But I can’t wrap my mind around the legal rationale (however twisted) under which “not combatants” are held. I can’t think of anything that’s come to light so far that sufficiently explains it other than perhaps Obama’s recent forays into “preventative detention.”

Am I missing something?

@28, 31, 39, 42 – thanks for the links

@55 – it means that they were unlawful non-combatants, ya know, unlawfully not combating, no, wait, that’s not quite right, um, lessee, they were …. Basically what it means is that no laws of war would allow for these guys to be picked up and held militarily bc they are not “combatants” (field of combat) and not soldiers or even members of the opposing forces, and the only way you get to them is to a) realize you have criminals (not warriors) and use criminal law conspiracy and money laundering and other avenues that are not unlawful acts under the laws of war and are not combatant acts under the laws of war, or b) pass the military commissions act and create US-centric rules of war that make both all combatants, all those who have ever had any kind of minimalistic contact with combatants (like the guy we are holding whose *contact* with al-qaeda was that he was tortured by them) grounds to kidnap, transport out of country and hold in depravity and oh yeah – anyone else anywhere in the world who is a non-combatant but who has no contact with any combatants but who someone in the Executive branch makes up crap about.

IOW, they aren’t using “combatant” bc they can’t – far less than 10% of the GITMO population had anything to do with any combat operations. And they also aren’t “members” of al-Qaeda. And they also haven’t engaged in direct acts of belligerency against the US. So – they are civilians that they learned how to torture at GITMO, after first violating Article 147 to kidnap them out of country. It leaves them at a loss for any workable word to cover what they’ve done.

@45 – I wonder if it is the IG report or perhaps the Arar case that has him more off the wall? IIRC, he was linked in with shipping Arar to torture and maybe with using the Khadr torture to get an affirmation that Arar was Al Qaeda and that case isn’t completely gone yet.

Page 23

OTMO and Iraq are different. I have had a year and a half to look at GTMO. GTMO used standards, how to treat detainee that are not combatants, how to interrogate, and incentive based interrogations. GTMO was successful.

That’s just bizarre.