by James Coles

Created on: May 13, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2008

I challenge the contention that 'innocent civilians' are being held at Guantanamo as theoretical poppycock. I've been there and I've seen both the former detention camp and the newer permanent facility, and I've seen the prisoners up-close...and I've spent a year in Afghanistan as an adviser to the Karzai government, and I've made 12 trips to Iraq and surrounding countries.

In the years since the current wars began, which means since we began returning the enemy's fire against us, we've swept-up tens of thousands of enemy combatants and others. The vast majority of those we've picked up are cleared and sent home. Those who were deemed the most dangerous or potentially dangerous were sent to this maximum security facility and as we investigated them those who could be cleared were cleared and sent back to the point of origin when possible - in many cases their home countries didn't want them. In more than two dozen cases those we cleared went back to the enemy's camp and picked up their jihad against us. We know this because they were captured again or they were killed and their corpses identified.

While most of these monsters don't qualify for any protections under any of the 27 Geneva Conventions because they are 'unconventional' non-state-sponsored fighters - terrorists, actually, we have afforded them rights and treatment that equals and in some cases exceed Geneva Convention requirements for real soldiers. In addition, the US Army and the Afghan Government have been a state-of-the-art detention center outside of Kabul for holding repatriated Afghan and Pakistani-Pashtun fighters formerly held at Guantanamo.

Whether the inmates at Guantanamo are actual POWs with Geneva Convention rights or terrorist murderers is irrelevant to having Habeas Corpus rights. Generally speaking, military prisoners are held for the duration of any conflict unless prisoner exchanges can be arranged with their state sponsor. With no 'state' sponsoring these killers, there is no party with which we can arrange an exchange. The whole notion of giving these miserable savages full legal American rights is beyond insane. These people, the ones who remain in custody, are known and proven killers of Americans and innocents in the combat zones. That anyone would even consider allowing them to contest the terms of their confinement according to judicial rules shows either a complete naivete about the nature of the enemy we face or deliberate, anti-American thoughts and actions.

The monsters now confined at Guantanamo belong there where they are unable to harm American or coalition soldiers or inflict terror attacks on civilians. I was in Kabul last year when one of the beasts the Germans had transferred to the Saudis who cleared and released him after completing their 'conversion' program which allegedly purges former jihadis of their urge to conduct terror operations, blew-up himself, two Afghan soldiers and a dozen civilians. Almost immediately after being released from the Saudi jail (a term I use with some mirth) this killer hooked-up again with Al Qaeda and traveled to Waziristan where he took on the suicide mission.

Compassion is a good thing, but our enemy has none toward us. His goal is to kill or subjugate us all and impose Shari'a Law upon us, destroy our multi-cultural, religiously tolerant society and make Islam the only religion in our land. I say keep the beasts locked up.

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