Thomas Sowell on the rights of terrorists:

We have already turned loose dozens of captured terrorists, who have resumed their terrorism. Why? Because they have been given “rights” that exist neither in our laws nor under international law.

These are not criminals in our society, entitled to the protection of the Constitution of the United States. They are not prisoners of war entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention.

There was a time when people who violated the rules of war were not entitled to turn around and claim the protection of those rules. German soldiers who put on U.S. military uniforms in order to infiltrate American lines during the Battle of the Bulge were simply lined up against a wall and shot.

American authorities filmed the mass executions. Nobody dreamed up fictitious “rights” for these enemy combatants, who had violated the rules of war. Nobody thought we had to prove that we were nicer than the Nazis by bending over backward.

Bending over backward is a very bad position from which to try to defend yourself. Nobody in those days confused bending over backward with “the rule of law,” as President Obama did recently. Bending over backward is the antithesis of the rule of law. It is depriving the people of the protection of their laws, in order to pander to mushy notions among the elite.

Even under the Geneva Convention, enemy soldiers have no right to be turned loose before the war is over. Terrorists — “militants” or “insurgents,” for those of you who are squeamish — have declared open-ended war against America. It is open-ended in time and open-ended in methods, including beheadings of innocent civilians.