It seems to me that the potentially illegal imprisonment of two Australian citizens is more important than the propriety of parliamentary procedure. I would assume that the MPs had been otherwise barred from speaking with Bush and that that was their only opportunity. At the same time, I'm sure they realize that Bush has no real interest in human rights and they specifically planned to raise a stink about it in order to possibly humiliate him into releasing them. I'm still of the opinion that the lives of those two people outweighs any notions of simple propriety.

I'll have to note that I know nothing of the two imprisoned people, and they may well have been legitimate prisoners of war had they been imprisoned in a legal manner. I think that all the talk about ``illegal combatants'' is ridiculous. We should treat them the same whether they were unifomed or not. That's basic human decency, not some piece of law to be twisted for one's own purposes.