Endless War

From Reject Endless War & Torture Cover-Up:

After years of litigation, the Supreme Court recently ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that detainees held at Guantánamo have a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus -- the ancient freedom that protects people from being thrown in prison illegally, with no help, no end in sight and no due process.

Habeas proceedings could allow detainees to bring up the fact that the evidence that the government has against them came from hearsay, or even torture and abuse. Courts could also release people who are detained indefinitely without charge. Attorney General Michael Mukasey wants to make sure neither of these things happen.

Read the rest here.

A Mockery Of Justice

A tidbit from Justice Kennedy: the Supreme Court's man in the middle by Michael Doyle:

In Boumediene v. Bush, Kennedy's 5-4 opinion extended habeas corpus rights to foreign prisoners seeking to challenge their detention at Guantanamo.

"It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," a vehemently dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia said.

How can Antonin Scalia make such an irresponsible statement? How can a Supreme Court judge be against the rule of law? How can a Supreme Court judge have such little regard for personal liberty? This man is making a mockery of justice, and does not belong on the Supreme Court.

What is habeas corpus?

Britannica.com says it is:

…an ancient common-law writ, issued by a court or judge directing one who holds another in his custody to produce the body of the person before the court for some specified purpose. Although there have been and are many varieties of the writ, the most important is that used to correct violations of personal liberty by directing judicial inquiry into the legality of a detention. The habeas corpus remedy is recognized in the countries of the Anglo-American legal system but is generally not found in civil-law countries, although some of the latter have adopted comparable procedures.

The origins of the writ cannot be stated with certainty. Before the Magna Carta (1215), a variety of writs performed some of the functions of habeas corpus. During the Middle Ages habeas corpus was employed to bring cases from inferior tribunals into the king’s courts. The modern history of the writ as a device for the protection of personal liberty against official authority may be said to date from the reign of Henry VII (1485–1509), when efforts were made to employ it on behalf of persons imprisoned by the Privy Council. By the reign of Charles I, in the 17th century, the writ was fully established as the appropriate process for checking the illegal imprisonment of people by inferior courts or public officials.

Read the rest here.

Without some form of “protection of personal liberty against official authority”, what are we left with? Well, fascism comes to mind.

Here is part of what Britannica.com says about fascism:

Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from each other, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation.

I respectfully submit to Antonin Scalia that more Americans will probably be killed BECAUSE of Guantanamo and the LACK of habeas corpus there. I know that if my mother, father, sister, or brother were detained there (with all their rights stripped away) I would be extremely angry at those holding them.

I am also deeply offended and insulted by Scalia’s fear-mongering in service to America’s “extreme militaristic nationalism.” A Supreme Court justice should not be making predictions that are not based on any factual evidence. Especially predictions that support a particular partisan position.

We talk often of the global economy. We need to talk more about global justice.

Antonin Scalia should resign from the Supreme Court. Someone who does not support justice for all does not belong there. Someone who has so little faith in our courts to convict the guilty does not belong there.

John McCain Is Santa Claus

He knows who has been naughty and he knows who has been nice. He just knows. There is no need for a trial for those who are not like us. There is no need for Habeas Corpus for those Un-American Non-Americans. Why should they have any rights?

Let me get this straight. We are spreading democracy in the middle east to people who don’t deserve to have the rights of Habeas Corpus? Is this what Mr. Straight Talk Bomb Bomb Bomb is trying to tell us? What kind of democracy is that?

John McCain:

The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Sen. Graham and Sen. Lieberman and I had worked very hard to make sure that we didn't torture any prisoners, that we didn't mistreat them, that we abided by the Geneva Conventions, which applies to all prisoners. But we also made it perfectly clear, and I won't go through all the legislation we passed, and the prohibition against torture, but we made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have. And my friends there are some bad people down there. There are some bad people. So now what are we going to do. We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate, because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases. By the way, 30 of the people who have already been released from Guantanamo Bay have already tried to attack America again, one of them just a couple weeks ago, a suicide bomber in Iraq. Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation, and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.

Apparently for Senator McCain there is a point at which justice simply becomes too much work to be bothered with anymore.

“… these are people who are not citizens, they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have.” The British are not citizens of the United States. Do they have the right to Habeas Corpus, Senator McCain? After all, it was their idea in the first place.

“And my friends there are some bad people down there. There are some bad people.” And some are not. That is why we have a justice system, Senator McCain, to find out whether someone is truly guilty.

What good is it to have a safe and secure nation if that nation is no longer civilized?