Foxy my estranged sweetness

I think you maybe putting the cart before the horse. On what basis are you labelling them a threat? Some trumped up save face lynch mob of a trial? Not for mine. We still have the presumption of innocence as our legal basis. Should we now start making exclusions?

Because they were against US aggression? So was I am I a threat to the US ….only to GW and Co on a dark night and I’m driving the pickup…For a quick getaway after I’ve given them all a severe verbal lashing….vicious stuff.

Let's be real the US on many occasion has done things to us that weren't in our interests. Yet we're friendly to them.
We honour the Turks who actually killed Australians.
We have low level WW2 Axis combatants here as migrants and higher ones as honoured guests.

A family friend who was on the Burma railway with every reason to hate Japs went on a holiday to Japan some years back and thoroughly enjoyed himself even hosted an exchange student.
What about ex-prisoner Hicks he's here and free now and why shouldn't he be? Is he a threat… only to his publisher perhaps. His case and those sent back to England etc shows the dubious basis for the US's Neocon Rat pack's abomination Gitmo.
Notwithstanding that If we are to consider some here it should be on a case by case basis naturally excluding the minority that may constitute a continuing threat.
Rationally if a terrorist wanted to strike here they could fly in on a tourist visa set a bomb etc and fly out before we would know about it. And some are getting overly excited by a few broken and not very bright men (they got caught). And yes I wouldn't be overly concerned if the approved were plonked nextdoor to me

Dear examinator, (alias, 'Oh Wise One.'),

Well, you and Bronwyn have both raised some
very excellent points. Now, I have to admit
that I will have to re-think my stand on this
topic. (After all - nothing should be set in
concrete, right, not if you're going to learn
and grow?).

I will have to google the subject and learn more
about the prisoners in Guantanamo before deciding on the topic.
But it is good to get your perspective on this
discussion.

I'll have to get back to you...

cont'd

Dear examinator,

All our arguments may be mute anyway.

The Australian government has already
declined the US request.

Dear examinator,

Well, I'm back and I've got to be honest with you.
I'm see-sawing on this one. I'm trying to be measured
and fair, and empathise with both sides in this
situation. I see merit in your arguments and,
equally I see fault and this leads to frustration.

I know what George W. told us was uber-hogwash, and I
know that some of these prisoners may have been
in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were
arrested. I know they didn't get fair trials, and
suffered terrible circumstances in Guantanamo.

However, I do feel uneasy, because the thought that
keeps coming back to me is - no matter what these men
were like in the beginning, after six or seven years in
prison, they have a very serious motive for revenge.

Hicks was an Australian, with family support in this
country, I feel that his circumstances are different
from the prisoners that the US wants us to take.

So, basically, dear examinator, I think we'll have to
agree to disagree on this issue. Because my instinct
tells me that - no, Australia should not take these
prisoners.

It's an incredibly difficult question. It's far from the simplistic situation some posters describe.

There is only one thing I am certain of in relation to these prisoners - that is, we really have no idea at all as to whether they are hardened terrorists capable of murdering innocent people - or innocent people who have been caught up in a botched process.

They could be either.

You can be damn sure that none of us in this thread know the answer, and those who tell you they do betray themselves as ideologues. There are those on one side who like to pretend they're all innocents, and there are those who like to pretend they're all bloodthirsty brutes.
The hell of it is, nobody knows. Even the US government doesn't know.

I'm aware that many of them were simply sold by third parties, receiving bounties. This way of obtaining prisoners was policy idiocy of the highest order given the calibre of these bounty hunters.

This is what happens when the presumption of innocence is thrown out the window indefinitely.
Granted, during wartime it can be suspended, but this isn't a 'war' that will ever finish.

You can't repatriate them within the US. Some of them probably do hold a grievance and could commit acts of violence.
They may have a legitimate grievance now but the possibility they might hurt civilians is unacceptable.

You can't send them to their home countries. These countries don't want them and they may be persecuted.

Neutral sounds nice, but the places that are considered neutral have achieved that for a reason - they stayed out of matters such as this.
If they're western, they're not neutral. Non-western will bring other cultural and political headaches.

Hence, the Guantanamo quagmire. I don't have any good answers, because there aren't any.
They've been held without trial for attempted crimes they may or may not have been planning, in a war on a concept, with no borders, no end and no definitive signs of victory or defeat.

The idiot who devised this scheme should be in there with them.

I agree TRTL, we don't know... Also it's naturally going to take a very long while to sort out and we may be asked again..