More than 60 children reportedly held at Guantánamo Bay

what would you suggest be done about teens who train to become terrorists, or were fighting and then captured?

Matt, you're not serious, right? You couldn't think of any other way to deal with children who were already in custody?

For heaven's sake, for 40 some odd years we looked down the barrel of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal knowing full well that they had the capability to destroy every major city in the United States at a moment's notice. All that time, knowing that the Soviet Union definitely wanted to exterminate us, we managed to get by without feeling the need to torture people, perform "extraordinary renditions," or sacrifice our own civil liberties, but we're suddenly so frightened of a few disorganized and desperate criminals nipping at our ankles that we feel that we have to torture children? For what? So that we can be 90% sure that one of these bumbling idiots won't someday manage to kill a few more of us, even a bunch more of us?

We don't have to worry about the terrorists destroying America. We are destroying it ourselves, little by little, as we allow ourselves to become more and more like them.

To answer your question: if they commit a crime on US soil they should be tried for that crime under US law. They should not be tried because they might commit a crime.

That is my main problem with Guantanamo and the precedent it sets. These people should be given a fair trial, no matter what words we would use to describe them. If we are so sure that they are guilty, then proper legal proceedings will out the truth. Doing otherwise only weakens our moral capital and defies the principals upon which our nation was built.

As for battlefield captures, I am not very familiar with that area so I will not volunteer an opinion at this time.

Way to make an assumption and run with it there Brad Farris. I merely asked what should be done with them once they're captured. Try to read less between the lines, I mean, there were only two. Instead of ranting on about how we're destroying ourselves, why not answer the question "what would you suggest be done about teens who train to become terrorists, or were fighting and then captured?"

Matt, if I misunderstood your question, I'm truly sorry. On reading it, I had assumed that you were indicating that you actually didn't know what should be done with juveniles who had been charged with a crime, but never tried or convicted. To answer your question more clearly, what I think should be done with teens who are suspected of a crime is that they should be charged with it, given access to the court system, and, if they are convicted, receive punishment commensurate with the crimes they committed. Seems simple enough, I guess that's what I was having trouble with.

What I don't think we should do, with children, teens, or adults, is throw away the principles that Americans have fought for, on and off the battlefield, for more than 200 years simply in order to attempt to attain some (false) sense of security from the threat of attack by some group or individual with a grudge. The fact is, detaining teenagers, or anybody else for that matter, without due process doesn't make the United States as a country any safer. It only brings our behavior more in line with that of the groups we oppose.

Again, I apologize if I misunderstood your question. I just thought that you were implying that you couldn't figure out anything else to do with them, aside from torture.

I think the people held in Guantanamo should receive a fair trial because of the following simple numbers.

The Seton Hall’s law school studied the 517 Guantanamocase files released by the Pentagon. They found that:

Only 5% of the detainees at Guantanamo were scooped up by American troops, on the battlefield or anywhere else. Five percent. The rest? US Forces never saw them fighting.

Only 8% of the detainees in Guantanamo are classified by the Pentagon as Al Qaeda fighters. In fact, Michael Donleavy, head of interrogations at Guantanamo, complained in 2002 that he was receiving too many "Mickey Mouse" prisoners.

86% of the detainees were handed over to the US Forces by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance.
They were offered bounties, $5000 for Taliban or $10000 for Al Qaeda fighters.

Well Due process would be a start

Well said chill888 - and, furthermore, "due process" should follow the internationally agreed Convention on the Rights of the Child (see: http://www.unicef.org/crc/ and http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf ) that is being comprehensively VIOLATED by the US at Guantanamo Bay (e.g. imprisoning children without charge or trial, and gross child abuse).

The Bush Administration is ALSO grossly violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child (and the Geneva Convention: ) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories through non-provsion of life-sustaining requisites to the Subject Population with consequent horrendous under-5 infant mortality totalling 0.5 million each year, 1,300 each day and ONE PER MINUTE (see latest UNICEF report: ).

Thus Article 6 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child states: “1. States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life. 2. States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the Child."

The Bush Administration is also grossly violating - in relation to children and indeed to other victims around the world and in America itself - the wonderful injunction America gave to the World over 2 centuries ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I was merely asking what should be done about them. Nothing more, and nothing less.

With a really poorly constructed sentence. There was no reading between the lines or assumptions, at face value that's what the majority would take the sentence to mean. Regardless of what you were "merely" asking.

The first part of my sentence says torturing children is bad, so why in the hell would I go on to condone it? Maybe if I was asking a rhetorical question, but I wasn't. I asked what should be done about them. Do we take them away? Do we try and find their parents? Do we leave them there and reschool them?

The first part of my sentence says torturing children is bad, so why in the hell would I go on to condone it?

Because it's one sentence and you include the word "but" in it.

Your question doesn't have anything to do with the first part of the sentence, if it were to be read the way you meant it.

Seriously, you might as well shoot American kids for growing up to be drunk drivers.

How could kids be accused of being involved with terrorism enough to be detained?!

Well, did you know they fight wars?
http://www.cdi.org/dm/1997/issue4/

Yes...actually a group from the invisible children campaign came to my school. Invisible Children Site It's pretty horrific.

Why does everyone automatically dismiss what the military has to say.

Everyone does that?

I reject statements from unknown Pentagon spokespeople personally. The gov't has been caught lying so many times lately I really have lost trust in what the spokespeople say.

name and quote the lies.

Well, mrcg, the first article in a link that hobgobbler posted says that the military claims that "juvenile" defines someone under the age of 16 even though American Law cites 18.

So, once again, redefining the law doesn't mean you're not breaking it or at the very least creating a loophole. (I'm sure Bush's "godlike" power to do all that he deems necessary in a time of war that he created will make it all okay.)

Here.

People in New Zealand don't lie?

Matt Kennedy I've seen a few porky pies from the NZ media. All in good fun :)

Actually - I did an interview once with a news source about an event in my town, and the story was picked up in a New Zealand paper - and I was misquoted in it. It was pretty hilarious. Especially after I contacted the paper - and they told me that, not only did they have the right quote, but that I couldn't possibly know what the quote should be, since the quoted person was a boy - but a boy that went to my school with the same name as I have. Weird. Must be some parallel universe.

I think that any news source makes mistakes - but I do give a little more credence to non-US sources at times since the government for years has made no secret of the fact that it is not shy to send propaganda thru the media.

Middle earth One miss dev to bind them, One miss dev to rule them all