"This is a tricky issue. When you are at war, you can not give every captured enemy soldier a trial. By the same token, no one wants to condemn innocent people. I think some sort of middle ground is needed, maybe the evidence presented at the tribunal needs to be made public. I don't know.
However, I hope we can both agree that the terrorists have caused this problem because they are an organized, international organization yet they hide in the civilian population."
I think that is the crux of the matter: We need to get together and write some new international law as to what to do with terrorists or unlawful combattants. As long as there's no right and internationally binding way, bickering from nations like Germany is to be expected, especially if there are German nationals held at Gitmo etc. Because that's only natural, if the German (or British, for that matter) press keeps mentioning the fact that "they keep Germans there" every second day or so (irrespective of the question whether that German national is guilty or not).
And so I think Merkel was spot-on whe she said that finding and defining international standard procedures is something that needs to be discussed.
I agree but after the way the Euro press has gone after us regarding Gitmo, any criticism of it needs to be handled very carefully.
I think that the Euros need to acknowledge the fact that we need some place to keep unlawful combatants and that these combatants do not benefit from all of the rights a European or American citizen would because they have been breaking the rules of war.
I think the US needs to acknowledge that there needs to be some sort of oversite to make sure that innocents are not punished.
All in all, a very tricky situation.