>>>”After earlier Supreme Court decisions knocked down these arguments, Congress became involved and pushed through legislation stripping the federal courts of the authority to rule on habeas corpus claims by Guantanamo prisoners. Last week’s ruling invalidated that move.”<<<

WRONG!!!

It didn’t ‘validate that move’.

It VIOLATED THAT LAW.

If you can’t tell the difference, you have no business weighing in on the matter, any more than the activist judges who have overstepped their authority had any business doing so.

SCOTUS doesn’t make law, at least it didn’t until 1973.

With editorials like this, who needs Ipecac?

We American “infidels” will eventually learn just how bad the 5-4 decision was when we begin turning these prisoners loose and most of them resume their terrorist agenda. Just shows that you can’t fix stupidity.

Two things:

– Here’s a McClatchy newspapers investigation into the number of erroneous detentions made at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Prison:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/detainees/story/38773.html

Serious errors crop up when you don’t have checks and balances of the type the courts and Congress are supposed to provide — whether it be on detentions, post invasion planning, adequate equipment for military personnel. A consequence of such failures can be innocent people getting swept up in prison and young men and women in the military needlessly losing their lives or suffering horrific injury.

– Here’s what Republican U.S. Senator Alren Specter had to say about the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene:

U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today released the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision that reversed the D.C. Circuit and held that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to habeas corpus rights:

“The Supreme Court’s reaffirmation of the constitutional right to habeas corpus will now allow the federal trial courts to review each detainee’s case to see that individualized justice is done and people are not held in custody unless there is competent evidence to show that they present a terrorist threat.”

A reasonable, informed, mature explanation of the Supreme Court’s decision.

Shocking how the same people who claim to love America and democracy are so willing to violate others constitutional right to habeas corpus. Everyone within the juridiction of the U.S. has a moral right to be afforded this right no matter who they are or what they have been accused of.

Its a blessing that these detainees have ones willing to fight for these rights for them because we have many Americans who do not have meaningful access to our courts when they are railed into our legal system.

The Supreme Court didn’t violate the law, they interpreted the constitution and found the law unconstitutional. That’s what the Supreme Court does within out system of government. They are the check on unconstitutional acts made by the Executive and law passed by Legislative bodies. That is our system.

I didn’t like their recent decision on voter ID laws, but I don’t think they made law, they interpreted whether it was constitutional or not.

Law is not made from the bench no matter how many times wrong-thinking Americans say otherwise. The Court interprets the law, they don’t make the law.

If they have “Constitutional rights” so does the President. He now has the “constitutional right” to grant every one of them a “Pardon”. They can be granted sanctuary in the the United States, as well. Sending them home could be dangerous for them the Iraqis might meet them and do bad things to them. They would not then be subject to ANY of our laws.

I think they should be pardoned and given sanctuary. We have to decide where they would be sent. My first reaction was to send them to Washington, D.C. that was several days ago.

That WAS BEFORE THE THE P.D. BECAME THEIR ADVOCATE. Now I think they should be sent to St. Louis, and given loft apartments, Computers, bomb making instructions etc…. all paid for by the U.S. government.

We all know what happened when Clinton pardoned the terrorist’s who slaughtered police officers in New York. They slaughtered again.

Is Bush as intelligent as Clinton? If he is, he will pardon them.

Where do you guys and gals think they should be sent? Washinton, St. Louis, or elsewhere? If you choose elsewhere where do you think they should be sent?

One can only expect that the terrorists will extend the same due process before they hehead our prisoners.

I hope everyone here has the same opinion about the SCOTUS after they uphold the second amendment today.

“Behead”. This place needs a preview feature.

>>>:The Supreme Court didn’t violate the law, they interpreted the constitution and found the law unconstitutional.”<<<

No, they didn’t.

They completely ignored the law, as in, pretended it wasn’t even there.

The Supreme Court majority has told the American people to ignore that, in no time in American history have habeas corpus rights been granted to unlawful foreign enemy combatants, to ignore that during WWII the Supreme Court ruled that unlawful combatant saboteurs could be denied habeas corpus, to ignore that during the Civil War that habeas corpus was suspended for American citizens, to ignore that the Supreme Court ruling seeks to give foreign enemy combatants more rights than illegal aliens. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy ignores the reality that the U.S. Constitution was for American citizens, not foreign enemy combatants during wartime, by arrogantly demanding that “[t]he laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

That’s not ‘interpretation’, that’s ‘invention’.

SCOTUS is way out of line.

Damn those lengthy dissents that are petulant in tone and full of lawyerly quibbles! How dare Justice Roberts muddy the issue with such.

