Terrorists Five; America Three

A US Army soldier in a cell block at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base.
COMMENTLINES
The liberal justices of Supreme Court swing a decision for the terrorists. Reading Thursday's opening salvo in the Washington Post provides us with some food for thought:

"The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war prisoners."

The ruling is not so much a defeat for the Bush administration as it is a loss for America in the war on terror. Why must EVERYTHING done by Bush in the interest of homeland security always be seen by the mainstream media through a political lens if in fact the media is not liberally biased?

The political frame of reference continues in Friday's Post:

"Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush's military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate."

Another piece in Friday's Post echoes similar prejudices:

"Brushing aside administration pleas not to second-guess the commander in chief during wartime, a five-justice majority ruled that the commissions, which were outlined by Bush in a military order on Nov. 13, 2001, were neither authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions."

If we are to take the decision at face value and assume that plain-clothes terrorist combatants deserve consideration under the Geneva Convention, then we must also conclude that the Marines currently charged with killing civilians in Haditha acted correctly and should be released immediately. If non-uniformed combatants in a war zone are no longer regarded as spies and plain-clothes constitutes a uniform for soldiers, then everyone dressed as a civilian within a war zone can be deemed a combatant.

The simple solution to the ruling is for the GOP dominated congress to pass legislation that will allow action:

"Congress' options include everything from legalizing the administration's proposed military tribunals to using the U.S. court system or enacting laws that, as Justice John Paul Stevens recommended, use military courts-martial as a template."

The hearings have already been set:

"Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he would introduce legislation after the July 4 recess that would authorize military commissions and appropriate due process procedures. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., introduced a bill Thursday that did essentially that."

It will be interesting to see if the Democrats get behind the decision and call for a 'Terrorist Bill of Rights.' With a press that always sees such things through the political prism, such a mistake would surely mark the downfall of those Democrats.

As for now, the court's action will have little effect on detainees.

PRIMARY SOURCE
Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld.
184 pages. When reading, pay particular attention to the dissenting opinions, as they speak to how the decision will affect the country.

CONSERVATIVE OPINION
An Outrage
By The Editors of the National Review
(NRO) -- The Supreme Court’s decision to impose by judicial fiat a treaty that no politically accountable official would dare propose — a one-sided compact wherein the United States gives elevated due process to al Qaeda’s terrorists while they continue slaughtering civilians and torturing their captives to death — is an abomination.

5 wrong justices
By John Yoo
(USA Today) -- By putting on hold military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes, five Supreme Court justices have made the legal system part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the challenges of the war on terrorism. They tossed aside centuries of American history, judicial decisions of long standing, and a December 2005 law ordering them not to interfere with the military trials.

Five, Wrong
By John Eastman
(NRO) -- The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, enacted last December, gives the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., exclusive jurisdiction to review habeas-corpus petitions from the terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay. The act also expressly provides that, other than that court, “no 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 . . .” Legislative word-smithing does not get much clearer than that. Equally clear is Congress’s authority to restrict the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court; Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution describes that the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is subject to “such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

NEWS REFERENCES
Congressional Hearings on Guantanamo Set
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court's rebuff of the Bush administration's Guantanamo military tribunals knocks the issue into the halls of Congress, where GOP leaders are already trying to figure out how to give the president the options he wants for dealing with suspected terror detainees.

Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo War Crimes Trials
In 5-3 Decision Justices Rebuke Bush's Anti-Terror Policy
(washingtonpost.com) -- The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war prisoners.

A Governing Philosophy Rebuffed
Ruling Emphasizes Constitutional Boundaries
(washingtonpost.com) -- For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit. If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it. If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it.

High Court Rejects Detainee Tribunals
5 to 3 Ruling Curbs President's Claim Of Wartime Power
(washingtonpost.com) -- The Supreme Court yesterday struck down the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected members of al-Qaeda, emphatically rejecting a signature Bush anti-terrorism measure and the broad assertion of executive power upon which the president had based it.

ALSO SEE
Europeans Cheer Ruling on Guantanamo Trials

World Skeptical Over Guantanamo Ruling

Supreme Court Blocks Guantanamo Trials

GOP Senators Push for Military Tribunals

Bush Vows to Pursue Detainee War Trials

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