Hip Hip Hurray!!
Finally, after almost 8 years of insanity our Supreme court is coming to grips with what this nation stands for.
It decided... again.. that all prisoners held in the States or out.. do have rights.
Wow.. it's hard for me to even consider that anyone in this nation, especially our president would think otherwise.
What makes our nation the envy of others? Why do people from all over the world want to move here?
Our freedom, our Constitution. Without the Constitution we are no different than any other nation in world.
The truth about this current President, George W. Bush is coming to light. Motions are being made to impeach him, too late though for all the damage he has done in our country.
I love this country and have been ashamed of many things that have happened over the last several years. Whenever we use terror to fight terrorist.. how are we then any different?
When we deny people a right to legal counsel and jail them for years without any rights whatsoever and use torture against them, please tell me how these acts differ from the ones we say we are fighting.
I am glad our Supreme Court made this decision. I am saddened that once again the Republicans including our president are upset about this decision. Are we going to turn from insanity back to the core of what our nation has always stood for?
I hear a lot of conservatives talking about how the morals and ethics in this nation are being eroded by abortion, gay rights, TV, books and movies.. yet none of the talk about denying other human beings protection from torture while in American custody.
How can this be?
Perhaps when a nation decides to believe the lies told by government to invade another country for oil they will fall for anything. I hope not. I hope we are waking up to what has been going on. We were told too many lies and lost too many freedoms to let it go on.
Hip hip Hurray Supreme Court of the United States of American for understanding that when it is legal to deny the constitutional rights to even one person, they have no value for anyone, American citizen or not.
Let's bring this nation back to sanity and shine truth and light on lies, fear and those who promote it.
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Comments: 59
One more republican appointee on the court and we are headed straight for the dark ages!
On the torture thing, no point in trying to justify waterboarding, it was not a good idea. Or the more amateurish physical abuse in Abu Ghraib and at Bagram air force base, which turned some people against us by reason of humiliation, and produced a few corpses of men in US custody, whoops. Some of them were guilty of something, some not. Sadly, some guys were framed by neighbors who admired their homes....It was excessive force stimulated by a temporary passion for vengeance- stupid stuff.
The odd thing about the Supreme court Vote was that there were 4 on Bush's side. Dont bother to ask the names, you know them already: Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas. That is the sad legacy of Republican court appointments- the Supreme Court barely is interested in defending human rights any more.
Another reason not to vote for mcbuch.
I too have been saddened over the last 8 years of transgressions of this admistration. I am also saddened at the number of times when I talk to people about the Supreme Court and a pending case they think the Supreme Courts' job is to validate the majority rule, not to uphold our Constitution, not to provide checks and balance.
Worse yet is when one of them will talk to the media about a case that they will be hearing but have not yet begun and they clearly state their bias and the words they use clearly show that they have already made up their mind on the case prior to even hearing opening remarks. That is shameful and IMO shows obvious mental incapacity to conduct their job properly.
And to anyone out there who thinks there is nothing wrong with this, because they favor your own opinon, let me add this. They will not always be in there. Some retire, some pass away. So is it still ok to have such openly outspoken biases from a judge, especially a Supreme Court justice, prior to hearing a pending case when in the future the tables are sure to be turned?
Thanks for the fabulous article Donna! Oh but one last thing. In regards to the (hopeful) impeachment of W. et al. Keep in mind an impeachment is a political equivalent to an indictment by a Grand Jury, which is simply saying after hearing the evidence do enough people who are voting on it feel there is sufficient evidence to press charges which may eventually lead to a trial. I know it seems too late and for many so many whose lives are lost it is. But a President may still be impeached and then tried after leaving office. The result could be that they may not be able to hold another office (he wont anyways...hopefully) but it can also result in the loss of any ongoing benefits...such as the pension he is due to receive for a lifetime upon leaving office. Also the most important thing is that if Congress does not demand to hold an impeachment hearing and therefore possibly take him and his to trial we are setting a very dangerous precedent.
One LAST item. I know what you mean when you talked about the supposed morals and values. I have been disgusted by those who claim to be so morally superior and commit the acts they do....not just political ones but for instance, Mark Foley and all his GOP cohorts who knew and simply told him he needed to stop doing that, and the book Scooter Libby wrote which if Dante is right should at least sink him past the fifth level of hell. It even spoke of a bear that had been trained to "copulate" with the small girls and when it wasn't "performing" the owner would poke it with a stick.
