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Thursday's (June 12, 2008) 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, a decision that awarded the "unlawful combatants" at Gitmo (a/k/a terrorists) the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" has left millions of Americans, especially those in the law enforcement, military and First Responder communities stunned.
The decision led Chief Justice Roberts to declare that the court’s majority had struck down “the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants,” and in doing so had left itself open to accusations of “judicial activism.”
The High Court’s preeminent Constitutional scholar, Antonin Scalia, went even further in writing in the dissent; “America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 60–61, 70, 190 (2004). On September 11, 2001, the enemy brought the battle to American soil, killing 2,749 at the Twin Towers in New York City, 184 at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C., and 40 in Pennsylvania. See id., at 552, n. 9. It has threatened further attacks against our homeland; one need only walk about buttressed and barricaded Washington, or board a plane anywhere in the country, to know that the threat is a serious one. Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last week, 13 of our countrymen in arms were killed.”
The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”
You can’t get any more clear and plain-spoken than that.
Joining Justice Anthony P. Kennedy’s opinion on Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, were Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter. Opposed were Justices Clarence Thomas, John G. Roberts, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia.
As I wrote on my blog, McCain could win the election on this issue alone. All he has to do is say that if he is elected, he will ignore this Supreme Court decision.
ReplyDeleteI have never felt more hopeless about the fate of our nation than when I first heard this news.
ReplyDeleteA backlash against 'the enemy within' may be all we have at this point, but I'm afraid it may prove to be too little, too late - especially if the Dems win big in Congress in '08. Even if they don't win the White House, they may hold the power to override a McCain veto as well as block all Supreme Court nominations.
Prayer is always an option, though, so it's never completely hopeless.
This is not only a hideous ruling, it's a dangerous one as well and it may be proven that within the next few years, with the cost of thousands more American lives.
ReplyDeleteThere is NOTHING in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees our individual rights to non-citizens, let alone "ILLEGAL enemy combatants."
And yes, Mick, a "backlash against the enemy within" IF it comes at all, may indeed come far too little and far too late.
The Dems control Congress now and that grip may grow tighter still, although that remains to be seen.
Without question they'll simply let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, but BEFORE that Obama promises to put the FICA bite on all income (currently FICA applies to only the first $102,000 per year) and other tax hikes will almost certainly be in the works...a person earning $150,000 in NY or CA may pay close to 65% of that in direct TAXES....that doesn't count property taxes, sales taxes and fuel taxes.
We could well see an incredible DOUBLE WHAMMY - an imploding economy initiated by the growing global inflation in commodity prices and exacerbated by both reckless spending and terrible (anti-growth) tax policy at home, on top of a renewed vulnerability to terror at home and an emboldened jihadist enemy abroad.
At this point, it doesn't look good....it looks like we're going to have to go through some real pain before we'll have a chance of turing things around.
Looks like it's going to have to get worse before it gets better.