Even under the Geneva Convention - and even in Army regs - an illegal combattant must be given a hearing at a tribunal to establish his status as an illegal combattant. The idiots in DOJ thought that you could just lock folks up on Guantanamo and throw away the key and not bother to establish a minimal sort of procedure to ensure that they were not teenage American kids in the wrong place.
Once they are found by a military tribunal to have been illegal combattants all bets are off.
"Even under the Geneva Convention - and even in Army regs - an illegal combattant must be given a hearing at a tribunal to establish his status as an illegal combattant."
Precisely. And that was happening already. I stand by my criticism of the court's consistency and reasoning. And a bad decision that reaches a result you happen to agree with is still a bad decision.
But they're getting their hearings, aren't they. It's called debriefing. Or even interrogation. There are people being released all the time. So apparently, the issue is the format.
And if the fear is of locking people up and throwing away the key without a hearing, then the question is, who is it that's going do that? All Americans? The military? The unwashed masses? Everybody but you?
The thing is, they'll be given a hearing and a lot of other rights - more than some deserve and sometimes against our own interest. Why? Because we are a decent people and warts and scars and scabs and all, we generally do the right thing - or try to. Not, because we have to. Because we just do.