Bwaaaaaaa-ha-ha. You guys have got to be kidding with this editorial. This is barely worthy of the Riverfront Times.

Puhhhh-lease. I’ll take the Chief Justice on his worst day vs. P-D Legal Eagle Editorial Mush-heads on their best day.

BTW, it was refreshing to NOT see a reference to the NY Times… perhaps it’s somewhere else on today’s editorial page?

Mr. Roth… What is the PD’s position on reparations for the tens of thousands of German soldiers held on US soil from 1942-1945 without habeas corpus rights? Also, will there be any investigative reporting of the number of public defenders and costs of litigation resulting from this 5-4 decision that is so great for the American People? Would the PD participate in creating a fund for the families and children of Americans killed by terrorists released as a result of this decision?

Jihadis caught on the field of battle, fighting against the accepted rules of war (in uniform, not hiding among civilians, not using civilians as bombs, not beheading captives on tv) our protected by our Constitution? How freakin stupid are these 5 idiots? Commanders in the field will now have to worry what the Anti Christian Lawyers Union will say about how Johny Jihad was captured, disgraceful.

1. Where our troops, embassies, etc. go, so goes the “Flag”, hence, certain constitutional presuppositions — ie habeas corpus.

2. Just because others behave savagely is not an excuse for us to behave as savages.

3. Appropo the german detainees here during WWII, they were classified as POW’s and theoretically at least we had to abide by certain agreed upon conventions of warfare. More germane to this discussion is the detention of thousands of Japanese Americans in “relocation camps” whose rights to habeas corpus weere usurped. This was later ruled unconstitutional, however, during the war the Supreme Court allowed it under the war powers. Bush & company like this parallel.

4. Those who run around shouting “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”, need to be reminded the USA is not a Royalist Republican State with “good king George” as its’ head. Freedom and democracy survive through practice and exercise, as well as active defense by our armed forces. Far too many are willing to cede their rights for “security”, especially if it seems only those who “threaten us” are being affected.

Unfortunately many (including 5/9 of the Supreme Court) are completely confused on the difference in “ceding our rights” and granting the hard won and oft defended constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and legal residents to our enemies and the world at large. It will be interesting to carefully compare the reaction of the PD and some of these bloggers when the SCOTUS decision on the 2nd Amendment rights of Washington DC residents.

There’s a much better review of the 5-4 Supreme Court decision than the one by the Post-Dispatch. See “Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts” by gadsdentimes.com, dated 6/13/08. It points out just how much more needs to be decided before we can allow hearings in civilian courts. What is not questioned is whether the detainees would be allowed trial by jury. God help us if this happens. One loose cannon on a jury could release a trained, vicious, and radical murderer, sworn to kill all infidels. Each of us, including the P-D editors, are “infidels”.

Where would we release them, back to their countries of origin, that may simply refuse them? Maybe onto the streets of America, just long enough to disappear into the crowd, or go to the local water works to poison us? There’s no security on our Chain of Rocks and Howard Bend water plants. Are a couple of lab attendants and pipefitters supposed to protect us?

George W. Bush has accepted the Supreme Court decision, with strong reservations (probably including some of mine above). Both John McCain and Barack Obama, for different reasons and based on a lot of difference in practical experience, agree that Gitmo should be closed. So be it, but beware the consequences. We are letting the fox into the henhouse.

>>>”1. Where our troops, embassies, etc. go, so goes the “Flag”, hence, certain constitutional presuppositions — ie habeas corpus.”<<<

Presuppositions, my eye. That’s exactly the kind of manufactured precedent that makes SCOTUS a political organization when that is precisely what it is NOT supposed to be.

The bottom line is that the government cannot proceed against some of these unlawful combatants without revealing their intelligence sources and intelligence gathering techniques.

SCOTUS is demanding that the U.S. lay bare its techniques and strategy for the enemy to learn from. They’ve already figured out that they can evade much of the blowback from their military actions by dressing in civilian clothes and never formally organizing into an army.

They are NOT entitled to Habeas Corpus, and they are NOT entitled to Geneva Convention protections. They ARE entitled to a bullet in the head as soon as they are found.

And who will doubt that that will be the evntual outcome of this nonsense?

Too much controversy over how to handle prisoners?

THEN DON’T TAKE ANY!

Good grief, people, do you remeber how a prisoner by the name of NICK BERG was treated?!?

Before anyone questions my take on security at the City of St. Louis water plants, I have spent time at both over the years, as a technical salesman and as an on-site project consultant. At one time, the people at Chain of Rocks expressed concern because of a proposed BICYCLE PATH through the property. How stupid are we?

