Here's an outstanding piece of writing by Conservative Beach Girl on the unfathomable decision by SCOTUS to ban the states from executing child rapists.
Conservative Beach Girl: Liberal Supremes to Child Rapists: Go on, rape 'em! We got your back!
Dr. Phares nails the disastrous fallout of the Supreme Court decision to grant habeas corpus status to stateless muslim terrorists captured while attacking American interests abroad. This decision undermines centuries of international law and understanding. It dramatically weakens America and other free peoples around the world.
Somehow, this decision must be reversed if we are to have any realistic chance of defeating the global jihad aimed at imposing sharia on the world.
FROM COUNTERTERRORISM BLOG:
How the Jihadi Propaganda Machine Will Win the Guantanamo Trials
By Walid Phares
Jihadism in the 21st century has plans for all types of situations, including Mujahada (Jihadi activity) in a courtroom when needed.
This is now what the world will witness during the trials of the al Qaeda detainees in Guantanamo, Cuba. Both the inmates on the inside and the Jihadi-mates on the outside were waiting for this moment to strike, politically and psychologically, using the media as their weapon. To the well-trained and -indoctrinated five standing trial, the objective is not to gain as many rights and freedoms as possible under current U.S. and international law; rather it is to resume what they began before 9/11 which they deeply wish to fulfill - as they said in their own words - using the trial as a global media opportunity.
This attitude has been anticipated by most experts who have followed the Guantanamo "ideological" battle, particularly the al Qaeda-Jihadist treatment of the issue. It was fully predicted that at least Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and Ramzi bin al Sheeba will take the lead in counter-prosecuting the United States and all its allies. Unlike in other comparable cases, analysts know how important it is for al Qaeda and their supporters around the world to bash the United States - and any other democracy that prosecutes Salafi terrorists - when the trials are ongoing. At that juncture, three elements will converge into one powerful force, all determined to score points against America.
First, there is the Bin Laden organization which thrives on fiery declarations issued by its members on trial. Their goal is, of course, to maximize the propaganda dividends. Every word in the statements made by KSM and al Sheeb, and the others as well, will become gold for the as Sahab machine, the maker of the video and audio material. To al Qaeda, the fate of the men in Guantanamo is not the issue, for in their Jihad they don't count. Rather, it is the amount of Jihadi propaganda material they can get out of this "battlefield" that really matters to them.
Second, and more importantly, there are the other Jihadists worldwide. These are the Jihadists who still have their freedom and will be able to carry out virulent attacks against the trials and the United States. In doing this, a political price will be paid by America, even for trying the most obvious terrorists - the planners and backers of the 9/11 operation. Organizations, movements, parties, ideologues, militants and a vast constellation of Salafists - and also Khomeinists - are and will continue to attack Guantanamo itself while ignoring the defendants.
The goal of these other free Jihadists is to deter Washington - and other Western countries - from trying the incarcerated Jihadists. Their thinking is that if the U.S. gets condemned in the global media for prosecuting and trying and eventually sentencing the worst of the worst, America will be intimidated when it tries to prosecute non-al Qaeda Jihadists. In addition, other "hidden forces" sympathetic to the goals, but not the methods, of Bin Laden will support the campaign against the trial by enlisting their resources in the media to serve the "anti-trial" campaign (even though this is not a pro-al Qaeda trend).
Third, the conglomeration of all anti-American political forces, including many radical circles within the United States, will unleash its attacks against Guantanamo and what it represents, meaning the existence of the "War on Terror". A significant ideological segment of the political establishment in America has been pushing the slogan of an "orchestrated war" which must be ended. To them, the trial of the terrorists in Guantanamo is an opportunity to bleed U.S. efforts in the confrontation, thereby enhancing their own domestic political fortunes and agendas.
These three elements are converging into (what is to them) the Battle of Guantanamo. Here is how it will take place.
First, the "team" on the inside of the courtroom will unleash any and all statements needed to create the environment for a martyrdom case: istishaad. They will claim the tribunal is not legitimate, the Guantanamo process is not legal, the procedure is not acceptable and that they want to receive the death penalty so they may become shuhada, or martyrs.
Then, the "production" will be picked up by al Qaeda and other Jihadi-Salafist entities around the world and will reappear in videos, audio and texts, as well as circulate around the world of militant networks.
The in-court "drama" will also be used by the Wahhabi and Muslim Brotherhood networks, that is the long term Jihadists, not praising the defendants but rather promoting some of the arguments made by the al Qaeda detainees. This stealth use of the "production" will serve to produce more incitements and solidify the Jihadi agenda.
For example, the campaign will target American credibility and the concept of a war on terror. Some of the statements by the defendants will be stressed, such as "we do not recognize your laws, but only Sharia." In short, a control room is already in place to feed off the Guantanamo trials and turn it into a victory in the War of ideas. The al Qaeda detainees will make their statements and will be sentenced, but the international Jihadists will thrive on these words.
