I’m Putting Qantas On Speed Dial
Wheat & Weeds - Apparently The Constitution Is A Suicide Pact After All
Today the Supreme Court decision reaffirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system.
Andrew McCarthy (before the decision):
Make no mistake: if this happens, the Supreme Court will have dictated that we now have a treaty with al Qaeda.
Mmph. Random quote taken from a Democrat:
[Heard on the radio and I can't for the freaking life of me find it anywhere, bloody freaking goddamned news people... anyway about the "Administration" fighting the War on Terror and their policy etc etc]
This is the same thing they do all the time, whether it’s stem cells or partial birth abortion or the freaking Iraq War. When will they get it through their thick skulls that the people elected Bush and the Administration therefore represents the people?
accuses the majority of ignoring the plain language of Congress’s enactment providing that:
[N]o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
I feel another Constitutional Amendment comin’ on.
Robert Cox, on the NYT leak, specifically, but applicable, oh, so applicable:
We will never know the full extent of the damage caused by The New York Times in disclosing the SWIFT monitoring program but have no doubt it was not a benign act. Whatever agony Keller may have gone through in deciding to publish the story will pale in comparison to the agony of the victims of the next terror attack, an attack that might have been prevented save for Keller’s choice.
Playwright David Mamet once wrote of elites “you’re all the same … It’s always ‘What I’m going to do for you.’ Then you screw up and then its ‘we did the best we could. I’m dreadfully sorry’ and people like us live with your mistakes the rest of our lives.”
We may be living with Keller’s mistake for a long time to come.
So, the question is:
Can we withdraw from the Geneva Conventions?
June 30th, 2006 at 12:59 am
Isn’t the question perhaps more accurately that of whether terrorists are covered by the Geneva Conventions? The guys in Gitmo weren’t fighting in uniform for a recognised state, they had no readily identifiable leader and they were not subject to military law. They therefore have no claim on the Geneva Conventions for protection.
That’s why the Conventions exist in the first place - to recognise honourable soldiers and to exclude terrorists from the law’s protection.
June 30th, 2006 at 5:02 am
… and to protect civilians from being used as shields.
June 30th, 2006 at 5:31 am
Brett - Is this anything to do with you? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/30/wrail30.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/30/ixnews.html
June 30th, 2006 at 7:11 am
Yes, that’s the one. I was based in Golmud. The big opening is supposed to be tomorrow (1st July). I hope the locos perform OK.
June 30th, 2006 at 7:21 am
You’re precisely right, Red –and that’s precisely what the Supremes have ruled– that the Gitmo Guys are indeed covered (or anyway, 5 of them are, as they filed suit before Congress wrote a law denying the Court jurisdiction in this matter).
As the Scalia citation makes clear, the Court has no power to rule in this matter, but dealt itself in on a technicality –that this particular case was pending before the law denying jurisdiction was made –never mind that the super-duper precedent in such cases is that the Court can’t rule from the time a law denying jurisdiction is enacted, and pending cases become moot.
And then they arrived at their conclusion on the ground that the Geneva conventions apply in a non-international conflict (civil war), which is what they say the war on terror is (since we’re not at war with another country, this is a civil war apparently).The complainant, Osama bin Laden’s driver, was picked up on a battlefield in Afghanistan, and the Court thinks he and others like him have the right not to be questioned without a lawyer present. Geniuses, these guys.
The court basically said to both the President and Congress: drop dead, we’re in charge here. In the end I don’t think the ruling is that important, in spite of the drive-by media’s breathless efforts to paint it as such. Bush would be well within his rights to ignore it –as Lincoln ignored Dred Scot, maintaining the Court ruling applied to Dred Scot solely, and had no general application. It might even do some good in that it is already stirring Congress to act against the Court, which might cause a few guys in the Legislature to read the Constitution and learn they don’t have to roll over for the Court in other areas, either.
Still, a breathtakingly tyrannical and stupid decision.
June 30th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Wow! You helped build the last great railway? I’m impressed and jealous.
But I ain’t ridin on that sucker until that answer this question to my Apollo I era satisfaction…..
There was some dispute over whether or not passengers would be allowed to smoke in the oxygen-enriched trains.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Gosh Brett I’m green with envy! That’s so much better than most people ever leave behind as a monument - much better than some yellowing journalism or some aged advertisements, for example. Well done and I’m sure the trains will run perfectly. Though like Half my first thought was of Apollo 1 - I still remember the sick feeling that morning.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Sorry RC2, but that reference to “The Supremes” just summoned up a surreal moment. “Stop, in the name of love!” and all that. I hope this ruling has the effect on Congress that you say it might. What with this and the NYT stuff one gets this sense of a large section of Amrica’s ruling elite still doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation in the way that normal people do. If they can’t tell the difference between a civil war and a war of terror then they really ought to read some history. I’m sure everyone knows this so apologies, but immediately after Appomattox some Confederate junior officers approached Robert E Lee and asked for his blessing on a continuing campaign of bushwhacking and irregular raiding. Not only did he withhold his blessing: he commanded them not even to think of such a thing, and made them feel damn small in the process. Strikes me the great and good General knew a thing or two about the nature of warfare that the Supremes seem yet to have to learn.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:52 am
I just think, again, if this is the way it’s going to go, why bother doing any of it in the first place?
June 30th, 2006 at 9:32 am
My mother is a Lee…. not of the that Virginia group, I fear she’s related to that SOB Charles, which explains why her family are swamp and sawmill people. The shame musta run them there.
But that’s neither here nor there is it? I’ve always understood the laws on warfare grew out of a desire not to repeat the horrors of the 30 Years War. When I’m gloomy I think we’re in the early stages of a similar conflict and 1 side hasn’t heard the news.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Is a Lee. Fooey. Was. :
June 30th, 2006 at 9:43 am
Because they never had a Reformation. Spinoza, wasn’t it?
June 30th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Lee is a family name. Lot of ‘em in our tree.