I thought the word obama should be used as

‘it was not the xxx I knew’ next time somthing was thrown under the bus.

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

Despite this, while pointing out the unfairness of the trial, the US Supreme Court found that it did not have the authority to overturn the military tribunal’s verdict.

Barack Obama is.  Obama may have talents, but being super smart isn’t one of them.  The more he bluffs his way through this campaign — and gets caught — the more the rest of us will question the intelligence and……

A verb: “to obama“- definition: to weasel your way out of a mistake by faking higher certainty; specifically, to learn the correct information, after your already claimed it was the opposite, then deny you ever knew any differently.

To use in a sentence:
He “obama’d” the whole deal up, big time.

I’m NOT a Lawyer with an Harvard education in Constitutional law… but I already knew this…

How can someone SWEAR to support and defend the constitution, when they don’t seem to know the first thing about it?

Romeo13 on June 16, 2008 at 2:17 PM

With Obambi and constitutional questions, it’s always a tough choice between stupidity and dishonesty. On this one I am going with dishonesty.

It seems likely that he understands the clear difference between the military tribunal proposed by the Bush administration and used in Nuremburg, and having the right to a trial by jury in our court system, since a child could understand that.

Let’s assume that he’s using a false example in order to make score political points, knowing that it’s a lie. That seems to be right up his alley…”the Chicago school” of politics.

IF we actualy followed the Geneva convention, as the majority of these guys were taken under arms, but not in uniform? We could just shoot them.
… enemies taken under arms in a combat zone…

Romeo13 on June 16, 2008 at 6:31 PM

On what do you base the assertion that the “majority of these guys were taken under arms.” Not all, or even a majority in GTMO, are “battlefield captures”. One study pegs ony 5% of the detainees in GTMO were captured by U.S. Military. A large majority of detainees were handed over to the U.S. Military after large bounties were offered. A lot of people were turned over to the Pakistani or Afghani officials in return for those bounties, and the Pakistani/Afghani dutifuly turned those people over to the U.S. Military. These were not battlefield captures but in some cases people snatched off a bus or out of their homes because of nothing more than being foreign and/or disliked by your neighbors.
In this same study, it was determined that 55% of the detainees had not committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition partners. This Study was based on the documents from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) conducted since 2004.
Full Disclosure: This study was written by 2 attorneys that represent 2 detainees(possibly now former detainees) at GTMO. But the data that they based their study off of was the Government’s own CSRT documents. At the time of the release of this study, Cap’n Ed organized a blog swarm to analyze the same info analyzed by these attorneys to see if a different conclusion could be drawn. Unfortunately, I believe that Cap’n Ed ran into issues in bringing together all of the information that various volunteers had put together.

Furthermore, Habeas rights are not the same or equivalent to constitutional rights. Habeas rights are an older more “fundamental” right that is not referred to in the constitution other than to note that it can’t be abridged unless there is invasion or insurrection.
Finally, I agree the precedent regarding applying this case to other military bases is worrying. However, I believe the SCUS has endeavored to forestall that by noting the “unique circumstances” of GTMO several times. Whenever a legal opinion uses the term “unique” it usually connotes “one-off”. Additionally, the foreign bases that we have and the treaties that regulate those bases are different than what we got with the Platt treaty with Cuba.

New_Jersey_Buckeye on June 16, 2008 at 5:04 PM

IF we actualy followed the Geneva convention, as the majority of these guys were taken under arms, but not in uniform? We could just shoot them.

We instead tried to find a middle ground between just shooting them, and giving full American Civil Rights to someone who considers themselves an enemy soldier.

This is NOT somthing the American court system is built to handle, nor can we treat enemies taken under arms in a combat zone, as a law eforcement matter. Yet this is EXACTLY the results of the latest ruling.

Do you have ANY idea what it will do to our warfighting capability if we have to gather eveidence for EVERY guy we take into custody? How many resources that will take?

Crap, I got involved in a JAG investigation about a boarding incident…. incident? about 20 minutes of problem… hours involved in the total investigation? THOUSANDS… and took 7 of us out of boarding ops while it was being completed… a matter of TWO MONTHS… and that was a JAG!

Put a civilian court in the mix? Chaos.

Congress tried to strike a balance… as they should have… Courts hosed it up IMO.

ADD to it that one interpretation of the ruling has it so ANY US military installation, because it is under defacto US control, is now bound by full Habeus Corpus??? Thus under the jurisdition of American Courts??? Wow, just wow.

Instead of “grading on the curve” is seems like Barack is Teaching on the curve.

Perhaps a retroactive acquittal is due those found guilty at the illegal Nuremberg trials, then.

