Hoda Muthana

[*michaelsean*]

(02-22-2019, 12:30 PM)Dill Wrote: Another idea just came into mind. Maybe it has some applicability to the Muthana case too.

In 2002, the US did not want to accord AQ and Taliban fighters the status of POWs, calling them rather "enemy combatants." 

To do that they could not regard them as armies of a legitimate state.

To charge John Walker Lindh with treason would have possibly affected the legal status of the Taliban and all other fighters by redefining the Taliban as the army of a state, their prisoners requiring Geneva protections and the like (including international inspections), which would mean sending them all home once the hot war was over rather than the indefinite detention desired.

Muthana might present a similar set of problems. It's hard to see what the legal consequences might be for future captives, so they want to avoid the problem altogether.  This continues to be a grey area for US law. Legally we only have a round hole and a square hole, but this peg is a triangle

If I remember correctly, they don't have to be from a recognized state.  It can be a group that you are in armed conflict with.  Sort of like you can declare war against a group like we did with the Barbary pirates.

My guess is they weren't positive of a treason conviction so they took the sure thing, but that's completely a guess.