Q: When is a combatant not a combatant?

A: I don't know, but if they are at Guantanamo, they are all combatants. --A Scalia.

Or, one could look at this story about three Muslim residents of Britain, who were first detained in Britain in November 2002, and questioned for four days about their relationship to a radical cleric. Cleared of any wrongdoing, they traveled to Africa and were arrested there by US and local "operatives", and further interrogated for a month, before two of them were sent first to Afghanistan and finally to Guantanamo, where they are still held 3 1/2 years later.

The article suggests that

The primary purpose of this elaborate operation, documents and interviews suggest, was not to neutralize a pair of potential terrorists -- authorities have offered no evidence that they were planning attacks -- but to turn them into informers.

So were these the guys shooting at Mr. Scalia's son?

I visited the site of the Dachau concentration camp near Munich once, and I remember the embarrassment of my German friends over the very existence of the place and my visit there. I am coming to understand how they felt.