Posted on 06/29/2006 7:35:30 AM PDT by Uncledave
Supreme Court Blocks Bush, Gitmo War Trials Jun 29 10:21 AM US/Eastern Email this story
By GINA HOLLAND Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti- terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and Geneva conventions.
The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the U.S. prison in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against U.S. citizens from 1996 to November 2001.
Two years ago, the court rejected Bush's claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers. In this followup case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.
The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court's liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration. Chief Justice John Roberts, named to the lead the court last September by Bush, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.
Thursday's ruling overturned that decision.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
So Bill Clinton was right in declining the opportunity to capture Bin Laden.
Lincoln ignored Chief Justice Taney's order to cancel the suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Taney was then sitting on the United States Circuit Court for the District of Maryland. The justices of the Supreme Court traditionally sat as circuit judges while the Supreme Court was not in session.
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Merryman
Agreed. They should never have brought those prisoners onto US soil. Interrogate them on those little CIA planes and then drop them over their homeland, sans parachute.
Check the ruling again. If I'm reading this right, it doesn't say we can't HOLD them . . . only that we can't TRY them. Am I missing something?
That was my take too although it doesn't make a lot of sense.
So we just hold them forever, or until Helen Thomas dies, whichever comes first.
"The country is becoming a joke, incapable of defending itself, and we are asking our soldiers to fight and die for a bunch of buffoons."
It doesn't help to have our court system, half of our politicians, and most of the media on the side of the enemy.
This really disgusts me. I guess they think we should put all these pieces of human debris up before liberal judges here in the States - maybe then we can apologize, pay them a couple of million apiece in reparations, give them back their weapons and pay their way home (which we've helpfully rebuilt for them).
No, offing them would not meet out needs. The reason they are being held.. alive.. at Gitmo is to try to break them down and get them to divulge important info about Al Quaeda or other terrorists still on the loose.
That is why we need to keep them in a controlled environment so that we can slowly (I'd prefer quickly but Human Rights Watch will have none of it) break these lowlife scum down and get some meaningul intel out of them.
Bush could always say: "OK, sure we'll put them on trial, but realize its gonna take us.. oh.. maybe another coupla years or so ... just to gather all the evidence we need!! We want to be fair, ya know and make sure we got the right guys!!" (LOL)
I think we have judges who see this war on terror as a "turf war" (hence specter's anti-american positions)
If anthing we now have a two front war, on front on the arab street, the second front of the war is now opened inside the american judiciary.
Message to soldiers, dead terrorists don't speak to the ACLU.
I recommend Jordan. What harm would there be if the plane from Gitmo to Amman arrived empty?
I can see Feingold already calling for impeachment. Never mind that the bound that was overstepped was not defined until this decision.
I do not normally call people on this forum idiots, but in your case i will make an exception. These people are not prisoners of war, because they are not wearing uniforms, or are they civilians of the country picking up arms to defend their land. They are for the most part foreigners who do not wear uniforms or abide by the Geneva war convention rules of warfare. They are subject to summary execution on the spot by the ranking officer at the time. and I do believe this will become standard policy from now on.
"Justice Stevens has made his decision, now let him enforce it!"
Yep, I remembered that one, but it wasn't the Supreme Court decision I was looking for.
I agree.
All it says is that Bush can't set up tribunals and try them. Doesn't say anything has to be done with them.
how about if we hold them in geosynchronous orbit...is THAT far enough out of SCOTUS jurisdiction to suit them?
There is way to much being made of this. The supreme court has ruled we can't try them under military tribunal, it didn't rule on the legitimacy of holding them prisoner. So as long as we don't try them we can hold them forever as prisoners of war. OR, we could try them in civil court, which is BS.
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