"Forever ever?" aka "Ooooh! I Am for REE-uhl!"

The thing about "these days" is that it is hard to break out of my own cynicism as so much bad comes with the good.

This story is a great example of the kind of thing that drives my emotions to extremes on a daily basis.

I started reading, and was generally feeling positive about a judge who is willing to disallow coerced testimony from being introduced into a trial. Then I read on and become elated, straining to prevent my eye from tearing here at work:

"The court has not reached this conclusion lightly," Judge Kaplan said as he read his
order from the bench. "It is acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live. But the Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must
follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a
different direction. To do less would diminish us and undermine the foundation upon which we stand."

Wow. I am not a nationalist, but even I get weepy thinking about the since-unlearned official history of our country, where morality, humanity, and courage appeared in the thoughts and actions of great people all at the same time. But then I kept reading:

[The Judge] added that Mr. Ghailani's status as an "'enemy combatant' probably would permit his detention as something akin to a prisoner of war until the hostilities between the United States and Al Qaeda and the Taliban end, even if he were found not guilty."

(bold is mine, yo)

I guess I could see where he is coming from. If this were WWII it would probably be prudent for the US to not send uniformed Japanese soldiers back out onto the battlefield, but, since the "War on Terror" is not a conflict with an easy resolution, or even any at all, depending on the results of the next 10 elections or so, I don't know if Al Qaeda and the Taliban will ever be off the list of bad guys regardless of how many of them are left (I bet there is still a guy in Germany who doesn't like Jews and yet the war is over). And so the indeterminate nature of a war will ensure the indeterminate imprisonment of everyone thought* to be involved.

*(admittedly the thought is less tenuously-held in this instance, but in every one?)