I find it amazing that the current Supreme Court feels that all these members of the SS were denied their constutional rights - that each and everyone of them needed to be charged with a statutary violation of U.S. law.
We have 5 justicies sitting in Washington DC who have a very warped concept of the U.S. Constitution.
Do we really want to go back to McCarthyism?
My love of writing is to get people thinking and this has done that, I am happy.
I am delighted to see the interest in politics this election and hope it continues to stimulate conversation and respectful debate. The issues are real and the decisions we make as a nation have the power to affect the whole planet.
Now we are hearing talk about the possibility of military action taken against Iran. Pity that the news people are not discussing this and the move to impeach Bush more on TV.
If Bush were not president he would have already been arrested and tortured in an American prison outside US soil.. it's legal there. smile..
Again, thank each of you. I really do appreciate the conversations... you have inspired me for another article.
Love light joy,
Donna
"If Bush were not President he would have already been arrested and tortured in an American prison outside US soil..it's legal there. smile.."
Anyone spot the inconsistency, here? How perfectly revealing...
Guess what????? It could happen to you.. That's a far more real threat. If any one person in this nation is denied rights.. then those rights no longer have value.
This is what I find so frightening, that we don't realize this. These "laws" don't only apply to non citizens.. Americans are experiencing the same confinement without legal representation.
There are separate legal systems for military actions that don't and haven't been prt of the civilian courts for over 200 years. And don't forget that even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the civil war. So there is and has been a place for military tribunals.
But what the hell lets make life harder in the future for the troops to do their job. After all thats the goal to eliminate the military. I've thought about re-enlisting when my daughter finishes school but more and more it's looking like the military is being micro managed to death. One upon a time there was a rule in the military that said "The right to self defence is never denied " but that doesn't seem to fly these days. Sorry if I seem a bit touchy about this but our troops are put in harms way(don't give me the Bushes fault crap) and more and more of them are hesitating because they have to worry if they are going to be in the latest news and strung up in the court of public opinion. Or have their leaders call them murders and compare them to nazis.
But I guess I'm just an insensitive evil war monger who only thinks about himself.
I just hope this doesn't cost us more American lives.
Oh yea what about our rights that are being denied in the name of global warming. Many don't complain about that.
Am I allowed my emotional release to Bent?
Fingers cross that one of the members that have actually read the constitution don't step down and Bush get to appoint another one of his cronies.
Good article - thank you so much.
I understand the frustration about the soldiers.. I have dear friends who are in Iraq right now. They are there because they count it an honor to defend all of us here at home. My first husband was in Nam for two tours, in Desert storm and has been to Iraq twice already and he is now in the guard and almost 60 years old.
Yes, I do understand that we want our troops,, real people in uniform safe.
I don't blame only Bush for this. Our whole nation has responsibility for our being and staying there. WE can't just up and leave, I get that too. However.. there is no justification for denying rights upon which this nation is founded, well known for and stands out as the leader of policy in most of the world.
Thank you for reading and commenting. My mind is expanding with all the new thoughts and information.
Love yourself well,
Donna
"A mere two Terms ago in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld… ..four Members of today's five-Justice majority joined an opinion saying the following: "Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority [for trial by military commission] he believes necessary."
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"Turns out they were just kidding. For in response, Congress, at the President's request, quickly enacted the Military Commissions Act, emphatically reasserting that it did not want these prisoners filing habeas petitions."
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"What the Court apparently means is that the political branches can debate, after which the Third Branch will decide."
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"What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and the President on such a point? None whatever. But the Court blunders in nonetheless. Henceforth, as today's opinion makes unnervingly clear, how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails."
What exactly would the individual charges be for a mass surrender?
It is perfectly understandable that Liberals should not be stressed unduly by thought, but five Supreme Court Judges? At least we had four who used their brains.
Sad... Soon, you'll have to find an island to get LOST in.
Thank God some sanity has returned to America via the older wisdom of some of our Justices... and that initial wisdom America's Founding Fathers installed in the separation of powers in the Judiciary.
The answer to the title of this article is "No;" nor has sanity returned to this site...yet.
Remember, this is not limited to people who are overseas, what is to stop them from declaring someone here an enemy combatant? So many of these detainees were imprisoned on trumped up charges for the few that were substantiated, so you believe that they shouldn't get a fair trial?
