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Once they were transported to US soil (GITMO qualifies) they are afforded due-process protections of the Constitution.

Just like the 9th Circus Court you are wrong, wrong, wrong:

GITMO does not qualify as US soil because the lease establishing the base in 1903 and re-established in 1934 upholds Cuban sovereignty of the land the base is on.

The US has neither Territorial Jurisdiction nor Sovereign Jurisdiction, we merely have 'Jurisdiction and Control'--in that we can exercise jurisdiction over crimes occuring ON that land and restrict access to that land.

Now take that tablecloth off your head...

It is this view, in fact, which the majority of the court purports to reject. It holds that the lease and treaty effectively transfered substantive sovereignty to the U.S. with Cuba retaining a "reversionary" sovereign right -- i.e., Cuba's sole right is the right to resume sovereignty when the U.S. relinquishes occupancy, but in the mean time the U.S. is effectively sovereign. I'm not persuaded of that, although I do think the majority does a good job distinguishing Gitmo from the U.S. Army prison in Germany which was the location relevant to the Supreme Court case on which the government (and the dissenting judge) would rely.

GITMO does not qualify as US soil because the lease establishing the base in 1903 and re-established in 1934 upholds Cuban sovereignty of the land the base is on.

The US has neither Territorial Jurisdiction nor Sovereign Jurisdiction, we merely have 'Jurisdiction and Control'--in that we can exercise jurisdiction over crimes occuring ON that land and restrict access to that land.

Now take that tablecloth off your head...

Hey - I'd been told long before this ruling that Gitmo was US soil. I was misinformed.

I fail to see how, if there is a lease that states Cuba retains sovereignty over the leased land, any US Court other than a military tribunal can assert jurisdiction over anyone on Gitmo.

And no, I'm not reading the opinion. The only sense I've ever seen that came out of the Ninth Circus is the dissent in Locklear when the Court refused the request for an en banc review.

If I remember correctly, wasn't this the issue with which the Supreme Court declined to review substantively General Takeshita's war crime conviction?

I hate to agree with the 9th Circuit, but I'm of the view that the court's jurisdiction follows the flag. The military officers who run Gitmo work for the president and are paid by Congress. Government employees and taxpayer dollars would put what happens there within the jurisdiction of the judicial branch.

Where the 9th Circuit went wrong is that the inmates at Gitmo are enemy combatants captured on the battlefied. The supreme law of the land on this issue are the Geneva Conventions that the US has signed and ratified. Unless those Conventions allow for a legal challenge by prisoners (and I strongly doubt they do), then the Court was out of line with their remedy.