These prisoners in Afghanistan are not covered by the US Constitiution but the crimes of the Bush administration absolutely are and they have violated the constitution deliberately and consistently throughout their term in office. Be that as it may these prisoners in Afghanistan are covered by numerous international laws:

The United Nations Convention banning torture was signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988. It bans torture in all and every circumstance. As signatories the US is in violation of this convention in Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, and most obviously and shockingly in Abu Ghraib.

George W. Bush issued Military Order number 1 on November 13 2001 without congressional authority. Human rights lawyer Michael Ratner describes this order as 'extraordinary' in that it defined which people the president of the United States could detain at will, simply by designating any non-citizen as a terrorist. He could also do this to 'someone associated with international terrorists, with no legal safeguards and no court orders, nothing but a note from the president to the secretary of defense to detain someone, for as long as the president wants, with no way to appeal such designation. The president decided that he was no longer running the country as a civilian president. He issued a military order giving himself the power to run the country as a general. Under the order he claimed the absolute power to arrest non-citizens anywhere in the world, EVEN IN THE UNITED STATES, and hold them indefinitely and without charge or a lawyer until the so-called war on terror was over, which could be fifty years or forever'. Since Barack Obama is a lawyer he is doubly required to uphold the law, as president and as a man educated to practice law.

On top of that the Bush administration's hypocrisy on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the laws of war is amazing. According to Ratner:

'The president is claiming that the laws of war apply to all those in Guantanamo, all those picked up in the so-called war on terror. But the president is using the laws of war selectively, picking and choosing them as he wants. There are only two legal systems that apply in dealing with arrests, captures and detentions: criminal law/human rights law or the laws of war (sometimes called humanitarian law). But the United States has set up a third system that depends entirely on its own discretion and it own notion of the laws of war'.

The whole system is anti-democratic and runs by decree. This is how Hitler ruled Germany. If Obama goes along with this he will reveal himself to be their enabler, just as George W. Bush was. This is American exceptionalism taken to the point of lunacy and beyond. It's indefensible.

Obama and Co had plenty of time to think about this non-war/police action or whatever it is we are doing in Afghanistan. A wrong Afghanistan strategy will hurt us.

As an American living in the neighborhood and reading all the local newspapers and analysis from sociologists and other military and counter terrorism experts, a viewpoint rarely reported in U.S.newspapers or other forms of U.S. media, I can tell you that no one really cares for U.S.constitutional rights or Geneva convention or other international form of justice in Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan

Its simple frontier justice. You hurt me and I'll hurt you, you kill one of mine, I'll kill off your family on and on ad nauseum. Unless we plan to nuke them all and lay waste to the countryside we are in a losing war of attrition. The U.S. will just not send enough of our children to fight a war they do not understand in a far off land. All this predator drone bombings are just pissing them off big time and the prisoner torture that probably is pointless, are as great recruitment tools for these bozos as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were.

The war zone is now expanded into Pakistan so where do we stop? We are just enabling them to a time when they bring the war home to us. Why can't we just recruit and train local talent to do what we came to do in the first place? bump off Bin Laden and get out.

Wow, ondelette and Eric Berry, great way to model respectful, engaged, passionate debate and dialogue. I'm really in awe. Thanks to both of you, and everyone else who contributed in the spirit of trying to understand.

You are that rare fellow who can look at the facts and listen to an argument. It's good to see that, too often the discussion here is limited to lots of talking and not much listening.

Of course Ondelette really knows how to make his case. I never argue with him. Not prudent. Not prudent at all. LOL

Thanks rather to you, for giving it a second look.

You are doing a hell of a good job of persuading me. So the principled distinction you want to draw is that the military was exercising police power -- not powers of war -- when it took these four into custody, and that it happened outside of a war zone. That make sense, I think (it also has nothing to extending habeas rights generally to the Bagram population). Bates did seem to be groping in that direction from the newspaper accounts -- and there is some intuitive appeal to the idea that wherever U.S. authorities are exercising police powers, there should be review by U.S. courts. I'll look at the transcript of the hearing before Bates tomorrow assuming I can find it. Thanks.

Poor Joan. She doesn't understand the daily reports that Obama gets from the NSA, DIA, CIA and other intel analysts. Let us hope this WH naif finally understands the horror of the enemy that would kill even nice little Joan if the USA is not prepared to kill the enemy. Civil rights for terrorists? Oh c'mon. None of you libs would have give those rights to all those hated Nazis that none of you even remember because you are mostly children from the '60's. FDR never gave any of those thugs civil rights and neither did Churchill. Oh,yeah, Obama doesn't know who Winnie was. Well do try to keep up with reality and when the next Islamofascist attack occurs, let us hope the President doesn't listen to the Times,Post, Salon or any other leftist group of naifs when it comes to national security.