Dateline 1692: Salem, Massachussetts. 19 men and women are hung for the crime of witchcraft, one man is pressed to death. Hundreds are accused, and dozens are incarcerated without trial. In a chapter of colonial history that most Americans would rather forget, hysteria rules the day and the innocent suffer along with the guilty.

Dateline 1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin begins looking into the activities of certain Americans alleged to be Communists. Again, hysteria rules the day, and many innocent Americans are brought up on charges of being Communists. There are certainly some among them who are part of an attempt to infiltrate America during the rising tide of the Cold War, but lives are ruined, and reputations are forever damaged in this warped attempt at "justice" that blindly refuses to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.

Fast forward to 2006, as the Supreme Court, our distinguished leaders, and the international community weigh the fate of the US held detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Certainly, there are some truly wicked people held in the confines of this prison, some who would very definitely and decidedly do the United States harm if they are released. But it is possible, indeed probable, that there are some in there who are held under perjured testimony and/or the vindictive actions of rival factions of Islam in their home countries. Because the books are closed, we cannot examine, and have no way of sorting the innocent from the guilty.

Many in the conservative camps would have you believe that every one of these detainees is automatically guilty, because the Bush administration says so. Without the benefit of trial, without the benefit of due process, principles that are absolutely central to our Western judicial system. It is entirely possible that we are creating enemies by fomenting hate among captors who may have been zealous without even being terrorists.

By contrast, many in the liberal camps would have you believe that these are "freedom fighters", and they bear little difference from our own founding fathers. But even in the most critical biographies of our founding fathers, you will not find evidence of damage intentionally inflicted on civilians, actions that WERE undertaken by those among the Gitmo detainees that actually ARE guilty. Neither faction, whether those among the conservative or the liberal camps, seems to represent a decisive majority among their political persuasion, however, they are certainly vocal factions, to say the least.

The notion that Bush is entirely incapable of error and above reproach is as fallacious and dangerous as the notion that he is entirely evil and reprehensible in every action. They are both extremist notions that we as Americans would do well to distance ourselves from as we engage in debate about what should be done with these Gitmo detainees. While on the one hand we cannot afford the risk of releasing these detainees pending trial due to the fact that a single terrorist among these detainees could stand to do a heck of a lot of damage, we can neither afford to hide them in secrecy and deny them access to legal counsel. We cannot hold them forever in a legal limbo and in doing so risk violating every tenet of every principle of humanity that we as Americans hold to be dear.

There MUST be a middle ground  somewhere, one that moves these individuals towards an objective determination of their guilt or innocence and yet holds them apart from free society until such can be determined. It is our duty as patriots, as believers in liberty, to find that middle ground and to work towards a final adjudication for these individuals. For such is our witness to a world that has so closely observed our practice of Democracy since the days of de Tocqueville.