Bennet, I appreciate the intelligence of your post. Not sure I agree with it entirely, but you make some compelling points. I think that this will not play out too badly in practice; we have a lot of checks and balances in place in our government, and a lot of people watching very closely to see that our government does not abuse its authority. I suspect that the option to try non-citizens before a military tribunal will be used sparingly, and only when there is a compelling reason to do so. this does not mean that I am complacent about this, or unaware that our government has gone too far in the past. But I recognize the reasons why this approach may be necessary, and I'm not all that uncomfortable with it at present.

Carol, I understand that there are other ways of punishing people for speaking their minds. I haven't heard of any Congressmen actually being disciplined in these "other ways" for raising concerns about current administration policy, but for the sake of discussion I will accept your suggestion that it could happen.

Still, we are placing a lot of trust in our elected representatives, and they should be prepared to rise to the occasion as so many others have. We have people putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan, and in responding to attacks here at home. If our Congressmen aren't willing to take the slight risk that people will be unhappy with them for speaking out on an important issue, they are unworthy of the trust we have placed in them, and should resign.