If they are charged with a crime, then they certainly have the right to legal defense.
But they are currently detainees, awaiting final disposition of their legal status. We currently have the right to detain illegal aliens for up to 12 months, without access to legal counsel, before being required to either charge or deport them. I imagine this is the precedent that is currently being cited for those detainees in Guatanomo. We're certainly currently doing so for those suspects which were detained after Sept 11th on false visas.
Personally, I think we're being very gracious given that they are the ones who belonged to an organization that targeted non-combatant civilians. Anywhere in the non-western world, they would be taken out and shot, rather than released to potentially carry out further acts of terror.
War is brutal.. It's inherently criminal in its violence, and the suffering inflicted upon non-combatants. Before the Geneva conventions seeking to lay out laws of warfare, it used to be fought (and still is in many places) as a "no holds barred/winner take all" affair, with all of the associated massacres, genocides, and pillaging. Anyone picking up a weapon in opposition was subject to immediate execution without a trial.
So the fact that we're taking such good care of people who just as soon kill us, as look at us, is a remarkable statement in itself that civilized nations, while not utterly preventing war, can still constrain themselves from pursuing it to its ultimate brutality.
Hawk |
