“We have laws to punish criminals and to imprison legal POWs till peace is made .... So develop a new category for terrorist illegal combatants. “
Actually we do have a such a law. In the majority opinion in the 2006 Hamdan case (which went in favor of the defendant), the Supreme Court told Pres Bush that such a law was needed. Bush asked Congress to draft a law covering the detention of foreign terrorist combatants and specifying a denial of habeas corpus. Congress drafted and passed is law.
Oh, by the way, in a subsequent high profile case, the Supreme Court majority ignored the law (as well as 200 years of US precedent and another 900 years of English common law) and proclaimed habeas corpus rights foreign enemy combatants.
So apparently, the Supreme Court doesn’t really need a law any more than it needs a constitution.
The Constitution allows Congress to pass a law of this type, then limit the jurisdiction of the Court to review it.
But a wishy-washy Congress will never use this power.
To be fair, the only time this power was used, during Reconstruction, does not give us a lot of reason to be enthusiastic about it.