General John D. Altenburg, Jr., head of military commissions at Guantanamo Bay , graduated from Wayne State University in 1966 and soon thereafter joined the army. He left the army in 1970, attended law school and began to practice law for the military. In 2004, he was appointed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to serve as the appointing authority of military commissions. Altenburg is therefore responsible for approving charges against individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay , approving plea agreements and appointing members of military commissions. "We're in a period in history when something has come up…and the law doesn't really have any way to account for it. Naturally, there is a lot of confusion," said Altenburg, who said that while al-Qaeda is not a nation protected under the Geneva conventions, it has more political clout than many established countries; he called rebellious belligerents and said the spirit of the Geneva Conventions says we can still hold them as detainees. "When one side captures people they hold them until the war is over. We had over 400,000 German and Italian POW's in the U.S. -- no one was saying when do they get a trial? What are you charging them with? Least of all the prisoners themselves." He said the Geneva Conventions mandate that prisoners can not be executed. He feels it is absurd that we should threaten death to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay , and it would alienate the international community.