To think, Donna made this point using Bush and you still don't get it. The erosion of our rights was achieved by pandering to people's fears of terrorists, their fear of immigrants taking their jobs and a willful ignorance of facts.
Do you know that the Bush administration had a council including Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell and Ashcroft approving specific methods of interrogation? Do you think they had the training to make the determination of whether someone should be waterboarded and how frequently?
This decision was only a start on the long road that we as Americans have to go towards regaining the respect of the international community.
"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."
--Dostoyevsky
Bush has made heros out of the GITMO survivors. He wants to dump them on distant lands and hope nobody asks them how they enjoyed their stay at sunny GITMO. He will release them wholesale rather than endure the judicial process that would prove most of the prisoners have been abused and held upon hearsay and rumor. THe Repubs are quaking in their Guccis over a fair trail for these guys.
I never thought that so many Americans, raised in a land of such brave and noble tradition would sell out their nation. Each Repub should be imprisoned for a 6 week stay at GITMO and force fed the Constitution and memorize the writings of every founding father. Maybe they'd learn to grow spine.
Too much misinformation spread from too many sources for too long amongst people who have been too uninvolved.
Let me suggest for your consideration that it is paramount that we continue to work for a more universal form of government world wide and to make our political methods more reasonable and sophisticated. But that in the meantime, when we are being attacked by those who are not even as advanced as we backward people are, it is prudent and necessary for our survival to stop stupidly "carrying on as usual" when our enemy is not "carrying on as usual." What will you say about this when we are so weakened and terrorists manage to set off an A-bomb in San Francisco and kill perhaps a million people? Think it can't and won't happen. Of course not. 9-11 couldn't happen either... until it did. But then, you folks can always jump all over the Supreme Court for it's debilitating rulings and blame the next "Bush" for not having protected you.
Brilliant!
Indeed, the Right's granted by the Constitution are Right's granted to United States Citizens. Enemy combatants, particularly those OUT OF UNIFORM, have no claim to those Rights.
And, as Donald has said; the rest of you will be the one's screaming that we were NOT PROPERLY PROTECTED, when the next major-scale attack takes place. Make up your minds.
Thanks for the "compliment."
Indeed it is, and the United States is head-and-shoulders above the rest. Ask Dostoyevski. When you've finished "speaking" with him, educate yourself. Research the Daily Menu at Guantanamo Bay. I can assure you; they eat better than I.
Wrong. Constitutional rights pertain to anyone on US soil. Do you really mean to suggest that a Canadien in this country legally would not be protected by the 5th amendment?
"The following is taken from National Lawyers Guild website:
http://www.nlg.org/resources/kyr/kyr_english.htm
I. What rights do I have?
Whether or not you're a citizen, you have these constitutional rights:
The Right to Remain Silent. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives every person the right not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent.
The Right to be Free from "Unreasonable Searches and Seizures". The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect your privacy. Without a warrant, police or government agents may not search your home or office without your consent, and you have the right to refuse to let them in. They can enter and search without a warrant in an emergency. New laws have expanded the government's authority to conduct surveillance. It is possible that your e-mail, cell and other telephone calls, and conversations in your home, office, car or meeting place are being monitored without your knowledge.
The Right to Advocate for Change. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of groups and individuals who advocate changes in laws, government practices, and even the form of government. However, the INS can target non-citizens for deportation
--Dostoyevsky
Very apropos, Brandon.
Donald, for your benefit and for the sake of my time, I will copy and stick most of a comment I just made elsewhere:
When in high school in the 1960's, America was the melting pot. In the late 60's and early 70's college, various professors and texts called America a "salad bowl," with geopolitical clusters of distinct ethnic groups mixed together in an effort to produce a healthy bowl of stuff. Anthropologists who studied the African-Mexican race issues of Mexico from the Conquistadors of the 15th century through to now talk of "cultural amalgamation," where eventually there existed "Mexicans." That of course does not hold true for many indigenous societies in Mexico, if you go to visit the remote regions.
Europe - and much of American political landscape - has had such a deep history (since the Roman Empire) of cultural strife and war, and as monarchies came and went, heads fell and new ones came, the various kingdoms and nations of Europe eventually formed very distinct cultural identities. "Waving" such nationalistic banners in war creates gets the adrenalin pumping in the battle field but with each cycling of war this phenomenon also deeply imprints into the cultural, mostly unconscious, matrix... including in art, and even in language.
