Hoda Muthana

[Mike M (the other one)]

(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

Good info, and very solid.
I would say the biggest and hardest part to get is 2 witnesses who both saw the same overt act that would be needed to testify against her.

The last time someone was charged AND convicted of Treason was in 1949. So it's not something that is tossed around lightly. The best we can do is leave her right where she is. Your bed, take your pill.