Why Elections Matter: Five Liberal Idiots Setting National Security Policy
The five liberal idiots on the Supreme Court just gave Gitmo detainees the right to challenge their being held as enemy combatants in US courts. This is why elections matter. This is why busting our hump to win back control of the Senate while maintaining control of the White House is imperative for Republicans.
People have groused about McCain being a maverick. They’ve also said that Norm Coleman has gone green too often for their likings. To some, that’s the only reason they need for not busting their hump in getting these men elected. While I agree that both gentlemen have given us hearturn with some of their policy positions, it’s instances like this that sharpen our focus on what the most important things in life are.
The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court’s liberal justices in the majority.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.
This isn’t a ruling based on the Constitution. It’s essentially a policy decree from the third legislative branch of government.
Captain Ed nails it with this observation:
The Supreme Court has basically ruled that the Constitution applies worldwide rather than just to the US and its residents, which makes it pretty difficult to go back to the well a third time. Also, with very little time remaining in the Bush administration, they will not have enough time to push through a third attempt to address the Court’s concerns, and this ruling appears to be much broader than the two that preceded this one.
It seems absurd to apply criminal law to unlawful combatants captured during hostilities abroad. Will they require a Miranda reading, too? Do we have to bring the soldiers and Marines who captured them to the trial? In our 232-year history, when have we ever allowed that kind of access to enemy combatants not captured inside the US itself?
These bunch of black-robed liberal idiots should be run out of DC for their incompetence. At minimum, they should have to run as legislators because that’s what Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer are.
This cabal started by saying that the tribunals were illegal because they were created solely within the Executive Branch. After that ruling, the White House made its case to Congress, which pased legislation that created the laws for military tribunals. Now the five liberal idiots moved the goalposts again, this time saying that that wasn’t good enough either.
I strongly suggest that Republicans and sane-thinking Democrats, if any such creatures exist, put together a constitutional amendment that would essentially render this ruling moot. A constitutional amendment stating that enemy combatants captured on foreign battlefields don’t have Habeus Corpus rights is the sledgehammer needed to void this ruling.
Those people who stall the constitutional amendment or vote against it should be labeled as not giving a damn about national security. PERIOD.
This is a disastrous overreach on the court’s behalf. They should be ashamed of themselves.
The bigger point is that we need to get more justices like Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito. That won’t happen if we don’t maintain control of the White House and retake the Senate.
Anyone who thinks that that isn’t worth fighting for needs to re-examine their priorities as well as their responsibilities to the rest of society. We can’t afford to have liberals in the Senate and in the Supreme Court putting us at risk.
Technorati Tags: Enemy Combatants, Habeus Corpus, Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, SCOTUS, John McCain, Norm Coleman, Constitution, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 12th, 2008 at 9:51 am
“Five Liberal Idiots Setting National Security Policy”
The sad fact is: two of those liberal idiots (Kennedy and Souter) were appointed by Republican presidents. Regardless of the type of judges McCain says he’d like to appoint, he will not be able to get an Alito-Roberts-Scalia-Thomas style justice approved by a Democrat-controlled Senate. So, we’d be more likely to end up with another Kennedy or a Souter.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Why are our troops even detaining them in the first place?
Just shoot them upon capture the way their predecessors did when they caught Skorzeny’s Kommandos pretending to be American troops.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Thankfully, cooler heads prevail.
The United States is the last, best hope for mankind. We are viewed around the world as one of the few countries that respect and abide by the RULE OF LAW. We cannot — and should not — alter or disregard the Constitution whenever it suits us. That would be the rule of man, commonly referred to here (and elsewhere) as a dictatorship and contrary to everything the United States stands for.
Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer did the right thing.
If we cannot accord these detainees a speedy trial, we should release them. It’s that simple. The problem is that we can’t prove that they’ve committed the crimes we’ve accused, and having tortured and imprisoned these human beings, we have put our own troops in jeopardy of the same treatment. (And before you all go off on these detainees not being equivalent to our troops, it makes no difference whether you wear a uniform or not when you’re the one being waterboarded, beaten or electrocuted.)
It is a stain upon this great nation’s history that we have held these prisoners without evidence and due process.
It takes great intellect, resolve and will to read and apply the Constitution, and the United States is a better country for this majority ruling.
God Bless the Supreme Court and the United States of America!
