(And ya might want to hold off on assumptions like the ones you're making about me. Are you really going to use my beliefs on this issue to paint a picture of the entirety of my political convictions? A perfect example is your non sequitur about waterboarding: I happen to think that water boarding is at the very least only marginally effective, although not the most heinous form of torture ever devised. I'm opposed to it's use in interrogations, and I prefer rapport-building techniques. But I digress.)

I don't really see the point in your arguments, since they mostly deal with motivation. I know what motivates radical Islam, thanks, but that still doesn't change the fact that setting a precedent that we will give civilian trials to enemy prisoners taken on the battlefield is a bad idea because it turns a war into a criminal investigation, with all the limitations and disadvantages that come with it. No one would seriously complain that we "undermined our values" by trying Nazi and Japanese war criminals in military tribunals instead of civilian courts, why is this different?

This issue is very important to me because by setting a precedent that our enemies on the battlefield are guaranteed Constitutional criminal rights if captured, it seriously damages my abilities to do my job as an Army interrogator. If I walk into a room with a Taliban fighter captured in a raid, do I have to make sure he is aware of his Miranda rights and wait for a lawyer to be present before I begin questioning him? THAT is why it's a bad idea: it has nothing to do with "our values" or showing that "we aren't scared of them". It's about doing something that severely increases the limitations and obstacles in front of our intelligence and military professionals.