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Guantanamo ruling no victory for Hicks : Comments
By Ted Lapkin, published 4/7/2006The US Supreme Court has not entirely repudiated the principles of Guantanamo.
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But the Hamdan decision recognized that the US is at war, and thus wartime rules apply to enemy combatants captured in combat theatres. Even the Court's ruling that the Geneva Conventions apply to Gitmo detainees supports the Bush administration's position that America is fighting a war against jihadist Islam.
During an armed conflict it is accepted practice to detain enemy combatants until the conclusion of hostillities in order to prevent them from rejoining the fight on the other side. And the US Supreme Court explicitly upheld the right of the US government to do precisely that with the detainees at Gitmo.
The arguments that A) Hicks should be released forthwith; or B) that he must be tried immediately fly in the face of legal reality. All these cavils about "indefinite detention without trial" are like saying that the Allies were morally bound to release German POWs before the end of the war.
This is a different sort of war, but a war nonetheless - legally, morally and practically.