Reagan signed legislation which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. Government? The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership", and beginning in 1990, the government paid reparations to surviving internees.

It does sound like you are against our own government and what it thinks of the internment. And Ronald Reagan was no liberal.

And when you say "Obviously the courts have agreed up to know that Padilla be held without release. Otherwise why has he not been granted a writ of habeas corpus which as a citizen he has access to?" you show me that you have not followed this case closely at all. (Read up on Jose.)

"Because Padilla was being detained without any criminal charges being formally made against him, he, through his lawyer, made a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, naming Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as the respondent to this petition."

Please go back and read the history of the rise of the Third Reich. People often look back and wonder why the German people didn't do more to stop Hitler and his minions. They seemed to be asleep at the wheel as their leadership started targeting specific groups "to make the Fatherland more secure". They started rounding up people without filing criminal charges and held them in detention camps. We all know how it proceeded from there.

The words of Pastor Martin Niemoller should ring loudly in your ears:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

My friend, if you do not speak out now you may never get the chance.