Meanwhile in America, we have two indicators that we aren't really winning yet on this front. One indication is that elements within our government bureaucracy are now using the absolute wrong words (the so-called "lexicon") to fight this battle. The second indication is the stunningly paltry coverage of what should be known as the trials of the century, in favor of hyped coverage of trials much less significant.
Until these indications change, we are not contenders.
Here's a follow up on the disastrous SCOTUS decision by Henry Mark Holzer, one of America's greatest constitutional lawyers. His analysis is both correct and discouraging.
FROM FRONT PAGE MAGAZINE:
The Supreme Court Wins, America Loses
By Henry Mark Holzer
FrontPageMagazine.com | 6/13/2008
As the world has just learned, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 yesterday that “for the first time in our Nation’s history, the Court confers a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war.” So summed up Justice Scalia in a stinging dissent in which he was joined by justices Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer made up the majority.
There is much that can be said about the Boumediene v. Bush decision:
How the Court was able to review the case, in light of its long-standing practice of waiting until lower federal courts have an opportunity to rule.
How the majority torturously construed the English and American constitutional history of habeas corpus.
How the majority dishonestly eviscerated its controlling precedent on habeas corpus.
How habeas corpus was never intended to apply, and never did apply, to unlawful enemy combatants captured outside the United States.
How the processes established by the political branches—Congress and the President—for handling unlawful enemy combatants more than satisfied the Constitution.
How the majority was able to invalidate the Detainee Treatment Act.
How the decision will severely compromise the military’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism.
How the judicial usurpation of presidential war-powers has now become nearly complete.
How this contra-constitutional coup has been engineered by a razor thin 5-justice majority of the Court, three of them having been appointed by Republican presidents (Stevens: Ford, Kennedy: Reagan, Souter: Bush I) and the other two by Republican bandwagoneers in the Senate (Ginsburg and Breyer).
All this and more—important as it is to our Constitution, our Nation, and our national security—will be discussed at length in the days to come, as Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Boumediene receives the scrutiny and obloquy that it deserves. But those discussions will have to wait, because in this election year there is a more fundamental aspect of the decision that needs to be considered.
In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Roberts said this about the now-unconstitutional Detainee Treatment Act (“DTA”):
"The majority rests its decision on abstract and hypothetical concerns. Step back and consider what, in the real world, Congress and the Executive have actually granted aliens captured by our Armed Forces overseas and found to be enemy combatants:
· The right to hear the bases of the charges against them, including a summary of any classified evidence.
· The ability to challenge the bases of their detention before military tribunals modeled after Geneva Convention procedures. Some 38 detainees have been released as a result of this process.
· The right, before the [Combatant Status Review Tribunals], to testify, introduce evidence, call witnesses, question those the Government calls, and secure release, if and when appropriate.
· The right to the aid of a personal representative in arranging and presenting their cases before a [Combat Status Review Tribunal].
· Before the [United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit], the right to employ counsel, challenge the factual record, contest the lower tribunal’s legal determinations, ensure compliance with the Constitution and laws, and secure release, if any errors below establish their entitlement to such relief."
Roberts continued, as he worked toward exposing what the Supreme Court’s majority was really up to:
"In sum, the DTA satisfies the majority’s own criteria for assessing adequacy. This statutory scheme provides the combatants held at Guantanamo greater procedural protections than have ever been afforded alleged enemy detainees—whether citizens or aliens—in our national history."
Then Roberts asked: “So who has won?”
His answer: “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 [United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia 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 . . . has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ [of habeas corpus], 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.” (Emphasis added.)
If the detainees have not won, if Congress has not won, if the principle of habeas corpus has not won, if the rule of law has not won, if the American people have not won—and, one can add, if the Commander-in-Chief has not won—who has?
Earlier in his dissent Chief Justice Roberts suggested the answer, writing that the Boumediene decision is “not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants,” and that “[a]ll that today’s opinion has done is shift responsibility for those sensitive foreign policy and national security decisions from the elected branches to the Federal Judiciary.”
More specifically, in the last four words of Justice Roberts’s dissent about who has won he names names: “unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”
Justice Scalia, too, sees the decision for what it is and surely understands who has won, writing in his dissent that:
"Today the Court warps our Constitution in a way that goes beyond the narrow issue of the reach of the Suspension [of habeas corpus] Clause, invoking judicially brainstormed separation-of-powers principles to establish a manipulable “functional” test for the extraterritorial reach of habeas corpus(and, no doubt, for the extraterritorial reach of other constitutional protections as well). It blatantly misdescribes important precedents, most conspicuously Justice Jackson’s opinion for the Court in Johnson v. Eisentrager. It breaks a chain of precedent as old as the common law that prohibits judicial inquiry into detentions of aliens abroad absent statutory authorization. And, most tragically, it sets our military commanders the impossible task of proving to a civilian court, under whatever standards this Court devises in the future, that evidence supports the confinement of each and every enemy prisoner."
