The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Islamic terrorists, making possible dozens of Moussaoui circus trials: Terror Detainees Win Right to U.S. Courts.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court delivered a mixed verdict Monday on the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, ruling that the U.S. government has the power to hold American citizens and foreign nationals without charges or trial, but that detainees can challenge their treatment in U.S. courts.

The administration had sought a more clear-cut endorsement of its policies than it got. The White House had claimed broad authority to seize and hold potential terrorists or their protectors for as long as the president saw fit — and without interference from judges or lawyers.

In both cases, the ruling was 6-3, although the lineup of justices was different in the two decisions.

Ruling in the case of American-born detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said the court has “made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.”

Congress did give the president authority to hold Hamdi, a four-justice plurality of the court said, but that does not cancel out the basic right to a day in court.

The court ruled similarly in the case of about 600 foreign-born men held indefinitely at a U.S. Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The men can use American courts to contest their captivity and treatment, the high court said.

This decision plays right into the hands of the jihadis, who have long been aware that the West’s adherence to principles of justice can be used as a weapon; their strategies are clearly outlined in this chapter of an Al Qaeda training manual captured in the UK: Prisons and Detention Centers.

UPDATE: AP calls the decision a defeat for President Bush …

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that prisoners seized as potential terrorists and held for more than two years in Cuba may challenge their captivity in American courts, a defeat for President Bush in one of the first major cases arising from the Sept. 11 attacks.

… but it’s a defeat for the entire country. The Supreme Court has effectively hamstrung the war against radical Islam, extending rights to enemy combatants that go far beyond even the Geneva Conventions.