We kept the captured prisoners in a legal twilight. We didn’t want to treat them as criminals with habeas corpus rights, rights to see their accusers, speedy public trials and the right to subpoena witnesses. Similarly we didn’t want to treat them as POWs because they weren’t part of a country’s army and various treaties get involved in how they are treated. When a judge said that there was no legal intermediate between POW and criminal prisoner, why didn’t most of them except for the very worst get moved to POW status? Since they have no country to demand them back it would essentially be a life sentence and we needed no evidence other than they made war against us and we captured them.
because POW’s have certain rights that these vermin should not be granted...
Soldiers on the battlefield out of uniform are shot as spies.