Around the sphere two themes are rising to the fore out of Hamdan: (1) that the applicability of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is huge and (2) that Congress can fix the problem of the military commissions.I’ve discussed……

I’ve got the weekend/holiday duty, and with vacations I’ve been quite busy the last two days, so it’s been a little difficult both to read enough to be informed as well as to keep current and pertinent on the blog….

The future of American Justice? ;)…

Jaibones: I assume that the presidents who appointed the current bench–Ford, Reagan, Clinton, both Bushes–were looking to find the “9 most qualified constitutional lawyers/judges for the very narrowly limited job of ruling on court cases from a constitutional perspective as the final word of law”. This particular ruling, from my POV, was more about asserting the principle of the rights and duties of the legislative branch as a co-equal branch with the executive. Re “the makeup of the country” I am referring to the idea that the ideas and political leanings of the country should be reflected in the court–as they are in the other branches.

Before making an opinion, always ALWAYS read the source information first before rendering a decision. Don’t be like the Main Stream Media and make snap unsubstantiated reports on something they have never read nor understand.
You can view it as…

“reflect the makeup of the country”? What the hell areyou thinking? You want 9 judges, where only 3 of them vote? You want to divvy up the Supreme Court on a racial spoils system? You want a gender quota?

How about maybe finding the 9 most qualified constitutional lawyers/judges for the very narrowly limited job of ruling on court cases from a constitional perspective as the final word of law?

However, our own court system and a bunch of left leaning lawyers are saying that since they are not POWs, this is a LEGAL case which should be tried, with full due process and Civil rights. How many lawyers are screaming for “hearings” for those in Gitmo?

Court cases for every person captured in time of war would destroy our ability to fight effectivly. Soldiers would have to be worried about getting evidence, instead of fighting.

Add to that the fact that technicaly we are NOT at war… and you have a huge legal quagmire.

I don’t get the Nazi POW comparison–no one is questioning from what I understand, that we have the right to detain POWs, who are of course not subject to prosecution in general.

Re the composition of the SCOTUS, there are by my recollection only 2 of the 9 nines judges not appointed by Republicans–Ginsberg and Breyer. At what point does the refrain “wait til we get our guys on the court” become a bit strained? Ideally the composition should reflect the makeup of the country. (God, what am I thinking!!!!!)

I stand corrected… now we have to ask, what changed in the law?

SCOTUS said we can detain them indefinatly as POWs?… Now they have a choice… either they can declare themselves POWs, OR we figure out how to declare them as Spys (since they were not wearing uniforms) under the Geneva Convention, and shoot them.

In a 5-3 decision, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the Bush administration does not have the authority to try terrorism suspects by military tribunal. The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court today delivered a sweeping rebuke to…

If this is the case, why try them at all? They can stay in Gitmo forever or be sent to a Gitmo type place in the Afghan or Iraqi desert where we can let Islamic laws take care of them.
This can also become a call for reform of the judicary and place a focus on left-wing judges citing international law in deciding US cases.

Either way, Bush wins.

It’ll take a few days for people smarter than us to make sense of it but it doesn’t sound all that bad.

As much as I would like a shoot-to-kill order, I think institutionalizing an order like that wouldn’t be good for the troops…maybe a quiet word, and throw the media out of the engagement area.

How about this:

Return them to their home countries, the countries where they were captured, or the countries in which their crimes occurred…whichever is most prone to hang them.

I’m thinking that the Gitmo prisoners will be rolled over to the countries where they were taken, where their living conditions will definitely be suicide-worthy.

The terrorists involved here specifically use civilians as human shields, and dress so as to blend into civilian populations to conduct their terroristic activities. This ruling turns that whole notion on its head. Expect Congress to step in here to …..

From the AP: 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 wr…

The SCOTUS was really in a bind. They are correct that there has never been a statuatory debate on how to treat prisoners of war once they hit US soil.

We’ve usually kept them out of the country, so the need to have this type of “Law” on the books just wasn’t there.

Problem is that now we do have this problem, and Congress is busy debating a Stupid Political “statement” about publishing classified material (instead of doing somthing about it) and NOT giving the President the Powers he needs…

They did mention some law from a couple of years back, which doesn’t cover these “gentlemen”…. anyone know what that law is all about?