At least she is honest

Vanessa Redgrave is on Larry King (with Bob Costas), however good an actress, she is one very misguided soul. Costas asked her if there a larger evil arrayed against the U.S. and U.K. that could justify the detentions of terrorists, she said no.

Costas seems irked ... he is really going after her.

Redgrave essentially said holding criminals without the process of trial is anathema to democracy. She truly misses the larger picture. Those held in Gitmo, or elsewhere, are enemies of our state, not common criminals.

One of the essential horrors of war is that it exists outside of civilization. There is no law between the combatants in war, therefore there can be no crimes. Each side holds the other, by the very definition of the struggle, defines the others rules and laws as not applying to it, otherwise there would be no state of war.

It is an essential, or root, mistake, to apply the criminal code to ones opponent in a war. They can be afforded decency in treatment, but they cannot be afforded due process by the very definition of their captivity and the state of the world that led to it.