Posted on 06/30/2006 10:22:54 PM PDT by Jameison
June 30, 2006 -- So it turns out that the Constitution is a suicide pact after all.
At least, that's how five justices of the United States Supreme Court justices would have it.
In the much-anticipated Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld decision, the high court yesterday ruled 5-3 (with Chief Justice John Roberts recusing himself) that military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees would be illegal.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan was Osama bin Laden's driver - that is, a bona fide al Qaeda terrorist - when he was snatched off an Afghan battlefield in the fall of 2001. He's presumptively too dangerous to be released, but prior Supreme Court rulings declared him to be entitled to legal consideration of some sort.
So the administration charged him with conspiracy to commit terrorism and scheduled a military trial. This is unsettled territory, jurisprudentially speaking, but it didn't seem at all nuanced to the court's majority.
Writing for the majority, veteran liberal Justice John Paul Stevens concluded that "the military commission convened to try Hamdan lacks power to proceed because its structure and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949."
But the UCMJ is meant to apply to U.S. military personnel, and the Geneva Conventions to uniformed forces of an established nation. Hamdan falls into neither category.
So, as a matter of law, yesterday's ruling was breathtakingly expansive.
Practically speaking, it means that the masked thugs who sawed Nicholas Berg's head off while the vidotape ran are entitled to the same procedural protections as a Marine who goes AWOL.
What's next? Miranda warnings and a public defender for Osama himself, if the happy day ever comes when the master murderer is led shackled from the cave he now calls home?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
"So it turns out that the Constitution is a suicide pact after all."
Unfortunately it's true.
I am afraid, that it will take a nuke or some majopr attack with other WMD, before people will realize that the terrorists are not "stealing a loaf of bread", but want to obliterate us, to the last person -- and we better not forget it and treat them appropriately.
Why is everyone worried about the rights of the terrorists?
What about the rights of innocents to live?
Hopefully Bush will have done enough to delay the inevitable for a long time.
Michael Ramirez is a great cartoonist. He is working for the Investors Business Daily.
TO: U.S. Supreme Court
FM: President and COMMANDER IN CHIEF, George W. Bush
RE: GiTMO Ruling
DT: 7/4/06
My dear Supreme Court Justices:
I am ignoring your recent ruling for two reasons.
1. I refuse to apply the UCMJ to the terrorists at GiTMO. Until such time as they enlist in the U.S. Military, I will not apply the laws of our military personnel to them.
2. I refuse to apply the Geneva Convention to the terrorists until such time as they are properly identified as combatants of a recognized nation. Until then, they are civilians with guns and will remain classified as terrorists with no rights under our laws.
Therefore, as COMMANDER IN CHIEF, I am signing a direct order to all military personnel to ignore your ruling on this matter. As Andrew Jackson would have said, "You made your ruling, now try to enforce it."
Sincerely,
George W. Bush, President and COMMANDER IN CHIEF
We could only wish.
This decision makes me sick to my stomach, and I am an attorney.
So true, so true. Liberal America is so obsessed with their venomous seething hatred of George W. Bush that they fail to so much as care about what would happen if Osama got a tenth of what he prays to Allah for. Where was Al Qaeda planning to unleash their chemical attack? The New York City subway system. You know what the NYC subway is? It's a Habitrail for liberal New Yorkers! You think Al Qaeda cared a rat's behind about offing their fans? Nope. Oh yeah, you think maybe just maybe Osama had intel about how liberal NYC was before he attacked the WTC? Of course he did! I'm sure he knew there would be plenty of brother Muslims killed in the attacks too, but hey, just pass around a few more virgins, right?
Libeals. They kill their unborn with abortion. They kill their infirm with assisted suicide and sometimes murder ala Terri Schiavo. They kill the innocent by fighting the Second Ammendment while fawning over jailed murders. They kill their own with AIDS by their mocking of abstinence while feigning to promote "safe sex". Not satisfied to kill off their own, they now turn to the rest of us by killing off our nation's ability to defend itself. To this end they use every means available, from treason via the New York Times to slithering legal shenanigans via the ACLU to shameless pandering propaganda from the likes of Michael Moore. All the while, they remain fully blind to the stone cold reality that should our nation crumble into the hands of Islam, those very same liberals will be the very first to experience the rusty hacksaw beheadings while old ladies do the "lalalalala" thing in the background. They are jamming daggers into the liferaft that is America.
It seems the West cannot surrender to the Islamofascists fast enough.
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