>>>Barack Obama has inherited a legal fiasco of which a significant amount of terrorists have had the legal cases against them so tainted by corruption and abuse, that they will likely be found "not guilty" due to simply to Bush incompetence.

Those of us plagued by that silly rule-of-law fetish recall fondly the traditional American concept that one is innocent until proven guilty. This is called the "presumption of innocence." One needn't be a lawyer or even a first-year law student to know this. In referring to detainees as "terrorists," however, you presume them to be guilty. That is wrong and un-American. Since nothing has been proven, they are at most "suspected terrorists" or "alleged terrorists."

Your speculation about why they are likely to be acquitted is just that -- speculation. As you acknowledge, these people were imprisoned by a grossly incompetent administration -- certainly incompetent enough to imprison someone who did nothing wrong. Perhaps they would be found "not guilty" because they are not, in fact, guilty. In any event, regardless of the reason they can't be found guilty, if they can't be found guilty, THEY ARE INNOCENT. At least, that's how it looks here in my little rule-of-law fantasy world.

...how hypocritical and divorced from reality her position really is.

they do it merely to sadistically inflict pain on people while the U.S. did it for a noble reason: to obtain information about Terrorist attacks. That's really what she said: that when the U.S. did it (as opposed to Evil countries), it was for a good reason.

So Shepard isn't, in fact, merely playing stenographer as she claims journalists are supposed to do, she's injecting her own twisted value judgements into the process as well.

And as NPR's Ombudsman she's the protecter of journalistic objectivity and integrity?

I agree with everything that Greenwald writes, with one exception: It is possible to hold unlawful enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities, just as one would hold a POW. These individuals have been granted habeus corpus hearings and hearings before a tribunal to determine their "status". If they are found NOT to be an unlawful enemy combatanat, then they MUST be released. I'm in total agreement. HOWEVER, if they ARE determined - after a tribunal hearing - to be an unlawful enemy combatant, but they are accused, tried and ACQUITTED of some specific act (no, that wasn't me that blew up the Brooklyn Bridge, it was my cousin), then they could still be held in the manner of a POW, even while acquitted of the specific act.

Almost everything here is not correct. I've held a cognitive dissonance that has hampered my ability to write my blog, and driven everything I think about this "conflict" into shadows of shades of mists of nuance and difficulty for some months. I resolved to figure it out a few months ago, and have clarified much of it to myself. I would ask you to look at the as usual incredible post that pow wow put up on the previous thread,

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/07/froomkin/permalink/2bdb3455e5ebdc85472b258b57d8411c.html

and my short attempt at a reply,

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/07/froomkin/permalink/7db0dc7c4888c57fc54d0f4e0608d3fa.html

There is a lot more.

First, your use of the word 'unlawful enemy combatants' has no relevance to your assertion of detention authority under the Geneva Conventions. Whether or not a person is 'lawful' or 'unlawful' the previous administration's rewrite of 'eligible' and 'ineligible' belligerents, has no bearing on how long they may be held.

Second, there is no such thing under the Geneva Conventions as 'duration of hostilities'. There isn't even really a duration of 'armed conflict' for international conflicts, only a duration of war. The ICRC disputed the Bush administration's assertion of rights of detention under the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan as far back as 2001, since neither the AUMF, nor the conduct on the ground in 2001 justified the United States being party to an armed conflict of international character, or of non-international character. Unbelievably, the Bush administration asserted that they could claim the right, and then deny the application of the Conventions under the Martens Clause, which is there to make sure countries obey the Conventions even in a "new kind of war".

Third, only a small number of prisoners have been granted and have had habeas corpus reviews. To say they all have is just plain wrong.

Fourth, there is adequate dispute as to whether the CSRT's which you refer to as tribunals constitute "a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples," as specified by common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, especially since the meaning of that phrase in customary international humanitarian law is assumed interpreted by Article 75 of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, which guarantees rights that have not been afforded by the CSRT. That's why the Supreme Court ordered habeas reviews in the first place.

Lastly, your statement that if they are found to be an unlawful enemy combatant after a tribunal hearing and then acquitted in court -- exactly what jurisdictions we are talking about here is unclear -- "they could still be held in the manner of a POW, even while acquitted of the specific act" is not correct, either. They require a court review of their status as a belligerent in addition to, and before their trial (Article 45, 1st Add'l Protocol). After acquittal, there must be a determination that they would return to the battlefield to fight against the U.S. to hold them for 'duration of conflict' and there must, must, must be a specification of what conflict that is, and there must be a realizable method of determining when it is over, and if it is over, then holding such a prisoner further is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Furthermore, if it is determined that they are not a combatant, then the U.S. must answer for why they were deported, if, say, they are Afghan, since deporting is also a grave breach. Further still, the U.S. cannot pick people up anywhere in the world, ship them to the point of least justice, and then claim 'duration of conflict'. And most especially, and this was the source of the fog I mentioned, the U.S. has no right picking someone up under one conflict and then holding them for the duration of another, or declaring a permanent conflict for the purposes of indefinite detention.