what he did by throwing a hand grenade at American troops in his country is no different than what many Viet Cong of the same age did to American troops, during the Vietnam war.

But back then, the US government didn't presume to declare someone a "terrorist" for shooting back at American troops deployed in combat in a foreign land, simply because they lacked a uniform and insignia.

I realize that during the Vietnam war, enemy combatant prisoners were typically handed over to the South Vietnamese, who didn't make humanitarian standards in prison camps their top priority. But there are important distinctions- the most relevant of which are that US troops were in Vietnam as guests of a duly constituted government, and that the US administration at the time didn't suddenly embark on a crash program to disregard international law and make up an exceptionalist standard of conduct for itself based on invented vague non-definitions like "non-uniformed combatant = terrorist"- invoked not only to detain people indefinitely without trial, but to subject them to the exact same sort of torture and long-term operant control measures employed by the North Koreans against US prisoners of war in the Korean War (see the book Brainwashing, by Edward Hunter.)

To bring up a similar recent case- I think this explains the complete turnaround of the former chief Guantanamo prosecutor, Col Morris Davis, USAF, in the recent case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the man alleged to be trusted enough in Al Qaeda circles to serve as a driver for Osama bin Laden. Davis, who once declared Hamdan to be one of the most obviously guilty and committed terrorists held at Guantanamo, testified in Hamdan's defense about the corruption of the military tribunal process there. Something seriously wrong must be going on there when several military prosecutors in succession, including the chief prosecutor, have declined that assignment and spoken out publicaly against it, rather than carrying it out under orders.

The most logical conclusion to be drawn is that the lawyers have decided that- notwithstanding the question of the guilt of a given detainee, which may be warranted by substantial evidence in some cases- the inhumane treatment of the detainees and the disregard for the basic foundations of the rule of law is so significant and egregious that they won't allow themselves to be part of setting prospective legal precedents under such abhorrent conditions.

That must have taken some doing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/

2008/04/28/AR2008042802982.html