War on terror now the criminal investigation of Islamist naughtiness?

J.D. Johannes believes that the Supreme Court decision yesterday granting habeas corpus to unlawful combatants for the first time in our nation’s history requires a slight nomenclature change. With American troops now expected to act as policemen instead of warriors, the produce of the Outside the Wire documentary series says “war on terror” is no longer applicable:

The U.S. Supreme Court, by granting the Writ of Habeas Corpus to enemy combatants, has declared the the war on Islamic Terrorism over.

It should now be properly phrased the criminal investigation of Islamic Terrorism.

He includes a clip from his documentary to demonstrate the only agents of habeas corpus on the battlefield — the US military:

The 5-4 decision reverses over 200 years of American war precedent, as well as turn the Geneva Convention on its head. Unlawful combatants now have more rights than POWs, whom the GC forbids access to civilian courts. POWs facing war-crimes charges have to be tried in military tribunals, not civil courts, but terrorists somehow now have better standing than those captured in uniform.

Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham suggested that he may pursue a Constitutional amendment to return the US to the proper course on the detention of unlawful combatants. Unfortunately, that may be the only course left open to Congress and the executive branch, which has now twice established a system that granted far more rights and even limited access to appellate courts than ever given unlawful combatants in our history. It will take longer than this session of Congress to construct an amendment that would reverse the Court’s decision yesterday, and the course of the upcoming election may make ratification difficult.

In the meantime, expect the US to start sending detainees back to home countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Afghanistan rather than keep them here. For those who complained about the “rendition” policies of the past (which the Clinton administration started), this court decision leaves the US little choice. We are not about to release Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his pals so that they can put together another 9/11 and kill thousands of more Americans. If we can’t keep them locked up here and out of harm’s way, we’ll send them where others can do so — if we don’t just follow the strict application of Geneva and simply kill them rather than take them prisoner in the future.