For decades, America was the moral leader of the world on the laws of war. But now President George W. Bush has traded that moral high ground for a few paltry votes - maybe not even enough to save the Republicans from losing the House of Representatives in the coming elections.

Earlier this week, he strong-armed his own party and terrified the Democrats into passing a new military tribunals law that gives him the power to detain indefinitely anyone who meets a shockingly broad new definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant"; strips detainees in US military prisons of the sacred right of "habeas corpus", or the right to challenge their detention in federal court; and immunises US officials from prosecution for the worst of what they did at Abu Graib, or in the secret prisons where the most valuable captives were held.