The Thomas Chronicles

I haven’t read the decision yet, but SCOTUS Blog wrote the following:

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges.

The Court also declared that detainees do not have to go through the special civilian court review process that Congress created in 2005, since that is not an adequate substitute for habeas rights. The Court refused to interpret the Detainee Treatment Act — as the Bush Administration had suggested — to include enough legal protection to make it an adequate replacement for habeas. Congress, it concluded, unconstitutionally suspended the writ in enacting that Act.

If accurate, this is unprecedented.

We have just given the rights of US citizens to non-US citizens, and even more outrageous, we’ve given habeas corpus to enemy combatants captured in the field.

From this, two things might happen: a) We, as a sovereign nation, cannot enter into a war without a logistical fishtail of lawyers in train; and b) our troops would be less and less willing to capture prisoners, i.e. expect the kill rate of our enemies to dramatically rise. Those are the two possibilities I see just over our immediate horizon from this decision. Who knows the ripple effect it will have in the years to come.

God help us. It seems our own Supreme Court has, for all intents and purposes, actively curtailed the war-making ability of the United States.

This is not just a blow to the Bush Administration; this is a blow against the United States. If the rights of US citizens are to be granted foreign enemies, won’t the reverse be true? How long will it be when the U.N. Courts have jurisdiction over US citizens?

Mrs. Malkin reviews conservative reactions to this ruling here.

*** UPDATE 6/12/08 ***

Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, said the words that will be sure to reverberate across the length of the country, “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Supreme Court, Chief Justice, John Roberts remarked of today’s ruling that we “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”

Will our court system become the American Brussels, where unelected, politically unaccountable lawyerly bureaucrats dictate policy to Americans in like manner to how Brussels dictate policy to Europe? Is this how the beast enters our door?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS