Public servants are only entitled to respect if they accord that same respect to the people they're meant to be serving. Quid pro quo.

I'm polite to everyone I meet as a matter of course, address everyone I do not know as either sir or ma'am, and have never disrespected a police officer-- nonetheless, I've had many a cop jump in my shit simply because he knew he could, trusting my ingrained 'respect' for the law to help disregard his errors in judgment & protocol.

The only people who have ever pointed guns at me were cops, and I never heard an apology from any of the officers who have done so. Quite the opposite: I have been scolded, admonished & brusquely dismissed.

In my case, what might have been respect for officers of the law has transubstantiated into obsequience and loathing. I know there are good police-- I've been friends with a couple --but by and large I don't trust them to do right by me or mine.

Way to underscore the fact that there's no real difference between the majority of Dems & Republicans in high office, Reid, you self-serving waterboy.

I wish Dodd were still running. He was the only candidate who seemed to be willing to do his job.

Kevitivity: 'Disgusting' perhaps more appropriately describes the type of person who approves of treating human beings like cattle.

JetsetSC: The principle (and in my estimation, most despicable) difference between Gitmo and the U.S. prison system is that the detainees are being used as hostages, whereas the average prisoner is being used as cheap labor. Both are exploited, but at least the prisoner has recourse to legal counsel. (In a biased system, admittedly, but it's something.)

Guantanamo Bay was picked in order to estrange the U.S. from the potential legal ramifications of keeping P.O.W.s for an indeterminate period of time, just as the detainees are referred to as 'non-uniformed combatants' to differentiate them from your average prisoner of war, thereby restricting their rights.

In a nutshell, hostages. Substitute 'kidnapping' for 'extraordinary rendition' and you start to get an entirely different picture of the gang war we're waging.

Sorry if I'm harping on this, but even a death row inmate has resources to call upon & reasons to hope. The detainees are guaranteed nothing.

JCD: You'll pardon me if I don't take a regular talking-point provider on the authority of his opinions.

We're talking about hundreds of human beings-- NOT animals, NOT 'dirtbags' --kept in unjustifiable confinement for years, out of contact with their friends, families & even lawyers, with no sign of a trial date in a legitimate court of law.

Imagine how you'd react if you were kept as a P.O.W. Sure, the guards don't regularly bludgeon you or stick electrodes under your arms... (at least, not when anyone's looking) ...but you're also kept in a veritable jar, isolated from a world that cares about your life & death. Your only companions are your captors, people who are trained to reject & despise you.

A high percentage of these prisoners are on 24-7 suicide watch; an equally ridiculous number are kept alive via feeding tubes. Last year one made a pathetic, last-ditch attempt to cut his own throat with a sharpened fingernail. These are human beings who prefer self-destruction to another day's interminable internment, human beings who have been systematically destroyed by being ignored & swept under the carpet of law-- and YOU, you reprehensible ignoramus, have the unmitigated GALL to talk as though it's hunky dory, that they're getting what they deserve.

"That is all."

That is NOT all. That can NEVER be all. You're dismissing a painstakingly deliberate violation of U.S. & international law, undertaken by an administration that considers the Geneva conventions to be vague & outdated. Our actions during this phase of history cannot be Explained Away with a wave of your pompous hand anymore than they can be rhetorically justified by specious, hair-splitting arguments about 'illegal combatants out of uniform' and 'acts of asymmetrical warfare'.

Screechy? You're god-damned right. The detainees at Gitmo aren't getting legal representation at the military's tribunals. They are being martyred, dying horrifically slowly, spiritually, to preserve the rights of war profiteers. We have to shriek on their behalf, to counter the bloviating of criminal politicians & armchair quarterbacks like yourself. Anything less would be to admit defeat.