Blinding Flash of the Obvious

Yahoo! News - Senator Says Lifetime Terror Detentions 'Bad Idea':
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A reported U.S. plan to keep some suspected terrorists imprisoned for a lifetime even if the government lacks evidence to charge them in courts was swiftly condemned on Sunday as a 'bad idea' by a leading Republican senator. "

Gee, you think???? Read on for more stunning leaps of common sense.

The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for those it was unwilling to set free or turn over to U.S. or foreign courts, the Washington Post said in a report that cited intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
Some detentions could potentially last a lifetime, the newspaper said.
Influential senators denounced the idea as probably unconstitutional.
"It's a bad idea. So we ought to get over it and we ought to have a very careful, constitutional look at this," Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, cited earlier U.S. Supreme Court decisions. "There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process ... if you're going to detain people, whether it's for life or whether it's for years," Levin said, also on Fox.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The State Department declined comment and a Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke of the Air Force, had no information on the reported plan.
As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask the U.S. Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, defense officials told the Washington Post.
The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would allow inmates more comfort and freedom than they have now, and would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, the newspaper said.

So, basically, we've got a bunch of prisoners we can't convict of anything, and who have apparently told us anything useful that they might know. And instead of letting them go, which is what usually happens to accused criminals against whom a case cannot be proven, we're just going to warehouse them until they croak.

Silly me, I thought the right to a trial applied to everyone. I guess these guys are Arab until proven innocent, huh? And that's about the worst crime going in Dubya's America.