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Supreme Court Stunner
Yesterday’s school segregation decisions were not all that surprising. But today the Court announced a bombshell: Reversing an earlier decision, it was reviewing two critical detainee rights cases it had earlier declined to hear. The rarity of the announcement makes most Court watchers think that there will be a reversal–which could be a huge victory for detainee rights.
6 Responses to “Supreme Court Stunner”
It would be a huge victory for al-Qaeda, too, if it is an activist ruling. Given the Bush administration’s ineptitude and misbehavior, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Court finds fault with the status quo, and if it rules that some practices (in addition to torture, obviously) are illegal and must be ended; but the Court has no legitimate basis for ruling what must be done instead and hopefully given the long-overdue reform we’ve seen recently to this body, it won’t attempt to legislate on this matter.
It’s neither a “stunner” nor a “bombshell.”
The LA Times probably said it best:
Our support of the Iranian Shah and giving the Mujuhadeen (sp?) billions to fight the Soviets was a victory for Al-Qaeda…actually it set up a framework from which to operate…
Maybe the latter. And it wasn’t our intention to create an enemy of this country when we did it. The same goes for the Shah of Iran, who was largely responsible for the revolution, not the USA.
And we are largely responsible for the Shah. Read your history.
I sincerely and deeply hope that this is indeed going to ultimately lead to the overturning of the whole ‘enemy combatant’ excuse for completely ignoring the Constitution.
More than anything else that the Bush administration has done, this smacks of Soviet-era repression.
How can anyone support holding people incommunicado, with no access to lawyers, courts, and without any charges against them?
All the regulars know that I have supported a lot for the war against terror, but this really is something only totalitarian regimes do, not countries of laws.
I’m fully aware of history, including our relationship with the Shah that we installed, and the Shah that was largely responsible for the revolution in his country. In fact, right now among the several books in my vehicle (I not only travel widely but have been well-read since I was in grade school) happens to be “The Shah’s Last Ride” (“The Fate of an Ally”) by Shawcross, complete with photo of a smiling Nixon with the Shah in Mexico inside, the Shah in one of the F-16s we sold him in earlier, more pleasant years for him, and so on. (You know, don’t you? the one with the photo of him and his last wife at the very end.)
I don’t support but won’t over-react to it nor to the Court’s decision to review it. It’s part of a larger pattern as we’ve seen with Bush and Cheney. I simply will be interested in what the Court and its individual Justices finally have to say when it has made a ruling. I want to see the Justices’ findings and if time and interest permit, the arguments made by either side.