If the Pakistanis delivered bin Laden to the U.S. for bounty, I don't think anybody would conceive of a problem.

lol, you want to bet.

Innocence has nothing to do with anything here.

First, it casts a false moral framework for warfare. It is not immoral to oppose a foreign military. The Geneva Convictions forbid prosecutions for simple combat.

There is no war. No declaration of war nor a defined enemy. It's not even a "police action" like Viet Nam which at least met one of those two requirements.

Second, detentions have long been recognized for circumstances for which any notion of "innocence" is misplaced. The Army Field Manual authorizes detentions for reasons of "operational security." In other words, a bystander who accidentally becomes aware of force movements may be detained until the completion of the operation. The reasons for the detention establish the conditions.

You can't seriously be comparing holding a civilian with mission critical details for a limited time and the unlimited detention we've seen at Gitmo. No I really mean that. You CAN'T compare the two.

Preventative detention is not punishment; it does not arise from convictions or sentencing.

Funny, it kind of seems punitive. Taking people against their will and locking them in prisons and then torturing them seems a hell of a lot like punishment. I suppose if you want to call it "sadism" that'd work instead.

The development in the cases leading up to and including Boumediene was that non-citizens were similarly entitled to some sort of process, though I don't believe anybody thinks the non-citizens were entitled to the same protections as a U.S. citizen. What that process is will be Obama's journey of discovery.

So, no I think Boumediene merely expands on Hamdi, but it doesn't change the basic framework that enemy combatants can be detained indefinitely and that it is a separate issue from war crimes.

The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi that the government has the authority to indefinitely detain enemy combatants (those associated with or directly supporting al-Qauda or the Taliban).

But didn't they essentially overrule that ruling in Boumediene v. Bush last year.

Just curious, since many of you read Mr. Drum more frequently than I do. Was he ever so, um, gracious, in his assessment of these thorny problems while President Bush faced them?

I think so. Recall that Drum initially supported the Iraq War and is generally a pragmatist. This is a hard one to search, given the vast number of posts he wrote on Gitmo, but see, for example, this one from Feb. 2006.

There's more like this, and the story it tells is that the problem at Guantanamo isn't just that it's difficult separating fact from fiction when prisoners have been captured in the heat of battle and the witnesses against them are thousands of miles away and untrustworthy to boot. That's a genuine problem, and not one that's easily resolved.

First, it casts a false moral framework for warfare. It is not immoral to oppose a foreign military. The Geneva Convictions forbid prosecutions for simple combat.

Second, detentions have long been recognized for circumstances for which any notion of "innocence" is misplaced. The Army Field Manual authorizes detentions for reasons of "operational security." In other words, a bystander who accidentally becomes aware of force movements may be detained until the completion of the operation. The reasons for the detention establish the conditions.

The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi that the government has the authority to indefinitely detain enemy combatants (those associated with or directly supporting al-Qauda or the Taliban). The condition is that "the detaining country must release and repatriate them ‘without delay after the cessation of active hostilities,’ unless they are being lawfully prosecuted or have been lawfully convicted of crimes and are serving sentences.”

Preventative detention is not punishment; it does not arise from convictions or sentencing.

In a court.

We have never, ever required trials to establish that enemy combatants are "guilty." We should have a judicial proceeding to establish that they're actually combatants and not some unfortunate sap caught in a sweep - but no more than that.

In a court.

Preventative detention in the USA of who is the question - Pro-Life, Second amendment, and Federalist groups?

What interest does the government have in detaining innocents captured in these "war zones"?

Steve, I think that the government has no interest in detaining innocents.

But the fundamental problem with our detainees is that we have not established a way to know whether they are innocent or guilty.

So, the government may have no interests in holding innocents, but they may very well be holding innocents under faith that they are guilty.

What interest does the government have in detaining innocents captured in these "war zones"?

Because evidence was handled so poorly for so long (or simply based on the word of someone looking for a bounty) that we are simply unsure who is innocent and it will be difficult to sort them.

Of course, it's a rather minimal price. Even if a 9/11 scale attack occured on a monthly basis in the US, you'd still be statistically more at risk of dying of the flu or in a car accident than at the hands of a terrorist.