It's not complicated at all. A person is either a military personnel or a civilian.
There's no third classification under the US Cons ution.
Considering an 'enemy combatant' is not a military personnel, he's merely a civilian. You can call him/her whatever you want: "terrorist", "radicalized civilian", "enemy combatant", "unabomber", "freedom fighter", etc etc etc... it's still a civilian.
Except that we're in no war (as stated in the US Cons ution, declared by Congress) and we're not in any public emergency that prevent access to courts or the Judicial system.
Military courts have been used to judge enemy soldiers. If you want to reclassify all these 'enemy combatants' into 'enemy soldiers' and run them through the military justice system, then I have absolutely ZERO problems with that. But just as long as the government insists on classifying them as non-military personnel, then they fall squarely into the civilian figure, which include full access to civilian courts.
The one that treats citizens and non-citizens the same in front of justice. There's nothing "unclear" about due process, habeas corpus, discovery rules, etc etc etc.
I see... "The end justifies the means"...
Did the government sit on their ass for 10 years with enough evidence to convict this guy to life or the death penalty? Whose fault is it?
It's really sad that people are willing to throw away our entire justice system simply because "Ghalani (sp) needs to be in jail". I would argue that when you submit to that, "Ghalani (sp)" effectively has won.