Gitmo ruling
Thursday June 29, 2006
I've been putting off blogging on SCOTUS's Gitmo ruling because I want to have time to think about what it means. So I suppose I'll have a longer, more thoughtful blog tomorrow (and Bubba says: "It'll be longer, but I...
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Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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So I suppose I'll have a longer, more thoughtful blog tomorrow (and Bubba says: "It'll be longer, but I doubt it'll be more thoughtful." Ba-dum-bum!).
Isn't that cute. Fozzie's trying to heckle the hecklers. :)
On a serious note, I was under the impression that torture was already out of bounds, so I think there's good reason to fear that the Supreme Court is pushing the boundary further.>
I think the upshot was well put by Justice Breyer:
"Congress has not issued the executive a 'blank check.' Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary."
This is all about proper checks on executive power.>
Rod you may be in favor of the Court's rulings, but on the legal merits, how are your old NRO colleagues Andy McCarthy and Mark Levin wrong?>
This is little more than a diktat from the 5 justices -- Souter, Breyer, Stevens, Kennedy, and Ginsburg -- who have no principled understanding of the Constitution whatsoever. These are the same justices who have stooped to the illogical and unconstitutional use of foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution. They are all results-oriented liberals.
The Bush policy may well be foolish, dangerous, and/or counterproductive. But that has nothing to do with the constitutional questions before the Court. Once again, the five leftwing politicians masquerading as judges have imposed the result they wanted, and then filled in their opinion with some shoddy legal reasoning to justify it.
Appalling.>
Wesley Clark is nuts if he means an international court where the jury is full of Islamofascist sympathizers and representatives of dictators and monarchs, yes.
But if he means something else, then maybe he isn't nuts :)
I think working out how to try war crimes, how to prosecute terrorists, is a tricky issue.
I hope it gets sorted out wisely.>
I would be in favor of trying these people under a legal system like we use for our home-grown criminals. Reasonably speedy trials, access to legal representation, cases built on evidence, ability to face their accuser ... that sort of thing. Why? Because I believe in our system of justice; and if there is enough evidence to convict them, then they'll be convicted. It also will make the rest of us safer, because the solid police work that constructs the cases will help to identify other potential problems. Our system works if we don't panic.>
Apples and oranges.
Our system of justice is not and never was intended to apply to foreigners captured by US troops outside the United States on the field of battle. What, for example, would constitute a jury of a Gitmo inmate's "peers"?>
peers=adult human beings?>
The point of this decision is simply that the president cannot disregard the standards set by Congress in adopting the Uniform Code of Military Justice which uses the Geneva Conventions as one of the guideposts in establishing rules for the treatment of prisoners. If the president feels this ties his hands in pursuing terrorists he is free to make that case to Congress and the American people.>
Sometimes we take ethical issues and strip them way down. Example: Is abortion murder or not?
In this case the stripped down version is: How do you want your justice--partial or impartial?
The hemming and hawing comes from whether we regard these prisoners as humans worthy of humane treatment. If we can put yellow stars or some kind of dehumanizing label on them, then we can get by with treating them with less respect than we would hope to be treated with.>
Why is it that all the people who are in favor of this "war" and in favor of torture and kangaroo courts are civilians?
I'll be in Afghanistan soon enough - will you be there with me to reap wwhat you are sowing?>
By the way, for those who never served -- the UCMJ/ Court Martial system IS intended to govern prisoners and to try war crimes, whether committed by US troops or by others.>
Bill is wrong. Here is the money quote from the ruling:
"This is not a case, then, where the Executive can assert some unilateral authority to fill a void left by congressional inaction. It is a case where Congress, in the proper exercise of its powers as an independent branch of government, and as part of a long tradition of legislative involvement in matters of military justice, has considered the subject of military tribunals and set limits on the President's authority. Where a statute provides conditions for the exercise of governmental power, its requirements are the result of a deliberative and reflective process engaging both of the political branches. Respect for laws derived from the customary operation of the Executive and Legislative Branches gives some assurance of stability in time of crisis. The Constitution is best preserved by reliance on standards tested over time and insulated from the pressures of the moment.">
Actually you backed me up -- No need to go into quotes from the MCM or UCMJ - It is intended to cover foreigners war crimes and has so been used. It wasn't used after WWII because it didn't exist yet. The UCMJ also has explicit guidance on tribunals.
Bear in mind that military and civilian offenses are different - in war you can be executed for leaving your job, while it is no crime for a POW to escape.>
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