If yesterday was any indication, a federal
appeals court will soon hand the Bush administration a major defeat on
their policy of indefinitely detaining "enemy combatants."
Ali al-Marri might be an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. Or at least, the
Bush administration said so and detained him five years ago, but has
never charged him. Instead, al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar living as a
legal resident in Illinois, has been detained for all that time in a
Navy brig in Charleston, SC. The administration's stance is that,
thanks to the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed
by Congress on September 18, 2001, it can hold al-Marri as long as it
sees fit. It got a boost last year from the Military Commissions Act,
which revoked due process from anyone detained as an enemy combatant.
Yesterday, lawyers for al-Marri challenged his detention before the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Some of the judges
appeared disinclined to accept the administration's arguments, according to The New York Times:
?What
would prevent you from plucking up anyone and saying, ?You are an enemy
combatant?? ? Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit asked the administration?s lawyer, David
B. Salmons.
If the court rules as it seems inclined to, it would represent a
serious curtailment of the legal -- some would say extra-legal --
architecture the Bush administration has relied on to pursue the war on
terrorism for the past five years.
