Supreme Court Rejects Guantánamo Tribunals
The Busheviks assertion that the military tribunals set up for trying the men held at Guantánamo, Cuba, are OK suffered a death blow when the Supreme Court of the US said that the “executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction.” The ruling doesn’t dispute the government’s right to detain these men, but it will require a new legal policy for prosecuting them. Might one suggest a trial in the federal courts?
The Bush administration got itself into this mess when it decided that the men taken captive during the war against the Taliban government of Afghanistan were not prisoners of war. In trying to talk tough, the chickenhawks offered the position that neither domestic law nor international law applied. In a war on terror, the world had entered new legal territory, and the Busheviks would decide what the new law was to be.
In a flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants policy, which is the hallmark of the 43rd president, the White House decided to stick these guys on a military base in Cuba, a nation which the US doesn’t recognize because it is run by a commie (unlike China, which is run by commies to whom the US owes a lot of money). Presto, a legal limbo came into being and into which these men were thrown. As a sop to those who think the US should defend human rights while fighting a war against those who “hate our freedom,” the Busheviks created military commissions to provide a fig leaf of legality to permanent detention without charge, trial or POW status.
However, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard, managed to get legal representation, and they fought all the way to the top, convincing the Supreme Court (the vote was 5-3, with Chief Justice Roberts not voting as he had heard the case as an appellate judge) that the military commissions were invalid. “Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order,” wrote Justice Kennedy. The executive is not allowed to adjudicate the law, pure and simple.
So, a new system is needed, and if declaring the men prisoners of war (which could allow them to be held until the war on terror ends – that is forever) isn’t on, then put them in front of a jury, ideally in New York. If the case holds water, there is still enough September 11 passion in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens to put the bad guys away forever and a day. And if the case is as full of holes as the pretext for the war in Iraq, then by what right does the administration hold them? One would gladly take the president’s word for it, but in the last six years, his word hasn’t proved to be worth very much.
© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.
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