The continuing detention of captured al Qaeda and Taliban members at Guantanamo is fast becoming the favored cause of international activists opposed to the aggressive prosecution of the war on terror. Even the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has traditionally maintained "neutrality" on such questions (declining even to publicly criticize the Third Reich's death camps during World War II), recently attacked the U.S. for failing to establish a timetable for trying, or freeing, the Guantanamo detainees. A few points should be made in defense of the administration's policy.

The ICRC's primary complaint is that "after more than 18 months of captivity, the internees still have no idea about their fate." As the ICRC knows very well, this is the case with respect to all captured enemy combatants in every war. The laws of war permit such individuals to be held for the entire duration of the conflict--primarily to ensure that they cannot rejoin the fight. Contrary to the claims of the ICRC, other activist groups and even some U.S. allies, the detainees are not being held "indefinitely." The length of their confinement is purely a function of how long the war lasts. The administration's critics might reflect how Churchill would have reacted if, during the Battle of Britain, the ICRC had asked him how long his Axis prisoners would be held.

The "war on terror" is not some perpetual struggle against international evil, comparable to the endless wars against crime and poverty. It is a conflict between the U.S. and al Qaeda, its associated groups and those states that choose to give it assistance. The war will end when al Qaeda is smashed and no longer capable of launching attacks against American targets. This may take years; wars often do. In previous conflicts, captured Americans have been held for years. Sen. John McCain, Adm. James Stockdale and their fellows spent much of their youth in the Hanoi Hilton.

Significantly, as the ICRC also knows, the right to detain captured enemy combatants, without trial, without lawyers and without an established release schedule, stems from one of the most important humanitarian advances in the law of the armed conflict, dating back at least to the 17th century--the rise of an obligation to "give quarter." Before this, except for a few wealthy or powerful individuals worth ransoming, captured soldiers could be, and very often were, put to the sword. This brutal practice was widespread as late as the 1580s when, for example, many sailors and soldiers of the Spanish Armada were summarily executed after their ships were driven onto the rocks in Ireland...