>>I gotta go with Tamar on this one (sorry, John). The Constitution does not specify citizens as the sole beneficiaries of due process. Roosevelt pulled off the whole "enemy combatants" designation under an entirely different court under entirely different circumstances. Personally, I'm pretty torn on this issue as to which side was right.
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>>I guess, now, to avoid the whole legal issue we'll just have to shoot the terrorists on sight and not accept surrenders ;-).
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>While the constitution may not specify citizens, there are tons of cases where the courts have said they apply to citizens. It's usually discussed under the "equal protection" clause of the constitution. Historically, non citizens were not afforded the rights of citizens. That has gradually eroded, to the point that now illegal aliens are being given more and more "rights". Now, the supremes have extended it even further in an extremely dangerous ruling.
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>I do like your second option, but some times we need to question these people. Even under this new ruling, we can still detain people for a "reasonable" length of time, without charge. In law enforcement, that has been determined to be 48 hours. Maybe I'm just too close to the law enforcement side, but it doesn't bother me that we are detaining "enemy combatants" during this exercise in futility. Don't forget, when I'm King, we'll just eradicate the problem, and bring the troops home!<g>

Enemy combatants according to whom? That's the whole point, or at least a good part of it. These detainees are only suspects unless and until charges are proved against them. Like you, I have no doubt some, probably many, of them are guilty and would do us harm if given the opportunity. But it hasn't been proven. All we have is the government's word for that. We should certainly know by now that not everything the government has told us since 9/11 has been true. That's not trying to turn this into a partisan dispute, it's just a statement of fact.