I haven't read the decision yet, and have no immediate plans to
do so (it's 185 pages, and I'm busy with a long feature for a
different magazine). But as with the
McCain Amendment, I wonder if the effect of extending Geneva
protections to al Qaeda won't be to encourage rendition of al Qaeda
detainees to less scrupulous countries. That would be an unhappy
result (from
both a humanitarian and a strategic perspective), though
without digging into the opinion I can't say if there might be a
legislative or other policy remedy to the problems the case
raises.