Pentagon Lawyer "Apologizes" to Seminoles Over Al Qaeda Analogy.

Listen up, kids, this is what happens when you are straining to justify exemptions to the Constitution for certain classes of really bad people -- you wind up citing precedent from other unlawful or excessive periods of history driven by populist rage -- it could have been Korematsu but in this case it was that whole slaughter of the Seminoles thing:

“Not only was the Seminole belligerency unlawful, but, much like modern-day al Qaeda, the very way in which the Seminoles waged war against U.S. targets itself violate the customs and usages of war.”

Oops!

Ok, so you are saying the Seminoles were like al Qaeda because they both waged war against U.S. targets unlawfully but also "the very way in which" they waged war which "itself violate[d] the customs and usages of war."

Seems pretty clear.  If that's what you want to say, then own it.

Let's see how they walk this one back:

“I regret any larger suggestion that the Seminole Tribe should be equated with al Qaeda,” Johnson wrote in an April 7 letter.

Right!  I just meant it in the very narrow sense that they are exactly alike in the very way in which they waged war unlawfully, a way which itself violated the customs and usages of war.

Other than that -- totally different.

Johnson pointed out in the letter that war court prosecutors had written the military commissions review panel “clarifying the legal point they originally intended to make” – that the analogy “could have benefited from greater precision” but was a valid precedent.

"The morality or propriety of General Jackson’s military operation in Florida is irrelevant,” they wrote.

Hmm, when is the morality or propriety of a military operation ever totally irrelevant?

That's like citing Dred Scott purely on a question of civil procedure, or Ted Bundy on Evidence but acknowledging the guy may have gotten some other things wrong.