Terrorists: Soldiers or Criminals?

It is a very tough question and one that may not have a right answer or may be worth asking. Dahlia Lithwick exploresthe question at Slate.

But we should probably stop kidding ourselves that anyone, outside newspapers and academia, is strictly choosing between these two systems. Criminal vs. soldier is not a dichotomy the Bush administration accepts. It never has. This president likes to have it both ways: tending to treat terror suspects as soldiers or criminals as suits his purposes. The innovation of his lawyers has been to tack back and forth between the military and criminal law systems, thus avoiding either's constraints.

If neither the government or defense attorneys select on field, why should we care?