Craig:
Are you for, or are you against, military tribunals and sentencing for foreigners captured in the GWOT by our military?
I'm not locked into an answer on this. I'm for justice.
In the past, wars had the practice of prisoners, held for a year or maybe even 3 until a war ended, and they were then returned to their nation, win or lose, and were free, when things went well.
There were some exceptions that did no credit to the nation who did not do this, such as Stalin's execution of Polish officers.
We did not typically try and sentence those men. They were at war, they were imprisoned, and freed. An exception was the Nuremberg trials for the leaders.
But we're in a very different situation now. Those wars lasted shorter than the current conflicts. People are held prisoner under conditions that can last decades, life sentences in effect.
We need solutions that don't take people defending their homeland from foreign invasion and put them in jail for indefinite periods. That's not just a tribunal issue, it's a foreign policy issue.
While we figure that out, while there are some tribunals that can be argued to be a good solution, on the one side you have our criminal justice system, the other you have 'kangaroo court' tribunals that allow the flimsiest of evidence to excuse holding almost anyone indefinitely. 'Good' military tribunals run the higher risk of deteriorating into those kangaroo courts. So it's not just 'which is better', it's also that the criminal trials help prevent the deterioration into kangaroo courts.
We have done pretty well with criminal trials for some other situations - the world trade center truck bombing, and so on.
Find me a solution that has justice, and isn't subject to deterioration into kangaroo courts. In the meantime, I'm not seeing why criminal trials aren't our best solution for people over life sentence 'prisoner of war'.
If the process had a reasonable end - like they could be freed within a year or so as the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts wind down - I'd be more open to a tribunal approach for a shorter term detainment.