Hang on a second everyone.

It doesn’t actually matter what we (or maybe even the majority) think of Al’Qaeda or what should be done to them.

What DOES matter is the legal envoironment:

1. The Taliban detainees ARE PoW’s because they were officers and servants of a soveriegn country who were captured by US soldiers.

2. Al’Qaeda detainees ARE NOT PoW’s because they were not acting in the name or on the behalf of a nation state. They are therefore subject to the usual criminal law.

3. As there are two types of detainee the treatment of detainees will also be of two types – Taliban detainees should have been kept in their uniforms and subjected to the full rigamorole of the Geneva Convention as enemy Pows. Al’Qaeda detainees should have been subject to criuminal proceedings as per the US legal system.

4. In both cases this has not happened – the GC was not complied with, nor were the criminal cases dealt with. In fact the US circuit Court has ruled that US Courts have no jurisdiction, becayse Guantanamo Bay is not US sovereign territory (even though it is!)

5. The US government is therefore not only breaking rules all over the place, it is also breaking US law!

6. I am not a lawyer and appreciated there are deep legal issues in each of my points but my view remains that my points are factual in nature and taken individually, they are beyond dispute.