June 12th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I totally agree with this blog post. We should keep putting suspected terrorists in Gitmo to protect our country. Even if they have no ties to terrorism. The years these people with no ties to terrorism spend in prison undergoing stress positions, receptive isolation, and other methods of enhanced interrogation techniques (not torture) without any justification yet alone evidence will teach them to love America. And you know, not end up hating America for all the non-torture we put them through. Then again, we could just keep them in there forever.
As a result, our enemies will learn to fear us. They should know better than to defend their land against the righteousness of America. They should know better than to fight against the freedom that we’re forcing down on them. And they should definitely know not to be terrorists even though we don’t have any evidence to prove that they’re not.
When will the world realize that America knows best?
June 12th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Interesting that the ad next to this post is one asking whether one believes John Boy will appoint people he has described publicly or another feel-good idiot and social experimenter.
And who is surprised at the blatherings of Rocky and Liem? Some real, solid, thoughtful and insightful commentary there, guys. What does it have to do with reality, like, say, many of those we have released from Gitmo have been re-arrested on the battlefields trying to kill American soldiers?
And these two yoyos really believe Christianity is a threat to our way of life!
June 12th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
So you’re saying that these people who were imprisoned, interrogated, and
torturedput under enhanced interrogation techniques without being charged or given a chance to prove their innocence were upset about it?Well, call me a monkey’s retarded uncle, I’m just as surprised as you are, Carlos. You’d think they would respect America after we showed these former prisoners what nice liberators we are.
June 12th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
What idiot released them, Carlos? Oh yeah, that would be the so-called infallible military justice system. Clearly, the kangaroo court Bush set up doesn’t know what they are doing, as evidenced by the 30 former detainees being re-arrested. And do go all “they were so compelled to fight us after being tortured that even though they were caught up in a failed system they didn’t just go back to cab driving and day laboring!” explanation, because I wouldn’t believe you. They were all terrorists before we detained and tortured them.
So, in a world where we have to be right 100% of the time and the terrorists only have to be right once, we should obviously discontinue the detainee program, close Gitmo, try these
human beingsterrorists and either convict them and throw away the key or acquit them and send the dirty illegal aliens back from where they came!June 12th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
So who has won? Certainly not the detainees. The Court’s analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right,
followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases,
followed by further litigation before the D. C. Circuit— where they could have started had they invoked the DTA
procedure.
Not Congress, whose attempt to “determine— through democratic means—how best” to balance the security of the American people with the detainees’ liberty
interests, see Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 636 (2006) (BREYER, J., concurring), has been unceremoniously brushed aside.
Not the Great Writ, whose majesty is
hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone.
Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers,
who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants.
And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.
- Chief Justice Roberts
Ill tell you whose won, the nut roots, the Marxists, and their ilk on the left have just won another milestone in the march to tyranny and the wussification of our military.
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear from our two liberal posters pissing and moaning about our guys getting killed. Well you guys ought to be in hog heaven about now, because all the court has done is insure possibly more of them will now die than necessary.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:10 am
“…pissing and moaning about our guys getting killed. Well you guys ought to be in hog heaven about now, because all the court has done is insure possibly more of them will now die than necessary.”
It also provides no incentive to detain enemy combatants and may actually encourage handing them over to other governments–governments with less compunctions of conscience about torture and punishment than the U.S.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Or, for the mindless killing machines donkeys believe the military creates, a better reason to kill them on the fields of battle and forget about capturing them? It was a mindless decision by “justices” more interested in feeling good about themselves than keeping America and Americans safe, or interpreting what the Constitution actually says, and the unintended consequences may and probably will be enormous.
And then the donkeys will be crying “foul” even louder!
June 13th, 2008 at 4:14 am
As we speak the libtards have supported murdering another 4,300 innocent US Civilian babies, and if that isn’t torture, getting ripped limb from limb or having your brains vaccuumed out or being poisoned to death, well, the libtards just seem to be afraid of anyone big enough to call them on it.
Let’s face it, we’ve become complete pussies. In WW2 the democratic prezzudent just had 100,000 slam locked up - and even the canuckian BC bud tree huggers helped whip up a few prime spots.
The rest were just executed unless needed for some show trial or exchange.
The result of this will NOT be the terrorist enemy being killed on the battlefield, it will be “they will be let go” if there isn’t 9th curcuit court libtard passing “evidence” immediately available.
