The Big Picture and the Closeup

Do we want our presidents empowered to imprison people simply for their beliefs?

The Boumediene case was another “win” for the Guantanamo detainees. But with nobody leaving Guantanamo without permission on Bush and Cheney’s watch, the Administration is the real winner.

But we had better be prepared for the consequences. Someone, somewhere, is going to try us, quite seriously, for war crimes. And somewhere else, someone is going to commit war crimes against our soldiers because we fail to recognize their own combatants as POWs. And it won’t be pretty.