That about as aptly summarizes the absurdity of the recent ruling as anyone can write.

The current Court (the majority, that is) is simply doing something they want to do. They want to extend these rights to enemy aliens held outside the US during a war – something that’s never been done before anywhere in any western nation – and because they want to, they’ll find it in the Constitution.

Precedent, history, logic, facts all go out the window.

I wonder if the Supreme court thinks our military court system is good enough for our military, or if they should have access to civilian courts.

Geneva convention does not address Habeus Corpus for UNLAWFULL UNUNIFORMED comabants… which is part of the problem….

Uniformed Code of Military Justice is for Military perosnell… not UNUNIFORMED Combatants.
Romeo13 on June 16, 2008 at 4:14 PM

Romeo 13: I believe it is “Uniform Code of Military Justice”. Not Uniformed.

Standpoint of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals(”CSRT”) vs. prosecution under the Military Commissions is misunderstood.
The CSRTs were what all detainees were given starting I believe in 2004. The purpose of the CSRTs is to determine if detainees held within Guantanamo Bay have been correctly designated as “enemy combatants.” Issues with the CSRT’s were based on many points but the most salient were: 1) The CSRT informed detainees only of general charges against them, while the details on which the CSRT premised enemy combatant status decisions were classified, 2) Detainees had no right to present witnesses or to cross-examine government witnesses, 3) detainees lacked counsel, 3) tribunal did not necessarily consist of persons with any legal training, 4) Tribunals did not have authority to determine a detainee was a Prisoner of War, and 5) Hearsay evidence was admissible in certain cases. The CSRT did not start from the stand point of: this detainee is innocent prove his guilt. Rather the CSRT’s purpose was: Was the government’s action in detaining this prisoner unwarrented. Even when the CSRT dtermined that a detainee was not an enemy combatant, the detainee has had to remain at GTMO because, no other country will take persons that our government labled as the “worst of the worst”.
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, sought to head off several Habeas petitions making their way through the District courts at the time. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 asserted that appeals of the determination of the CSRT could be heard by the DC Circuit court, but severely limited the scope of any such appeal. The Appeal would be limited to only whether or not the procedures set forth in the CSRT procedures manual had been followed by the CSRT panel in each indivisual case. Therefore, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 effectively stopped any appeal as to the inherent fairness and justice of the CSRT procedures itself.
The 2006 Military Commissions Act purported to strip jurisdiction for any court hearing habeas petitions of any alien who has been classified by the U.S. Government as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such classification. The Military Commission act also purported to set up tribunals for determination of charges brought against certain Detainees. The Military Commission Act addresses some of the issue/Criticisms that were brought up against hte 2005 act. The important difference for many is that under the military Commissions, detainees are finally being charged with something, whereas before they were (purportedly) held without anyone alleging any specific wrong actions/thoughts on their part. The CSRTs often did not allege any specific action on the part of the detainees, but made general allegations that were difficult and/or impossible to rebut.
So far I believe that 11 people have been charged under the Military Commission Act. All detainees in GTMO have had CSRTs.

So the law that was passed by Congress didn’t meet US law?

Actually, as I understand it, he’s sorta’ right (by US law I think he meant the Constitution).

The Supreme Court, after ruling that Congress needed to create the military tribunals, then pulled the rug out with their latest ruling and said the military tribunals weren’t legal (they didn’t provide access to civilian courts).

So, if the thinking of the court today had been in effect back in the 1940s, they would have ruled that the Nuremberg trials were violating the US Constitution. The Nazis would have been given access to US civilian courts.

Amazing.

So the law that was passed by Congress didn’t meet US law?

(I know Quayle isn`t a brain-dead moron, but go with me on this:)

It’s my understanding that the tribunals did not meet the US Military Justice Code nor the Geneva Conventions. That’s why they were thrown out.

Tom_Shipley on June 16, 2008 at 3:47 PM

Geneva convention does not address Habeus Corpus for UNLAWFULL UNUNIFORMED comabants… which is part of the problem….

Uniformed Code of Military Justice is for Military perosnell… not UNUNIFORMED Combatants.

And actualy, the Tribunals used almost the exact same standards as a Military Court under the UCMJ… problem is that those standards are MUCH less than standard US Civil Courts, so the Supremes didn’t like it. Its kind of like the difference between Civil lawsuit and a Murder Trial (think OJ), the levels of proof, what is admissable, and how you defend yourself are all different.

Yes they were. The tribunal was a form of international court, and they were allowed to defend themselves against the charges brought against them. Some were acquitted.

The act of a trial, with a prosecution and defense, allows a challenge to a defendant’s detention.

The military tribunals at Gitmo did not meet US or international law, so were thrown out.