By National Commander Marty Conatser

There’s a saying I once heard: “You can’t talk a hog into slaughtering itself.” I am not sure I believe that anymore, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision to give detained enemy combatants the ability to sue us in our own judicial system. Captured terrorists from foreign lands, or so the ruling suggests, have U.S. constitutional rights, just like you and me. Members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and various other rogue cells committed to our destruction, are now granted legal privileges previously enjoyed only by U.S. citizens.

The decision is what it is. And we must respect it. However, the 5-4 ruling raises many chilling concerns about the future of America’s ability to fight and defend itself in a time of war.

The ruling punches a hole in the president’s wartime decision-making authority and subordinates Congress, in order to give suspected terrorists their day in our courts. To extend the argument, split-second battlefield decisions of U.S. officers and troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan may soon be influenced by the odds of winning in court, should it come to that. That’s a lot to ask of soldiers caught infirefights against an enemy without insignia, flag, military uniform orany respect for the Geneva Conventions.

To shoot or not to shoot? Todetain or let go? U.S. combat troops have to trust their training, instincts and morals, which are already far superior to those of any foeon the planet.

As the high court’s decision was reported, I thought of Matt Maupin and his family. In 2004, the 20-year-old private first class from Ohio wascaptured by insurgents in Iraq. He was riding in a fuel tanker as part of a 26-vehicle convoy between Balad and Baghdad International Airport when the ambush came. The last time the young Army reservist was seen alive, he was surrounded by masked gunmen in a video aired by AlJazeera. Another video was later released, depicting the execution of aU.S. soldier who may have been him. Maupin’s parents spent four years inanguish without word – not knowing – until their son’s remains wereidentified last spring, using DNA testing.

Such is the courtroom ofour enemies.

Maupin’s terrorist captors, who stormed out of private homes and roadside ditches in their ambush on the convoy, scoff at justice. Theysimply attack, capture, murder and make a public spectacle of it. That’s Terrorism 101.

We need to remember who the enemy is. The enemy hijacked four U.S. jetliners on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and killed thousands of innocent people. The enemy seized journalist Daniel Pearl and executed him in a cowardly act of public bravado in Pakistan; a terrorist at Guantanamo Bay took credit for that beheading in 2007. The enemy is not a soldier but a fanatical thug who, at Guantanamo Bay, is fed well, treated by doctors and dentists, given religious freedom and afforded recreational activities. Those who are not dangerous are returned to their countries of origin. Those who remain devoted to our destruction, or are seriously suspected of it, remain in U.S. detention.

It’s pretty simple, really. At least it was until the ruling in June.