One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

That's the Obama administration. Every time the Obama administration does something positive, such as recognizing the necessity for indefinite detentions in certain cases, it turns right around and does something contrary to U.S. interests. According to the Wall Street Journal,

The Justice Department has determined that detainees tried by military commissions in the U.S. can claim at least some constitutional rights, particularly protection against the use of statements taken through coercive interrogations, officials said.

Unlike the Bush administration, which despite its many faults, at least understood that hostile aliens have no constitutional rights, the Obama administration seems determined to pretend that they are somehow entitled to them -- even if it wants to pick and choose which ones they get.

If we are going to grant foreign terror suspects constitutional rights, there is no point in using military commissions at all. Just try them in regular court, watch them go free, pay out their lawsuits against the U.S. government, and wait to see what new terrorist activities they get involved with. That's the preferred option of terrorist rights proponents. 

Indefinite detention would not be necessary if the Obama administration simply recognized that hostile aliens neither have nor deserve rights of any kind -- let alone during wartime. Military tribunals should simply be able to weigh the evidence against each prisoner, come to a determination of guilt or innocence, set the innocent free, and hand down sentences to the guilty. We are making things way more complicated than necessary.