Come on, you’ve heard from our men, they already have had their hands tied, the libtards promote AQ battlefield terror video and the demtards like Murtha go on multiple year long idiot escapades about now cleared “Haditha marines”.
We not only should execute every piece of crap held in Gitmo immediately, we should have executed every single one of the 2,700+ let go already.
Well, it’s not a war, it a war on crime, and most the dems now known as libtards claim the USA is the criminal, and they’ve been saying since they first sucked down that gangha, hung out with the communist red professors, got drunk too much, and put their cigarette butts out on the carpet in the hallway as a protest, just like OBAMA said he did in his book, that he also read outloud and put on tape for further libtard indoctrination sessions, as far and as wide as the commie pinkos can get it going.
That’s ok, they came to their senses for about 2 days or 2 weeks after 911, and by the look of things it won’t be long before they have another couple days of clarity. Let’s just hope their putird skulls don’t clear up for a whole month or more, because that’s gonna really hurt to have that happen.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:54 am
The communist vermin in the ACLU have been trying to dismantle the Uniform Code of Military Justice since Viet Nam, and they’ve finally managed to get a chink it its side.
Any body whose ever had the God awful experience of being in a combat zone knows what the unofficial policy is going to be now. Should we take these guys prisoner, fill out the paperwork, read them their Miranda rights and then face a federal court investigation as to how careful we were, or do we take them out?
June 13th, 2008 at 9:17 am
You’re right, TA Gray. The only solution to this travesty is to kill anyone who looks like a terrorist. Once we take out all these America-haters, our troops will no longer be killed. Mission accomplished.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Thats the smartest thing you’ve said yet.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Great! Now that we agree, we can proceed with my master plan. And the greatest part is that once we kill all 1.61 billion Muslim men, women, and children, we can finally be safe from our enemies and we can go back to having cheap oil.
We might as well take out those pesky border crossing Latinos while we’re at it. And then those threatening, spying Asians who are plotting to outpace America. We better keep an eye out for those Africans too, but we sure could use the non-slave labor. Then it will be a perfect world.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Liem, as an obviously educated person, thoroughly understands the difference between adherents to a political ideology as opposed to fanatics of a religious stripe. Not the Bible-thumpers he fears so much, but the ones willing to sacrifice children as martyrs to the cause of the caliphate.
That’s why he derisively starts introducing race and ethnicity into the argument, because his argument won’t stand on its own.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Liem, Ill let you in a little military secret. The bad guys (and girls sometimes) shoot at you. They the only ones you have to help along the way to martyredom.
You see war has a real efficient way of clearing out all the crap in one’s life, and bring you down to basics.
June 14th, 2008 at 12:28 am
I understand your argument perfectly well. I’m just trying to understand where you draw the line in this optional war in Iraq and how far you’re willing to go to achieve this magical, abstract concept you label as ‘victory’.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:23 am
There you go again, Liem, assuming the groupthink you are subject to is reality, when in fact it is based upon twisted language and a feel-good world view.
You are making the assumption that in any conflict there is a “winner-take-all” side, and in war that just ain’t so. Patton understood this, and mourned the death of every soldier he sent there.
You see, Liem, war really is hell, injuries and death really do occur no matter how “nice” or “right” either or both sides are, and casualties for the cause of perceived self-protection are going to happen. To some, our way of life is worth dying for.
Obviously, for others, nothing is worth that sacrifice.
I’d hate to be the one depending upon that type of wuss to defend his family from violence.
That’s a most basic difference between libs and conservatives: there are some things worth dying for.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Liem is refering to my personal belief that if you resort to the military, you intend to use it. That wars are not ended by cease fires, troop pull outs or retreats, they only end when one side destroys the others ability to wage war = Victory.
Apparently thats a hard concerpt for liberals to grasp.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:47 am
This war was entirely optional. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee released a report saying that the Bush administration purposefully downplayed the questionable intelligence in favor of pushing for war.
Carlos: How is a war in Iraq worth dying for? Would you send your (hypothetical) son or daughter there? I don’t know how old you are, but would you go there yourself?
Would you be willing to pay more taxes so we can responsibly pay for this war instead of lending from China? Do you support Jim Webb’s GI Bill or do you think soldiers need to do more before they can be compensated? I’m asking these questions because I’d like to understand what your idea of sacrifice is.
