Much more in the article ...
Posted on 07/04/2008 6:00:47 AM PDT by Zakeet
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has departed for summer vacation, but what a mess he's left behind, especially for the U.S. military. His 5-4 decision requiring habeas corpus review for foreign terrorists is already creating confusion and problems about how to handle these dangerous enemies.
The Bush Administration is currently debating how to respond to Mr. Kennedy's war-fighting ukase in Boumediene v. Bush, with President Bush set to make a decision soon. Some in the Administration want Mr. Bush to abolish not merely Guantanamo but even military commissions, the special tribunals set up to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others for their war crimes. This would compound the mistake of Boumediene, and do away with what has long been a useful tool of military justice.
It is already clear to nearly everyone in the Administration that it will be impossible for the U.S. to hold most detainees from now on. That's true not merely at Gitmo, but even in Afghanistan, Iraq and other foreign battlefields. Earlier this month, lawyers filed a lawsuit on behalf of a detainee held at the U.S. military prison at Bagram air base near Kabul. It's only a matter of time before suits are filed demanding habeas writs for anyone captured and held by GIs for any length of time anywhere in the world.
Regrettably, the Administration will now have to let most enemy fighters go. The burden of gathering enough evidence to meet the habeas standards of U.S. federal courts is simply too great under battlefield conditions – and in any case is far too dangerous.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
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The Second Amendment ruling is going to create a mess as well, but it’s because the Supreme Court abdicated its responsibility for giving an affirmative ruling for seventy years. I can live with that mess, since it affirms a basic human right that we’ve all lived by for over 200 years.
Real easy, don’t take prisoners.
Kill them all.
While I don’t necessarily agree with the court’s decision, the President really has nobody to blame for this but himself. By creating this whole ‘enemy combatant’ category and talking about putting them in trial, by tribunal or any other means, he left himself open for court intervention. Had he just designated Gitmo a POW camp and classified all of them as prisoners of war then none of this could have happened.
Just turn them loose if they promise to blow up congress.
Problem solved!
If he had, the Supreme Court would have just come up with some other piece of BS nonsense. What Bush should have done was to just tell SCOTUS to go pound sand the first time they intervened in what is clearly Executive territory.
I agree that Bush admin caused this by not giving any sign that some of these combatants would *ever* face a show cause hearing let alone a trial. Some of the stories involve alleged innocent bystanders.
In all fairness to the judiciary, even the most deferential courts generally tend to step in when there is no reasonable remedy provided by the executive branch.
Doubtful since the court made the difference clear in their decision. POWs are outside the judicial system and can be held for the duration of the conflict. But instead of calling them what they are, war prisoners, the administration lumped them in with criminals. Criminals get trials.
He can still do this. He should. He must.
Maybe the RATS would try to impeach him for not bowing down to the SC. That would be a real good campaign issue.
How about a million man armed march on Washington?
This ruling was unconstitutional, and should be nullified by the President. Just as a SCOTUS ruling barring a religious display in a state capital would violate the 1st and 10th Amendments, so this ruling violates Article II. Article II makes the President commander-in-chief, and he has sole authority over enemy combatants captured in battle. He must publicly nullify this ruling, to restore sanity to our system of government, and to provide Americans with a valuable civics lesson. The SCOTUS is NOT the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution.
The ultimate arbiter is Congress, which has the final say in any disagreement between the 3 branches, but it and the Executive have allowed the judiciary to usurp their powers.
the POW status wouldn’t have held up without a declared war
Really? Did we try a lot of the Iraqi POWs after Gulf War I?
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