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. That may be so; unfortunately, as Amnesty International has pointed out, under the Geneva Convention the Pentagon has no business making such a determination.

So who gets to make that determination? An uninterested party? Switzerland? Amnesty International? Who? They attacked us, not Samoa. We went to war with them and caught their goat smelling butts. Why does some other party get to decide how we deal with them? Just asking.

This started out like a legitimate discussion of the legal status of the prisoners at Gitmo. But, as the lamestream media usually do, it missed the central point.
Four sources bear on the legal status of someone captured in the course of a war. They are: the "law of war" which is about five centuries old, the US Constitution, the US Military Code in Title 10, and the Geneva Convention.
All four sources lead to the solid conclusion that these prisoners are "illegal combatants" who are not protected by the Convention and who can be tried by military tribunals outside the usual court processes of the Constitution, including the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Is this merely my opinion? Absolutely not.
The unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Quirin determined that eight German saboteurs were "illegal combatants" and allowed their tribunal trials to proceed, resulting in the conviction of all of them and the execution of six of them. In just 20 pages, the Court reviewed the history and application of all these legal sources, and also the use of such tribunals throughout American warfare, beginning in 1777.
The writer of this article was clearly incompent for not being aware of, and quoting from, this unanimous decision that covers all these issues. (I've repeatedly posted a link to Quirin so FReepers can read it for themselves and se that this is so. (Search on "Quirin.")

Congressman Billybob

Phil & Billybob in the mornings.

were members of the Taliban and presumably thought they were part of the Afghan army

What they thought doesn't matter all that much. Only two countries recognized the Taliwackers as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both of whom withdrew that recognition shortly before our bombs began falling. They were at best members of an organized rebel group, not even up to the status of the Waffen SS, which at least reported into the recognized, if vile, government of their country which *came* to power via more or less legitimate processes and not by direct force of arms.