TA Gray: How do you expect to destroy the insurgents’ ability to wage war? You talk a lot about how this war was grossly mishandled, so I hope you’re not suggesting that the military is the only way to achieve ‘victory’. That said, how can you tell the difference between an Iraqi civilian and an Iraqi insurgent?
June 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
The preferred definition of “victory” in my American Heretage Dictionary is “Final and complete defeat of an enemy IN A MILITARY ENGAGEMENT.” As a Navy guy, that means to me, IF your going to use the military, you dont screw around, there is no other option. If you must use the miltary, use it absolutely, not some half assed incursion like we tried in Mogadesu, or quitting before its over like we did in Nam, or Korea.
How do I destroy an insurgents ability to wage war, just like we are finally doing now, one cell, one cache, one neighborhood at a time.
This is not rocket science. And no, I dont know the difference beween a civilian and an “insurgent”. So if he gets my way, he’s probably going to be toast, that’s what war is, that and bone tiring, hard ass work.
If your serious in your opposition to war and your reading all the crap and propaganda from these academicians and grey haired hippy “loyahs” from NYU your a fool. You should be reading W.T. Sherman’s Civil War, Alfred Mahan’s book on Seapower, Klauswitz, Patton, Schwartzkopf, Roger Knights bio of Admiral Nelson. In other words, guys that know what war is about, hate it as much as anyone, but realize there is a time for it.
June 14th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Part II
I can’t sugar coat this. I dont understand “optional war”. what kind of crap is that? Its either necessary or not. If its necessary then do it right. If its not then by all means try diplomacy.
War IS hell.
That should be all you need to know.
Which is why this ruling is so stupid. Here you have a bunch of well meaning judges, (I hope, although I have serious doubts sometimes about their true intentions) trying to place a peacetime civilian legal value on a war time situation.
Why do you think we have a separate code of law, and a separate court system just for the military? A code by the way that is clearly unconstitutional in a civilian sense. Writ of Habeus Corpus, like Due Process can be a two edged sword, and if the court is not going to excercise restraint in going into an area beyond delegated powers. Scalea is right when he says we are going to live to regret this.
End of rant.
June 15th, 2008 at 8:51 am
I am old enough to have fought in Viet Nam. And, yes, I have children whom I would send without reservation to either Iraq or Afghanistan, but not to Kosovo. Neither would I send any to any other war zone directly controlled by the U.N.voluntarily. And yes, if I could I would go to the aforementioned countries myself if the military would let me. Unfortunately, they don’t take a whole bunch of social security-aged volunteers.
As far as paying for it, I believe a much better question is, why are we paying for abortions, for people who believe it’s their birthright to have the guvmint support them from cradle-to-grave, for criminals who steal across our sovereign borders to take jobs our citizens certainly will do and drive medical care into bankruptcy and overcrowd our prisons and schools and whine that they still own our land? And this is just the tip of the iceburg! Paying for a war is constitutional. Paying for most of the other 64% of our budget, I can’t find anywhere in the Constitution that says that’s ok but can find places where it says it isn’t.
But what do (I know? I’m just a simple country boy not smart enough to figure out I’m being fed a load of groupthink by knuckledraggers, unlike the Hussein worshippers who believe every word from that prophet’s mouth.
And John Boy has never said he doesn’t want post-service compensation for our troops, he would just like it commensurate with time served and action seen. Kinda like getting more days vacation at work the more years you’ve held your job. I can see where that would irritate libs and such, since it is birthright (again) that should guarantee the same compensation to all employees that the boss gets.
And a final note: what really gets my goat every time is understanding that those who make laws for the rest of us peons are generally not subject to those same laws. Take social security, for example (please). If it is so wonderful and the guvmint’s doing such a great job with it, why don’t those elected officials step up to the plate, give up their golden umbrellas, and put themselves under the same retirement they’ve forced me to under threat of incarceration? Or even look to fix it for me and others my age and younger? Hypocrites! Liars! Thieves! Politicians!
June 15th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
“And John Boy has never said he doesn’t want post-service compensation for our troops, he would just like it commensurate with time served and action seen.”
There has always been a quid pro quo with GI education benefits. You do more time, you get more education funds. Wow what a concept! I never fail to be amazed the way all these anti military/war/defense/nationalism types get all upset about GI bennies.