Fighting to protect the freedom we're dismantling

Picture via Knowledge Driven Revolution. I'm not exactly speechless over this--politicians and pundits have promoted this and worse.  But I'm disgusted with what Robert Gates said in his bid to close Gitmo:

[Gates] said it may require a new law to "address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever but that doesn't get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released," Gates told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

Gates wants to shut down Gitmo because it's "tainted" and send the really bad people to a military prison--forever--and without a trial.  He'd like this enshrined in law.  Problem is, such a law would be unconstitutional.  Everyone has the right to a trial.  Everyone.  Satan himself has the right to a trial. 

By closing down Gitmo and holding people for the rest of their lives in military prisons, with no trial and no conviction, we're tainting our entire <i>nation</i>, forget about Gitmo. Gates justified this by prefacing with a comment about people who made it clear that they'll come back and attack the United States.  Problem is, there are plenty of criminals who have made it clear they'll attack people, and they still get a trial.  We have prosecuted home-grown right-wing terrorists here, and they were tried and convicted.  It may be frustrating when you're positive that someone is evil and will hurt you, but that's the price of living in a free nation. Defendants are supposed to get fair trials. They just are.

Even the Nazis were tried.

Taking prisoners keeping them imprisoned for the rest of their lives with no trial and no conviction is a war crime.  If this happened to US citizens or soldiers in Iraq, we'd be pitching a fit, and for good reason. 

If we continue to take these ridiculous suggestions seriously, we will have no credibility when we insist that we're fighting to protect our freedom, and that we're trying to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East.  Granted, most of us already know that's a load of crap.  This only serves to further confirm what we already know.