Gitmo Detainees & A Rash Prediction
The news today that the Supreme Court will review two Guantánamo Bay detainee-related appeals prompts me to make a statement that seems outrageous on its face considering the high court’s recent sprint to the right:
It will side with the detainees in their assertion that they cannot be indefinitely confined without trial.
Howcum? Because this is more or less a replay of last year’s Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, which is possibly the Supreme’s most important of the young millennium, including yesterday’s school deseg blockbuster.
In Hamdan, the court eviscerated the junk law (as opposed to junk science) on which the Bush administration based its original plan for trying detainees before military commissions, rejecting out of hand the specious claim that the 9/11 attacks had changed everything and the president could turn 230 years of American jurisprudence on its ear and damned well do what he pleased where he pleased.
The court also rebuked Bush for attempting to suppress the habeas corpus provision of the Constitution (which was like telling it to go screw itself) and for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Geneva Conventions.
The court ruled 5-3 against the administration in Hamdan with Chief Justice Roberts recusing himself because he had been involved in the case at a lower court level.
Given that the White House merely paid lip service to the ruling and then compelled a largely compliant Congress to again give it carte blanche in the form of a new but nearly identical law, I would anticipate that the Supremes will again slap the president — even with Roberts participating.
The stakes could not be higher for an administration that remains drunk with power despite enormous setbacks, as well as a world standing at low ebb.
I am not suggesting that terror suspects be treated with kid gloves.
But having claimed the right to determine who are enemy combatants and detain them indefinitely without charges, the White House cannot retreat from that position without appearing to be weak, and appearances in the Age of Bush have been more important than realities, just as politics often trumps policy, or in this case tramples on the very foundations of American jurisprudence.
5 Responses to “Gitmo Detainees & A Rash Prediction”
Well said. I think you may be correct; I certainly hope you are.
There is no “sprint to the right”; you’re wrong again.
As to what the Court will do, I’m certain it will find something wrong with what the Bush people have been doing, given the administration’s track record the past several months. Hopefully it won’t be an activist ruling that wrongly specifies what must be done in place of what is happening now. At least it is less likely to do that now that it would have several years ago. I will be interested in reading what the Justices have to say, to examine their reasoning behind those things they find to be illegal and which must cease. (Presumably most readers here believe at least some things currently being done in addition to the torture will have to cease.)
Do Over
Perhaps now justice at Guantanamo may prove less generic than previously has been the case. Or not the case. The simple truth is no cases have been brought to trial in the fairest sense of the word. The farce is now so evident the Supreme Court i…
You know what will happen if the Court issues a ruling adverse to the Bush administration. Why, while claiming the retention of executive power in the federal government, the Bush people will also declare themselves and their offices not to be part of the United States, so they are not subject to the Court’s jurisdiction.
That’s hardly any different than Cheney claiming to be exempt from gravity. (good for a laugh)
(Of course, if the Bush people made such a declaration, angry members of Congress could see to it that the White House, executive buildings, and the VP mansion were surrounded and sealed, treating Bush and Cheney like Arafat, even ringing the buildings with anti-aircraft missiles to prevent escape by helicopter.)
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