Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, January 22, 2010 2:09:17 PM
I’m not surprised that the Department of Justice reached the same conclusion
as the Bush administration on how to deal with unlawful combatants in a
time of war. I’m just surprised that they publicly admitted it
In a time of war, we are not required to release combatants from
detention regardless of whether they are lawful or unlawful. Either
both sides must wait for hostilities to come to an end before releasing
unlawful combatants and POWs, or they can agree to exchanges during
hostilities (a practice that has all but disappeared from modern
warfare anyway). In fact, unlawful combatants — those that attack
without wearing uniforms or identify themselves with legitimate
partisan militias, and those who target civilians — can be summarily
shot after a status determination by a military tribunal.
Nothing requires us to end detentions until the end of hostilities. If the detainees were stupid enough to join an endless jihad against the US, that’s their problem, not ours, in terms of the length of their detention.
Why close Gitmo? It is still the best operational venue for terrorist
detention. If we’re agreed that we need to hold them, let’s hold them
in the place we designed for it.