The captured pirate will be tried, convicted and imprisoned. I suppose there will be some jurisdiction issues to resolve, but there essentially are no major legal problems here.

The Bush Administration managed to try and convict only Osama Bin Laden’s driver.

The Bush Administration captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003 and never managed to try him.

If the Obama Administration manages to try and convict this pirate in the next few weeks, then the Obama Administration could make itself look quite effective, compared to the Bush Administration.

The Bush Administration made a mess of this issue of handling unlawful combatants. Bush imagined it was enough for him to declare that “the USA does not torture people.” The Bush Administration’s thinking on the issue was incoherent, poorly argued and gradually discredited.

Those of us who tried to defend the Bush Administration were compelled to throw up out hands in dismay time after time. For example, we grabbed some guys living in Bosnia and then tried to argue that we could hold them without legal proceedings because they were unlawful combatants. This was an entirely undefensible, ludicrous legal argument.

I don’t think that the Obama Administration will do any worse on these issues than the Bush Administration. The Obama Administraton might actually try and convict some bad guys.