What has the Supreme Court done??
In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.
This is a huge decision that will have repercussions for decades. It will affect how we fight wars and how we relate to other nations long after most of us are dead (assuming no other court sees what an idiotic decision this is, of course). The fundamental assumption behind the decision is breathtaking. Here’s what the majority must assume in order for its decision to make any sense at all.
People who:
1) are not US citizens,
2) who have no desire to become US citizens or even live in United States,
3) were taken while actively trying to kill US citizens,
4) were not wearing the uniform or insignia of a foreign army nor were operating under a foreign army’s orders,
5) have used women and children as protection, as weapons, and consider them legitimate targets for attack,
6) and were captured outside the US
are entitled to exactly the same Constitutional protections that you are.
Without that rather stunning and unprecedented assumption, this case would not even have gotten to the SCOTUS in the first place.
I believe you’ll find that what Robert McCain had to say about this is going to be happening a whole lot more.
Our troops, in response to Justice Kennedy’s wisdom, ought to stop pussyfooting around with these al-Qaeda pirates. Hencerforth, instead of capturing terrorists, interrogating them and transporting them to Gitmo, our troops should summarily kill them all, without question.
Corpses don’t have rights. Or, at least, they don’t file lawsuits.
We are under no obligation to take prisoners in our fight against the Islamists. We have only done so out of mercy and because we believed that the detainees might have useful intelligence information. The SCOTUS now prohibits us from getting any useful information out of them and, quite frankly, keeping them alive in our custody will cost far more in lives and treasure than they are worth. I wonder what the MSM will do when they find out that not only has to flow of prisoners to GITMO stopped, but that we’re not taking prisoners at all.
Somehow I don’t expect they’ll blame the five foolish judges in Washington. Make no mistake, though, those five have done us serious harm. What’s worse is that they, right now, have a nice warm feeling in their guts because they believe they did good. I hope it’s still there when the next American dies because of their decision.
Michelle Malkin also has several links from some very smart legal minds who, as you can imagine, are not seeing this as a triumph for America or the Constitution. She’s also reading the decision and youc an bet that she’ll have something insightful to say about it soon.
Tags: Fighting the Islamists, SCOTUS
The beginning of the end of the United States of America. Remember this day folks.
J: “5) have used women and children as protection, as weapons, and consider them legitimate targets for attack,”
This has nothing to do with them *as a legal class*, but it sure does make them seem evil-doer-ish. Booga booga!
“The SCOTUS now prohibits us from getting any useful information out of them”
Today’s decision did not address that at all.
Whiners.
Actually, it does. That is the entire reason the Geneva Conventions were devised. The GCs were essentially the “rules of war” to which signatory nations would adhere. Hiding among civilians and using them as tools of war was behavior outside the conventions. Those who did such things were not covered by them.
Now, of course, they have been shoehorned into them as “illegal combatants” and have been granted greater rights than POWs of signatory nations.
As for getting useful information, spoots, yes it did. Detainees can immediately file a habeus petition (something, by the way, that even US citizens in prison must wait to do until every other option is exhausted) which puts them into the court system and out of the purview of military rules.
J: “Actually, it does.
No, it doesn’t. You cannot say that each and every person in Gitmo necessarily did your #5. Maybe some did, but most didn’t. You’re generalizing to fluff up the narrative.
“As for getting useful information, spoots, yes it did.”
Use words more carefully, boy! You said the decision “prohibits”, when it does no such thing. It may, indirectly, make less likely, but it certainly does not “prohibit” getting info.
>> Detainees can immediately file a habeus petition>>
Therefore, it makes no sense to take detainees. Decisions decisions. If I were a soldier, I know which one _I’d_ make.
Habeus corpus will become “have a corpse” instead.
spoots – How do you think a military interrogator is going to get useful information from a reluctant killer? The second a detainee is captured, he’s no longer under military rules but criminal rules. The soldier and interrogators can not use their training and techniques on him without running afoul of the rules of criminal law. That’s a prohibition.
J: “How do you think a military interrogator is going to get useful information from a reluctant killer?”
The same way they do now. All this decision does is give these prisoners a day in court to determine whether the government has enough evidence of crimes to warrant keeping them in custody, as opposed to keeping them locked up forever. It doesn’t affect the interrogation process.
“That’s a prohibition.”
Nevertheless, it isn’t.
Again, spoots, the decision says otherwise. An illegal combatant can file immediately (something, I hasten to add once more, no one else can do, not even US citizens) which, at the moment of his filing, puts him in the civilian court system.
The rules are markedly different in the civilian court system. They prohibit the sort of effective techniques that military law allows.
Let me ask you this. Why does this particular war merit treating illegal combatants differently from the way we’ve treated them in every other war since the country started? What about the Constitution has changed? What about the way we detain prisoners?
As far as the Constitution pertaining to foreigners, don’t know how the Supreme Court missed this, but most sixth graders know it by heart:
WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY,do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Don’t think the Gitmo detainees qualify as either U.S. citizens, or ‘posterity’ (children) of U.S. citizens.
I would certainly like to read that full ‘opinion’ of the Supreme Court, because it appears that most of them must have gotten their educations in England with some of their recent off the wall decisions (such as this one and the Kelo decision, just to name two).
It appears to me another ‘political’ decision moving toward that ‘one world government’ of the Senior Bush’s vision and all those serving now and in the past on the Hill who are globalists and answer to the U.N., rather than Americans answering to the Constitution.
And appears our next two ‘corporate’ party candidates are in the former, not the later, as is most of the federal judiciary at the present time.