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For me, reading the Geneva Conventions as including a right to habeas corpus seems obvious in that if a person is guaranteed no punishment without judicial review, and a prisoner is entitled to full POW treatment until a review, and a civilian is entitled to have reasons for detention or internment reviewed every 6 months, it seems like they are saying someone cannot be detained without a review of why they are being detained.
That's why I said that all the Supreme Court needs to do is connect those dots, which are implied it would seem by Hamdan (although all they said specifically was that the bare minimum, Common Article 3 is something anyone is entitled to) with the Boumediene dots, that a venue isn't a valid one for habeas unless it has the power to set someone free, and that would mean the Afghan prisoners had those rights.
That's for me. The route to guaranteeing habeas to the Guantanamo prisoners was through arguing that Guantanamo is in U.S. jurisdiction and the U.S. is capable of providing those rights there, therefore. So nobody is sure whether Boumediene applies in Afghanistan. I'm therefore expressing the likelihood that they would say it does, based on what they've said so far, since Geneva definitely applies in Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever the prisoners were picked up or being held -- only Kosovo hasn't signed Geneva, and only because it is too new.
They haven't done so yet. It's rather important. One of the ways Bush has been emptying Guantanamo and not refilling it is by shipping prisoners to Afghanistan (and elsewhere). There are 10,171 registered prisoners in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2008, and thought to be a few thousand more that are not registered (with the ICRC). At some point, those included women and children. Guantanamo is the tip of the iceberg with these guys.
