Thoughts on POWs

Listening to the news yesterday I had to wonder when America would release certain POWs captured during the "War on Terror."

We have Americans, myself included, hopeful POWs will still return from previous wars, but those wars had a beginning and end. This "War on Terror" isn't the Iraq or Afghanistan war, but rather a "war" in the metaphorical sense, like the "War on Drugs."

When does this conflict actually end? Bush claims the "War on Terror" is an ongoing thing which will last ages. He has done this in order to expand his own powers, of course. They don't want to be answerable.

Take the Afghan conflict: is the war over there? Who are we fighting? Osama bin Laden? What if he's dead? When he's caught does the Afghan conflict end? We're not actively trying to fix Afghanistan, are we? We've shortchanged them at every corner just to get out, and move on to Iraq. There's no real design on fixing Afghanistan. The country is already overrun by warlords and drug dealers. Their entire mock government with it's constitution is nothing but a joke. But we can still capture fighters there and hold them indefinitely, right? I would guess so since this is the "War on Terror!"

Can we detain Americans who sell drugs, and label them enemy combatants, hold them in a brig somewhere for any length of time because they were captured during the "War on Drugs?" Here's a dealer, killing Americans through drugs, caught with automatic weapons in his home during the "War on Drugs." What's the difference? Or has the "War on Drugs" ended? I certainly know the "War on Terror" has made the "War on Drugs" less effective. That's some coincidence, heh?

Here we have news outlets mentioning POWs in Guantanamo, some taken from their families having done nothing wrong but wear turbans, and others actively trying to kill Americans. It's a bad situation, and we condone it because we claim there's a war going on. But is there, or are we dealing with an abusive power situation couched in a term like "War on Terror?" We are referring to these people as "PRISONERS OF WAR" even when they're captured in places we don't legitimately have a war being conducted. El Masri was captured in MACEDONIA! Were we actively fighting in Macedonia?

It gets back to us being a leader, and having other nations believe in us. It makes sense for POWs to be returned between nations when a conflict ends, but we've set up ours so it never has to end. The metaphorical war, of course.

We're certainly living during embarrassing times.