Supreme Court Rules That Military Tribunals Are Unconstitutional and al-Qaeda is Protected by the Geneva Convention: What Will Happen Next

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has clipped the Administration's wings a bit by ruling that military tribunals are unconstitutional and that the Geneva Convention applies to al-Qaeda prisoners, look for one of these things to happen next with regards to the Geneva Convention itself:

• The U.S. will attempt to modify the Geneva Convention so that terrorists captured on a battlefield are not prisoners of war since they are not uniformed members of a national army OR
  
  
• The U.S. will pull out of the Geneva Convention as they pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The latter decision would be detestable and unsupportable from my point of view.

The former would be a better solution, but it would very likely be rejected by other members of the U.N. who dislike current U.S. treatment of prisoners and want Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay closed.

One question that concerns me a great deal: did the Supreme Court look to international laws to decide on the status of al-Qaeda prisoners under the Geneva Convention, or did they look to American law to determine that the prisoners deserved Convention protections?

The U.S. Supreme Court is NOT an international court. They can only look to American law and American precidence to judge American legal questions, not international standards which are sometimes contrary to our Constitution.

One would hope that they looked at American law to make their determination.