Oh, my fanny. There's no way that would work. One board with a nail in it and you're done.

FDR was dead before the war ended--Truman was at the helm when the ropes went taut. Nuremberg is an oft-misunderstood example. Both military and civilian defendants were tried; the uniformed military tried at Nuremberg had a distinct legal status because they were, of course, uniformed military vice irregulars with no affiliation to a nation/state entity. Those defendants captured by the British were not given access to rights established by U.S. courts. If we allowed another entity to determine unlawful combatant status, we wouldn't need to have this debate. Have all prisoners processed by a separate entity to determine status, THEN have them transferred to American custody where their status, already established, would mean that they would not be entitled to habeas. There should be a kind of "night court" where they are assessed and given a legal status there and then. Make the standards tough, make it transparent and fair. That's what makes the fundamentalists explode with rage--an enlightened system that transcends their own. I think that the process of determining unlawful combatant status should be done at Bagram. I've never been comfortable with the idea that innocent Afghans have been swept up into the system. The American belief in fair play doesn't square with that. But, once someone is lawfully established as an enemy combatant, operating outside of the rules, they are not entitled to habeas or any other consideration unless proscribed by the Geneva Conventions. That process seems like the broken link to me. I could be wrong, but fixing that would silence reasonable complaints.