America - if for a moment the indigenous peoples can forgive me - was basically founded by people who fled all this from Europe. But of course, history repeated itself after Plymouth Rock, until the stickiness of 2000 years of European violence and nationalistic fervor came to a boil with the Boston Tea Party. And the stirrings of the US identity began.
We all come from some sort of "cultural identity," even if Buddhist who disavows such hierarchical distinctions. "Culture" is an integrated feature of the hominid species' cooperative abilities to survive issues that caused most of our cousins to fade into extinction over millions of years of issues, such as, well, climate change.
Then there's the issue few are willing to look at empirically. CG Jung did, as have many of his peer in other disciplines. In anthropology, the seeking of a pure horizon "out there," such as manifest destiny, the wild west... or within, as is enculturated within many Buddhist cultures.... the quest for something beyond the mundane, day to day struggle, especially if local issues become overly stressful, is often categorized into what some call a "primary drive," like other drives we are more or less hardwired to responding to, like sex, satiating hunger and thirst, flight-fright responses, etc.
This thing with creating a religion out of a primary drive to seek one's "spirit" gets integrated into the rest of the cultural matrix, and we get opposing religions and theocracies. Eventually, the people in these localized cultural centers, mostly due to struggles with other societies who have developed their unique symbols of cultural identity - in history, eventually represented by various Crusades flags that became Europe's national flags - well, the subtle stirrings of understanding who one really is beyond the confines of less than a century of life gets neurobiologically twisted up with our other primary drives, such as seeing a shadow and either fighting it or fleeing it.
Nationalistic and theocratic identification simply is a failure to communicate. A failure to communicate with one's own self... for the drive that makes anyone seek God, or some "spirit" beyond the confines of our moment on Earth exists equally among all human beings. The only way we are going to get on to the next step of human evolution, in my opinion, is if we get wise enough to realize this, each person for him or herself, rather than basing our thinking and behaviors on the inertia of old political strategies residing deeply unconscious in the symbols that motivate our day to day life, seen on TV, often reiterated by our priests and politicians, in the headlines of a paper, talk radio, etc. But all of it got imprinted by how our brains - and minds - went through the stressors of our childhoods.
That's an ideal scenario, often discussed in various philosophies. But believe me, there is a lot of academic misuse of that knowledge of the human organism within most modern governments. "Spin" essentially is how to evoke old cultural symbols, with a few words or other symbols, such that it triggers in the electorate the same sort of "common thread behaviors" as is often seen in Europe's soccer matches. Even McDonald's has learned a bit of how our brains are softwired, when they use certain colors to trigger a hunger reflex, and a tabling arrangement to get people to eat as quickly as possible so the seat turns quickly over to the next customer.
It's just hormones and synaptic softwiring in childhood that makes us so nuts, seeing either a foe or something to be exploited in a culture that doesn't quite resemble our own. All we are doing in this European behavior is repeating what a dog does when chasing his tail and not being able to see it as part of himself, but as a threat to his alpha placement within his "family group's hierarchy.
And to get to the point of the Supreme Court decision, a wisdom far older than the past couple of thousand years emerged among five justices, who understand that a human being is not at all what a political organ states.
I know this is theory and many would think, mechanically inapplicable to resolving Europe's search for a "common spirit" or to redefine it in America. There are so many historical forces from Europe (not that old, when you consider that human civilization has been around for tens of thousands of years longer than the past couple of millenniums of European history) shuffling for their "alpha" placement in a global hierarchy now. It's a bit difficult to analyze empirically because how does even the researcher separate her mostly unconscious ethnocentrism - and neurobiological wiring - from the observations she is cataloging? And how does such a theory then get applied into the mainstream nuts and bolts of getting America and Europe on the same page as everyone else in the world, and especially, how to get struggling nations to understand this in the midst of their chaos.
This is why I may often sound more critical of western nations that recklessly exploit and go to war, than of those groups "out there" who may threaten "us." We in the west have exploited for a very very long time the weaknesses of most of the regions in the world where there now exists political or other basic survival issues. We have a responsibility for our own self-survival, and a responsibility to those regions filled with resources we have historically exploited, to bring their health up to the same standards as our own. In this way, we'll create more pools of problem-solving adults out of the children in these regions.
