legalities

In March 2003, the United States entered into a state of war with Iraq. In May 2003, that war ended, by declaration of the president. At that point, the US was occupying Iraq.

Under International Law, all prisoners fall into either "prisoner or war" or "suspected criminal" or "material witness" categories. Enemy combatant is bullshit. If terrorism is not state-sponsored, it is simply a crime.

Since we were at war from March to May 2003, prisoners captured during that time were POWs, up until the war was over. At that point, it is normal to negotiate the handover of POWs. Since the US became the occupying power, that would not happen. Instead, the US should have released all POWs that do not also fall into the "suspected criminal" or "material witness" categories. At that point, all remaining prisoners should have had their corpuses dragged in front of a court or tribunal to verify their status.

None of this happened.

After May 2003, Iraq has been part of the territory of the Empire of the United States of America, under martial law. Therefore, any prisoners captured by the army since then should be treated as "suspected criminals" or "material witnesses", and have that status verified by a competent tribunal. Whatever the military-justice version of habeas corpus is. The supreme court has ruled that under martial law, habeas corpus can be suspended for a short time, but not for long periods of time.

As far as I know, none of this has happened.

The president has taken a US citizen on US soil and detained him indefinitely, without habeas corpus. It was justified because that citizen is a Muslim. Given this, is it a surprise that subjects of the EUSA are not granted civil rights by the administration?