For this constitutional and national security debacle, ultimately we have to thank not only the 5-justice majority but also justice-nominating and justice-confirming Republicans in the White House and Senate.
The Boumediene decision is thus a grave cautionary lesson about what is at stake in this presidential election: nothing less than the future of the Supreme Court for another generation, and with it the security of the United States of America.
In the last sentence of his dissent Justice Scalia writes: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.” Surely we will regret it—if the Nation lives.
Henry Mark Holzer, Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn Law School, is a constitutional lawyer and author most recently of The Supreme Court Opinions of Clarence Thomas, 1991-2006, A Conservative’s Perspective.
History will see this ruling as the most self-destructive event in the history of America. It will turn the rules of warfare and the Geneva convention on their heads. Every captured jihadi henceforth will just laugh at their captors and demand "lawyer" while laughing all the way to the DC federal court system. They will make the American court system a joke and a soapbox for their fanatical muslim credo.
Since the Geneva Conventions for POW's is now rendered meaningless, the answer is to hold military tribunals on the spot for jihadi captured on foreign soil, before they ever come close to American. Those not immediately executed can be incarcerated in prison ships on the high seas for the duration of hostilities.
Worrying about "world opinion" is what has gotten us into this position. It's time to take off the gloves of civilization and humanity and crush islamists wherever and whenever encountered. Rather than "help" the poor put-upon terrorists, this ruling will encourage a policy of No Prisoners, the best solution in any event.
When one is dragged into the sewer of islam, the only possible way to come out is to be more savage and implacable than they are.
FROM ATLAS SHRUGS:
SHOCKA! CAIR APPLAUDS SUPREME COURT GITMO RULING RIGHTS FOR TERRORISTS
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called the decision a “victory for objective justice”. Political Islam has the hardest and wildest last laugh.
FOOKIN NUTS! Perhaps Americans will begin to understand what a liberal Supreme court actually means - not in thought- but in deed. Jihadis, enemy combatants, killers of Americans and our soldiers are being granted constitutional rights. This is as ugly and sick as the Dred Scot SCOTUS decision.
Kathryn Lopez over at NRO writes, Make Me President of the Scalia Fan-Club
hat tip lovely Larwyn
From the decision today: After describing a passage from the last round of GTMO cases, where the court had said that the president has to consult with Congress on how to deal with the detainees, he writes: "Turns out they were just kidding."
Macranger: Liberal Half of Supremes Give Victory to Terrorists Liberal Half of Supremes Give Victory to Terrorists (UPDATE): Lawyer for Osama bin Laden's ex-driver to seek dismissal of charges at Guantanamo!
For credit reference the next attack on America, cite Kennedy, Souter, Ginsberg and Stevens, who decided today to rewrite the constitution decide that terrorists have the same rights as Americans.
"The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.
In its third rebuke of the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court's liberal justices were 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."
Kennedy said federal judges could ultimately order some detainees to be released, but that such orders would depend on security concerns and other circumstances.
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-Qaida and the Taliban.
The administration opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to hold enemy combatants, people suspected of ties to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
The Guantanamo prison has been harshly criticized at home and abroad for the detentions themselves and the aggressive interrogations that were conducted there.
The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate.
The administration had argued first that the detainees have no rights. But it also contended that the classification and review process was a sufficient substitute for the civilian court hearings that the detainees seek.
In dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts criticized his colleagues for striking down what he called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants."
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also dissented.
Scalia said the nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."
Here here Justice Scalia! Indeed, if there were ever a case for the people of the United States to remove Justices from the Supreme Court this is it. Let's hope that Federal Judges do release these terrorists and they come and settle down - innocent babes as they are - the neighborhoods of these four clowns.
Of course as Ed notes, "This will probably derail the hearings that had just begun at Gitmo for six members of the 9/11 conspiracy. By granting the unlawful combatants habeas corpus, the court has now eliminated the main reason for the military tribunal system — and for that matter, Gitmo itself. If the detainees can access American courts, they may as well be held on American soil."
Er, that would be Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the mastermind of 9/11. How does that make you feel America? If this killer gets his case taken to US Courts get ready for the circus instead of the noose that he deserves.
By the way, in the case of an out of control system of justice the people have the right to take back the Nation. That too is in the constitution.
Read it all.
CAIR IS DANCING.
In a statement, CAIR National Director Tahra Goraya said:
"Today's Supreme Court decision is a victory for objective justice. Once again, the Bush administration’s weak assertion that its heavy-handed detention policy operates within the law has not found support in our nation’s highest court.
“As with the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was passed quickly without proper congressional debate. The repeated lack of appropriate legislative process and administrative double dealing has proven to be damaging to our nation.
“The prison facility at Guantanamo Bay is a legal and public relations embarrassment for our country and should be promptly closed.”
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