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This SC ruling is so annoying. How they manipulated law and the Geneva Conventions to come to this decision is astonishing. These terrorists flat do not have any protections under the Geneva Convictions. Apparently the people who haven’t read the conventions are the ones fighting to have the terrorists freed or tried in Americans courts, and they DEFINITELY have no right to trial in American courts. It angers me that this terrorist human trash might actually be given the right to the same trial rights that I have as a citizen. What a crock! Fortunately the SC is NOT the final word in this case and it won’t change anything. The Congress being majority Republican will be the final word, and the Democrats know what most Americans think and most Americans do not want them being tried in American courts and know they have no protections. According to the Conventions, we could have shot them on sight and they deserved no quarter because they are un-uniformed terrorists not fighting under a flag. Plain and simple.

And if any of these terrorists are freed and then re-captured or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the democrats are toast, especially if they killed one of our troops, and we had them in custody and the liberals forced their release. They will never recover from that if that happens. And this with the courts further demonstrates the need for strict constructionist Justices, and the need for MUCH prayer to have Stevens or Ginsburg retire to be replaces with a real Justice that reads the Constitution.

Unlawful combatant

An unlawful combatant (also unlawful enemy combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent) is a person who is accorded neither the rights a soldier would normally have under the laws of war, nor the civil rights a common criminal would normally have.[citation needed]

The phrase "unlawful combatant" does not appear in the Third Geneva Convention (GCIII). However, Article 4 of GCIII does describe categories of persons who are entitled to prisoner of war status. "Prisoner of war" is generally synonymous with "detained lawful combatant." Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration in particular has suggested that those who do not meet this definition should be determined to be "unlawful combatant." It is opined that by this definition legal protection under the Geneva Conventions is not warranted. Nathaniel Berman in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law observes that by declaring that some detainees do not merit the protections of criminal law, because of their combatant activities, and that they do not merit the protections of jus in bello due to the unlawful nature of their combat, the use of the term in current legal discourse seems designed to put detainees beyond the reach of any law.[1]

Should there be doubt about whether persons have fulfilled the conditions that confer prisoner of war status, Article 5 of the GCIII states that their status may be determined by a "competent tribunal" and until such time they are to be treated as prisoners of war.[2] After such "competent tribunals" have determined their status, the "Detaining Power" may choose to accord detained unlawful combatants the rights of prisoners of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. Unlawful combatants do retain rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that they must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial".[3] This latter Convention also applies to civilian non-combatants who are affected by the conflict and due special protections as "protected persons."[4]