The key to believability is to have your arguments stand up to questioning and intellectual rigor. Reading off a list of talking points won't do it, and talking over the host won't do it either. That's why Yoo was impressive in exactly this same format — he responded to all of Stewart's questions, but did so in such a convoluted, detailed way that it was clear he was answering SOMETHING, but also that he was a black-belt lawyer who would never crack even a little in a 20-minute interview. I do not like Yoo, I think he was a hugely destructive force in our system, but damn if I didn't come away from his TDS interview with a certain amount of respect. I think the man's wrong, down to the ground, but I'm pretty sure he believes in his convictions and has solidly built up a case that he truly thinks explains his work.

I've got absolutely no respect for any public figure, right or left, who thinks that shouting talking points over your questioner is a show of intelligence or strength. It's not. It's a clear sign that either you or your argument are too weak to handle examination of any sort.

There have been FOUR Geneva Conventions. GC3 defines "lawful combatants". GC4 defines "protected persons" — basically anyone found in a war zone. It is mainly aimed at civilian bystanders, protecting them of beingcollateral victims of indiscriminate bombardment. But it protects them from torture, abuse and sexual and other humiliation. And the definition of "protected person" would include terrorists or other war criminals. They are protected from torture, abuse and sexual or other humiliation.

Second, please don't label all the Guantanamo captives "terrorists". Many of the Guantanamo captives — including those subjected to "extended interrogation techniques" were innocent civilian bystanders. Check the public record for yourself.

Third, please review Army Regulation 190-8. BOTH the Geneva Conventions, and the DoD's own regulations require a "competent tribunal" before a captive can be reclassified from being considered, and treated as, a POW. Army Regulation 190-8 lays out how the US military should conduct those "competent tribunals". Under the Bush administration the DoD didn't hold any.

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals weren't substitutes for the AR-190-8 Tribunals.
AR-190-8 were authorized to determine that a captive was (1) a lawful combatant, after all, who should continue to be treated as a POW; (2) an innocent civilian bystander, who should be set free ASAP; or (3) someone who might be a war criminal, who can be stripped of the protections of POW status.

However, as I noted above the suspected war criminal would remain a "protected person" — protected from torture, abuse and humiliation.

Yes, I acknowledge that President Bush may have had advisors who told him the extended methods weren't, technically, torture. It is highly questionable advice. When the courts rule on the techniques I predict they will refute that advice, and confirm these methods were torture.

And, as I noted above GC3 and GC4 don't just protect captives from torture, they protect them from other kinds of abuse, like sexual humiliation — which interrogators at Bagram and Guantanamo made extensive use of.

WRT the use of waterboarding during SERE training — the DoD has half a dozen centers that offer SERE training. Only one of those centers has waterboarding on the curriculum. Recently memos wriitten several years ago have emerged that challenged both the wisdom and legality of waterboarding GIs during training. And we now know that the technique the CIA used for waterboarding was far more brutal thant the single session that those who experienced waterboarding experienced during SERE training.
They weren't authorized to determine that

The Geneva Convention defines POW status, and terrorists don't fit it. They are illegal combatants. It is the Convention that strips them of POW status.

Indefinite wartime detention is obviously required if the war itself is indefinite. This is true whether those detained are POWs or illegal combatants.

The extended interrogation methods are legally not torture under US law, because the law prohibits the torture of US military personnel undergoing training, but extended interrogation methods are allowed in training. This legal fact is why these methods were adopted. If you want to pass a law tomorrow that says these methods are torture, fine, but you can't say it is legally torture today/

The USA is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. In all previous wars the USA has complied with the Geneva Conventions, and accorded its captives the special protections and limitations of POW status. The protections for POWs include humane treatment, no torture, stress positions, sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation. The limitation for the POWs include that they can be held, without charge, until the war is over.

Of course the USA's captives didn't need lawyers, and weren't given access to lawyers in earlier wars, because they were under the protections and limitations of POW status.

President Bush decided to violate the Geneva Conventions, so the USA could use "extended interrogation methods".

Civilized countries, that honor the rule of law, don't usually hold captives indefinitely, without laying charges on them. One of the exceptions is combatants, in wartime, when a signatory to the Geneva Conventions can hold the citizens of another country without charge, until the war is over.

When President Bush was talked into stripping the captives of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, he stripped the USA of the Geneva Conventions justification for holding POWs until hostilities cease. Those pesky lawyers were able to use the courts to seek to file habeas petitions precisely because President Bush chose to strip them of POW status.

It is a basic principle of Strategy — when you face a coalition, and you are deciding which partner to attack, it is almost always best to hold off on attacking the largest, most dangerous enemy. It is almost always better to attack the weaker and more vulnerable and less committed partners.

The Madrid bombing being a case in point. Those bombing knocked Spain out of the coalition.

To the extent Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, the original al Qaeda, remains in control, the USA can expect to be free of attacks at home so long as there are less committed coalition partners to try to knock out.

Note: The Christmas bomber, Najibullah Zazi, was not trained by the original al Qaeda. He was trained by "Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula", a different outfit, with no overlap in leadership.

He claimed the work pro-bono lawyers had done on the Guantanamo captives' habeas petitions had caused dangerous captives to be set free who subsequently engaged in hostile acts. This is a bald-faced lie.

None of the habeas petitions had run to completion before the Military Commission Act of 2006 shelved them. The Scotus ruling in Boumediene v. Bush reanimated them in June 2008. 44 have run to completion since then. 33 captives have been cleared for release. About 2/3 of them have been released. Not one of those men released due to a habeas petition stands accused of terrorism, or even a traffic violation.