Civilian Trials and the So-Called Rule of Law

by Glenn Greenwald

I was wondering if someone could reconcile these three things:

From Obama terrorism adviser John Brennan, on this weekend's Meet the Press:

MR. GREGORY: Why isn't [Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab] being treated as an enemy combatant instead of a criminal?

MR. BRENNAN: Well, because, first of all, we're a country of laws, and what we're going to do is to make sure that we treat each individual case appropriately. In the past Richard Reid, the former shoe bomber; Zacarias Moussaoui; Jose Padilla; Iyman Faris; all of them were charged in criminal court, were sentenced some in -- in some cases to life imprisonment.