ARTICLE: "Military Sending Foreign Fighters To Home Nations: Bid To Ease U.S. Burden; Prisoners From Iraq and Afghan Wars Can Block Transfer," by Mark Mazetti and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 28 August 2008, p. A1.

The CIA method has elicited a lot of international condemnation. The U.S. military method seems to be bridging some of those concerns, in effect winning some rule-set acceptance by accommodating the demands of the international community. Good stuff.

Our military has sent 200 foreign fighters home in the last two years, but the differences with the CIA program are important: 1) the prisoners can block the transfer; 2) the ICRC gets to interview all before any move; 3) the local government is informed about the transfer; and 4) the transit is direct from a military prison in-country to the home country in question, by-passing Gitmo.

The underlying logic is sound: you don't want to end up holding a lot of foreign nationals and the home nations are better equipped to deal with them. The downside, of course, is the lower standards for human rights in many of these places.

But clearly an improvement and a good example of what I talk about when I say it's one thing to propose a new rule and another thing to get other nations to buy into it.