It would be ideal if we'd all take a true time out in the world... take a breather before saying another saber-rattling word aimed at the likes of Iran or elsewhere... and really look at how and why we think and behave the way we do. Like when Hillary made that statement about obliterating Iran, all she did was rally like-minded troops around her, and rally like-minded troops around some other flag.
In learning about primary drives and the way in which our brains get softwired by a combination of genetics and the events of our childhoods into the early twenties, when the frontal lobe and other regions - the seat of cognition and emotional control - finally gets wired. Well, in understanding all this it becomes obvious that the only way we are going to solve the issues of today is by creating ever greater pools of stable, nourishment-rich and caring childhoods, who become the problem-solvers of tomorrow. As long as we continue to engage in economics and saber-rattling government building that creates environments of great stress for any population group, none of our children will have the full opportunity to develop brains that can understand something very fundamental about being a human being.
We will just be creating children who chase after their tails, like we've been doing in Europe for a couple of thousand years.
Hindsight seems to be 20-20.
Would be sad to ruminate about all this, huddling in some cave and eating rats, long after our safe homes get wept away in some storm, and no security net left anywhere, after societies collapsed from one too many wars, or just one major natural disaster or epidemic we just weren't wise enough to pay attention to.
I was disussing non-uniformed COMBATANTS who are not citizens of the United States, AND who are NOT on American soil. "A" for "effort."
Bent-
Have you checked the Menu and the treatment policies at Guantanamo, yet? I thought not. Your prejudice's and your ideological dogma's couldn't allow you to see the Truth, particularly if it casts fair light on the United States. Endeavour to open your mind, just a bit, if you can...
If we become the terrorists that we say we are fighting, then we win? hm
The very thing that makes this nation strong and the envy of other nations is now available for us to pick and choose to whom and when it applies.
If we are the meanest, nastiest and cruelest of all nations, and deny what we say our country is founded on and stands for, we will be safe.
HM
I don't get it.
There is no excuse politcally, historically, tactically or stategically to justify the Bush Admin or their ideological lackeys. The freaking menu at GITMO has exactly what relevence to people held by this nation under the rules of the worst sort of dictatorship?? I don't give a shit if they eat caviar 4 times a day with champagne.
The identification of the combatants is a fantasy of Bush to justify their illegal detention. It is a non-issue. And since the US has had complete control over GITMO for a 100 years it's idiotic to conclude the place is not American soil or under total American jurisdiction. Utter nonsense. The collection of fantasy, the weave of lies and opinion does not constitute truth or reality. That is now an established legal fact.
In my professional work, I have come all too close to what occurs to people who are tortured in any way.
GITMO is torture. The internees there are totally isolated from anything that resembles that's familiar to the depths of their spirit. Free will has been stripped from them, and even the remotest sense of hope in fairness has been stripped from them.
I'd like you to spend a month in one of GITMOS cages, and then tell me it is not torture.
Another important difference between the alleged Enemy Combatants and legally detained POWs is that wars END. The 'War on Terror' will never be over. Under the current Bush doctrine, people (including US citizens) can be 'disappeared,' detained, and tortured FOREVER, with no recourse to courts nor oversight by international agencies like the Red Cross.
Comparing detainment with the treatment of our captured soldiers is likewise fallacious in that it makes the assumption that the detainees are actually part of the same group(s) without giving them due process. One might as well equate every person accused of a crime with those convicted of mass murder and rape. They don't deserve a trial. If they were innocent, the police wouldn't have arrested them.
Note also that part of the moral reasoning behind the Geneva Conventions is that many soldiers are not free agents, but draftees, and the same may be true of many 'enemy combatants.' Afghan warlords and Iraqi militias commonly draft people.
Imagine the plight of a person wrongly detained and tortured. Even after it became clear the person was innocent, might not it be tempting to just keep them incommunicado rather than face the bad press after releasing them? Maybe we could stretch the point to silence an inconvenient journalist ... just this once of course ... well, maybe twice ...
We made it through WW II and the Cold War without shredding the the Constitution. (The judgment of history on the internment of Japanese-American citizens in WW II is that it was not only illegal, but also unnecessary and counterproductive.) 9/11 was a serious attack on the US, and strong measures must be taken against those responsible, but terrorists can not 'destroy the US.' Keep a sense of perspective. You're far more likely to die in an airliner without a terrorist aboard than with.
