Security Comes Second To Freedom - Follow up

A former co-worker, who is conservative, replied negatively to my publishing of the letter to the editor that defended the Supreme Court decision about granting court appearances for terror suspects.

Below is his reply, and then my response to him:

Excuse me, but I beg to differ.  The prisoners of Gitmo are not fellow citizens.  They are ENEMY combatants.  They have never pledged allegiance to our flag, must less the way of life we live.  They would sooner see you and all of us dead rather than enjoy the liberties our country offers to them.  Remember the 3000 innocent fellow Americans that died on 9/11?  And now the liberals in the Supreme court think its "OK" for an enemy combatant to have access to our court system.  Do you think any of our fellow Americans are afforded the same luxury in their world?  I don't think Daniel Pearl would agree with you.  (In case you don't remember, Daniel Pearl was a reporter, captured by our enemy, and summarily beheaded with a dull sword.  The video was broadcast all over the world.)

Here is my response:

I respectfully disagree.  I think the Supreme Court made the right decision.  I think the Supreme Court dissenters were wrong when they fretted that it will hurt the war on terror.

The Supreme Court has to be concerned with defending the Constitution, not fear and worry about military issues.

We are the good guys who have freedom.  That mean we are, and should be "handicapped", in that we treat them better then they treat us.

We are civilized. 

It doesn't matter that they would not treat us like this.  We don't want to copy how they treat people.

Like you said, they caused 9/11 and do things like behead people on video.  We don't want to lower ourselves to their level.