Quote Originally Posted by Psycho4Bud
LOL...since when did the rule of law or due process in a U.S. Court have ANYTHING to do with a POW during a time of conflict? ONCE AGAIN, how many of the 435,000 Germans detained in the U.S. during WW2 made their way into a U.S. court?
P4B, you keep going back to the idea that these detainees are prisoners of war, and while I might tend to agree with you on that, the government has claimed that they are not POWs. So just forget it -- they aren't POWs.

And even if they were considered POWs, the rule of law and due process do apply to POWs. You are wrong if you are saying it doesn't. The definition of a POW is a legal definition and there are laws that apply to the treatment of people with a legal status of POW. So POWs receive due process in accordance with their status as POWs. You are right that they do not get their day in court, but that doesn't mean they don't have protections under the law or receive due process as POWs. Both civilians and POWs recieve due process, but under different rules.

The reason that they are being given their day in court is because the governemnt has chosen not to process them as POWs, so the court has said they must be given due process under civilian rules. It's the government's blunder, not the court's.

When I refer to the breakdown of the rule of law, I am referring to the government's attempt to designate these people as neither POWs nor civilians. They were attempting to create a situation in which the detainee could not recieve due process as a POW nor as a civilian. They wanted to create a legal black hole in which they could do whatever they wanted with these people, subject to neither set of rules. That is an attempt to circumvent the rule of law by creating a situation in which no laws apply.

Quote Originally Posted by Psycho4Bud
So what rights under U.S. law OR the Geneva Convention did either Nick Berg or Eugene Armstrong have just to name a few? NONE...both were beheaded! Giving people from this group rights under the Geneva Convention is one thing; giving them the rights of a U.S. citizen is completely wrong!
Nick Berg and Eugene Armstrong did have rights. Thier rights were incorrectly taken from them and they were beheaded. It's an atrocity, and everyone the world over knows it was wrong. What makes us different from the terrorists is that we respect the rule of law and don't do that kind of thing. I think that is what this court ruling is about --- keeping us from taking a step toward ignoring the rule of law and just doing whatever the hell we want to people.