"... All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined ... could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, i"t will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison
YOU are the one who has praised the quote of Dostoyevski...make up your mind.
Mark-John said, "Anyone spot the inconsistency, here? How perfectly revealing..."
I say, inconsistency in WHAT they think? YES. Inconsistency in their WAY of thinking? Absolutely not.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander only applies if the gander also happens to be one of THEIR geese.
Sorry, Mark-John, not much revelation to me, but I do see your point.
We have already seen ordinary people picked up off he street and declared enemy combatants. It could happen to you.
On the flip side, after the attacks on the WTC, the Pentagon, and the flight that the brave folks forced down, I can honestly say I doubt very seriously that Al Gore would have done any better in responding. Everyone I talked to was demanding vengeance. Retaliation. Blood for blood to honor the thousands that died that day and the days to follow.
I also don't think John Kerry would have been any better, and doubt very seriously if he would have brought our troops home by now.
Face it. No matter who is in office, roughly half the population is not going to like them. It won't matter who they are or what they do or don't do. People just won't like them if for no other reason than it wasn't the person they wanted.
As for impeachment: Bill Clinton was impeached. Look what happened to him.....
I don't agree with the war and what's been done in its name. I don't think we should hold prisoners without trying them first. However, I also don't think we should just let anyone come into the country without at least screening them first. A lot of the people involved in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 were in this country legally, attending flight training and living lives here. Maybe some sort of screening could have identified them as a possible threat. Maybe not.
Yes, something does need to be done with the people at Guantanamo. Give them a trial. Search their history. But we can't just let them walk out. Despite the fact we treat our prisoners so much better than our enemy does, we still have to do something with them. If we find they are guilty of crimes against our country, then by all means execute them. Imprison them for life. Do whatever. But by all means, do something first. And please, do it with some INTELLIGENCE. Gods know there's been a severe lack of it, not just on this list but all over.
The current president has virtually written his own constitution with impunity. He doesn't have any need for a supreme court as he will rewrite the constitution to give himself all the power in the world. Signing statements to tell what parts of a law he will obey is a classic example.
But the supreme court has not determined that Nazi prisoners held in world war II were anything. To try to relate their current ruling with that is absurd! All they have done is state that the constitution means what it says.
I am rather astonished to read your reaction to the Supreme Court ruling! Where do you find in the constitution that it does not apply to others in this country who are not citizens? It is my understanding that the courts have consistently held that non citizens were to be afforded the rights of our constitution.
Second, I don't believe it is necessary for our nation to forgo the constitutional protections in order to fight the terrorists. When we start abridging or ignoring the constitution, we are putting our nation in the same category as those who would destroy us.
I'm still a believer in the "power of right" that our nation doing the right thing, and everyone from our enemies to our troops know it, our people receive a moral boost from this knowledge that will ultimately prevail. Our troops need to know for certain that the country for which they are risking their lives is moral and ethical, beyond that of our enemies, even if the enemies are terrorists.
Last, I agree with your statement that we need to work toward a more universal type of government to eliminate some of these difficulties. I acknowledge that is not going to happen for some time.
The constitution is clear on this issue, that the president may suspend habeas corpus if the war is internal as was the Civil War, or if dealing with insurgents and uprisings in this country. These people do not fit either of these conditions.
Also, consider that the Supreme Court did not say they must release the prisoners. Nor did they say that the habeas corpus must be granted, only that they have the right to ask for it. And what is wrong with telling the prisoner why he is being held?
I generally agree with and applaud your writing and responses but this time I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. I just can't accept it.
I now have inspiration for several more articles on this subject. LOL
I know that politics and religion are hotly debated in this nation.. seems that for the most part the major similarity between the two is fear.
Donna
No matter how we diminish the constitution in our country, this lessoning of it will not make us safer. If anything it makes us less safe.
Our reputation in the world has eroded and we are now being likened to the terrorists that we say we are warring against.
Last night on the news it was mentioned that not one of the "terrorist" held in GITMPO has brought to trial. Why is this? Do we just want to keep people we suspect as terrorist locked up and tortured just for the fun of it?
It's a sad day when we become the very ones we say we are protecting ourselves from.