Ali al-Marri's plea deal coming just two months after moving his case to federal district court from his long military detention at the Charleston Naval brig is one clear example that our existing institutions were perfectly capable of dealing with the challenges posed by al Qaeda terrorist suspects. Karen's description of the early days at Guantanamo is another. Even though the mission was somewhat unusual, General Michael Lehnert's selection as the first commander of the detention camp at Guantanamo was based on his experience handling previous migrant crisis operations, upon which the early military plans for the camp were based. It's time we get our institutions back to the tasks they were designed for: prosecuting crimes in federal courts and using military detention only in direct support of battlefield operations.

Advocates for using military commissions or national security courts for trials of al Qaeda terrorists are going to have a hard time explaining al-Marri's rapid plea agreement and 15-year sentence. We were told that it was necessary to remove him from the federal prison where he was awaiting trial "to prevent him from aiding al Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States or its armed forces, other government personnel, or citizens." I don't think he is going to be doing any aiding of al Qaeda from the Supemax in Florence, Colorado--or if he servers out his sentence in his native Qatar as has been rumored. Furthermore, his 15-year term with so far no credit for time served is three times the sentence Salim Hamdan received for the same material support for terrorism conviction in his military commission.

General Lehnert knew Guantanamo and he knew his mission: he had run the detention aspects of Operation Sea Signal dealing with the primarily Hatian migrant crisis of the mid-1990s also housed at Guantanamo. He set about constructing a detention regime based on that experience and the foundation of military detention: the Geneva Conventions. But the rug was quickly pulled out from under General Lehnert on both fronts and he didn't last long.

The Bush administration declared that the military would now detain indefinitely without protection of Geneva, or any other law, suspected al Qaeda members and their supporters captured anywhere in the world. It was a staggeringly broad and unprecedented expansion of military detention--never before had the military been authorized to detain individuals not part of the armed forces of an enemy state outside a zone of active combat.

But it didn't have to be this way. Military detention is entirely appropriate for members of al Qaeda taking part in hostilities in a zone of active combat. Our federal courts are well suited to prosecute members of al Qaeda accused of criminal acts against the United States in areas outside that of current U.S. military operations. The lessons of these failed experiments are clear: America's existing institutions, honed over decades of experience, are perfectly capable of handling the set of challenges presented by al Qaeda.