#8 Thinking.
If Gitmo is primarily housing captures of the Afghan campaign and most of them have been in place for 1 to 2 years, the probability of the interned providing timely intel is quickly eroding. Meantime, the radical left lawyers and their allies on the bench are unfortunately making headway in their litigation of the war by judicial decree. Since Congress is cowardly allowing the third branch of government to establish new powers of intrusion and oversight in the conduct of war, then the Commander is engaging in some interesting manuevering. Once the interned are placed in Geneva Convention status, they only need to render name, rank, id number, and date of birth. However, if they are no longer a source of intel or intel so old it no longer is useable, then the Convention status means they are treated as POWs and subject to legal standards which the court can only intrude upon by outright fiat declaration of powers they do not have. The boys remain in limbo till Congress repeals SJR:23 of 12 Sept 2001. Basically, their living standards remain the same as any other prisoner maintained in any other high security prison in the states or federal prison system. Since they become classified as POWs, the lawyers can no longer represent them, only representative of the ICRC who can only cite treaty standards for treatment. Not that they won't try to create new ones, but as AI is quickly learning, it doesn't sell with the only audience that has any influence on the matter. |