Pragmatically, because that's like seriously admitting that we fucked up...and as soon as they're citizens, they have full rights and a VERY strong case to sue the government for serious misdeeds. That's trouble.
Realistically, though, my guess is that we're not exactly certain that these people are "entirely innocent," so they might be questionable individuals. The thing about "no reason to be there" is that it doesn't imply "pose no threat to our country," it just means we have no admissible-in-American-courts evidence that they pose a threat.
Lame answer, though, Muffin. We owe them years of their lives.
This American Life has a good program about Guantanomo called Habeas Shmabeas. You can get it on iTunes - totally worth a buck - or download the transcript from the This American Life web site. It has an interview with former inmates and how they ended up there.
As far as thought processes go, let's say a scale of one to ten . . . well, this sorta scores a +10 with me.
I mean, isn't that what we usually do with the "leftovers" of war anyhow? Don't we usually bring all the displaced people over to the The States? Are not those in Guantanamo, likewise, displaced?
While there are certain cases where your comment is true, that's oversimplifying it a bit for many of the prisoners. It's not "there are a few terrorists and a lot of innocent people." It's more like "there are a bunch of terrorists, a lot of people who fought against us with varying degrees of commitment, and a few innocent people who were either in the wrong place at the wrong time or sold out for money by others" (the latter category sadly being a popular Afghan and Iraqi tradition
( ... )
I see your point, and it would be impossible to draw a clean line dividing the good from the bad. Maybe this idea of giving the wrongly imprisoned inmates citizenship would only apply to a small handful, those who are truly wholly innocent, but it seems like a fair thing to do for that small group. Identifying that group would be the hard part.
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Realistically, though, my guess is that we're not exactly certain that these people are "entirely innocent," so they might be questionable individuals. The thing about "no reason to be there" is that it doesn't imply "pose no threat to our country," it just means we have no admissible-in-American-courts evidence that they pose a threat.
Lame answer, though, Muffin. We owe them years of their lives.
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This American Life has a good program about Guantanomo called Habeas Shmabeas. You can get it on iTunes - totally worth a buck - or download the transcript from the This American Life web site. It has an interview with former inmates and how they ended up there.
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I mean, isn't that what we usually do with the "leftovers" of war anyhow? Don't we usually bring all the displaced people over to the The States? Are not those in Guantanamo, likewise, displaced?
~good thoughts here brother
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