How stupid are we? May I suggest you re-read the editorial above for your answer?

CTC-
All embassies of every country are considered part of that country’s sovreign territory, hence things like “diplomatic immunity”, etc. This is not new and has been around for a long time.

I will take this as assurance from the PD and the SCOTUS that no more American soldiers will be tortured or mutalated That’s good news.

The detainees in Guantanamo are from the Afghan theatre of operations. Not Iraq. The Afghan Northern Alliance is responsible for some of these people being there. Many were “turned in” by war lords getting rid of rivals and are not guilty of anything at all. Beheadings are almost exclusively an arab phenomenon and Afghan native fighters do not normally engage in this practice. When those found innocent are released they will not be met by any Iraqis wishing to do them harm (john). The SCOTUS vote was 5-4 indicates that 3 of the 5 were put there by Republican presidents and believe these people have rights. I am happy with the decision as it affrims that we are, indeed, a “nation of laws.”

So far the Bush Administration is 0 for 2 on their presumptive powers regarding the detainees.

Sorry Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President, you are subject to the Constitution and the rule of law.

It has been an article of faith of the Royalist Republicans that the President has vast imperial powers. Watch out for strike 3.

RHarnack—

” All embassies of every country are considered part of that country’s sovereign territory, hence things like “diplomatic immunity”, etc. ”

This is true — the land, the building, etc., are sovereign territory. Your mistake is then automatically granting “rights of U.S. citizenship” to foreign nationals who happen to be — for whatever reason — on said territory.

Your reasoning would permit the foreign national gardener/plumber/cook (that happens to be working on embassy grounds) access to petition U.S. courts merely because they’re on U.S. sovereign territory. And this most definitely is not established precedent.

The decision was wrong.

Period.

It appewars that some of you do not feel that we should extend the humanity of our laws to all human beings. How dark and perverted. And you call yourselves civilized people? Ever heard of treat others the way you expect to be treated?

No one had the ability to say which of the detainees where guilty or innocent, so of course the Supreme Court made the correct decision.

Mr. Walker… The military tribunals were extending the humanities of our laws to these enemy combatants. What is perverted is opening our already overburdened domestic criminal courts to wartime foreign combatants. They may as well all be released now. There is no way to reconcile their newly granted constitutional rights with the requirements of national security. Our enemies are not saying how nice we are for doing this. They are wondering how stupid we can really be.

Do all you constitutional geniouses know if this is true? I heard that the President can overrule a ruling by the SCOTUS.

Bobz-
If the gardener and other personnel petitioned for protection, and/or citizenship rights, they would have to be considered. Just as the emabassy, while conforming to local pay rates etc, still needs to follow the US labor code.

The Bush Administration worked very hard not to called these captured prisoners POW’s because they knew the moment they did another whole set of rules apply. They are being called on their sophistry.

Given how some of these prisoners were turned in, there exists the strong possibility they had nothing to do with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. When we went into Afghanistan, we offered rewards to all who turned in “fighters” from one of these groups. Some of the people “capturing” the prisoners were grabbing people who they had a grudge against and claiming they were in one of the two categories.

All this ruling means so far is that a more thorough process of vetting each and every prisoner needs to be done.

The reasonable alternative would be to, take NO prisioners.

And So It Begins:
” Gitmo Lawyers Say Detainee Was Not Read His Rights– Therefore He Must Be Set Free”(http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/gitmo-defense-lawyers-say-detainee-was.html)

>>>”In July 2002, Omar Khadr threw a grenade that blew up an American soldier in Afghanistan. Khadr was wounded and captured during this same firefight. After his capture a video was found that shows Khadr toying with detonating cord as other men including Abu Laith al-Libi assemble explosives in the same house that had been destroyed in the firefight. He was also seen planting landmines while smiling and joking with the cameraman. It has been suggested that these were the same landmines later recovered by American forces on a road between Gardez and Khowst”<<<

Sounds like an innocent victim of circumstance to me.

1. Something not talked about by the Administration too much are the actual number of detainees at Guantanamo that have been released. Could this be because they do not want the American public to know how many they wrongly imprisoned in the first place?

2. No where in the Supreme Court’s decision does it say anything about those who have actually committed acts of terror. What it does say is that the detainees have a right to review.

3. For those who seem to be of the opinion that it is better to detain an innocent person wrongfully, than to possibly let a guilty one go, there is at least one other government that is in full agreement with you — the Peoples Republic of China. Funny, you don’t look like a Chinese Communist official.