Supreme Court Ruling on Illegal Enemy Combatants; US Will Live (or Die) to Regret

The United States Supreme Court ruled on Thursday June 12, 2008 that illegal enemy combatants held in Guantanamo Bay are provided the same rights under the United States Constitution as a regular American citizen.

According to the Guardian, Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, making this statement;

Today the court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants. The political branches crafted these procedures amidst an ongoing military conflict, after much careful investigation and thorough debate. The court rejects them today out of hand, without bothering to say what due process rights the detainees possess, without explaining how the statute fails to vindicate those rights, and before a single petitioner has even attempted to avail himself of the law’s operation. And to what effect? The majority merely replaces a review system designed by the people’s representatives with a set of shapeless procedures to be defined by federal courts at some future date.

The critical threshold question in these cases, prior to any inquiry about the writ’s scope, is whether the system the political branches designed protects whatever rights the detainees may possess. If so, there is no need for any additional process, whether called ‘habeas’ or something else. 

Justice Antonin Scalia, also in dissent said;

The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the nation’s commander in chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. That consequence would be tolerable if necessary to preserve a time-honored legal principle vital to our constitutional republic. But it is this court’s blatant abandonment of such a principle that produces the decision today.

Today the court warps our Constitution in a way that goes beyond the narrow issue of the reach of the Suspension Clause. … It blatantly misdescribes important precedents … It breaks a chain of precedent as old as the common law that prohibits judicial inquiry into detentions of aliens abroad … 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. The nation will live to regret what the court has done today. 

The Suspension Clause Justice Scalia refers to can be found in the Unites States Constitution Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 which states; 

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

The Supreme Court undermines the Constitution by propping it up like a straw man where is does not apply.  Never before in history has our constitution been manipulated to afford rights to our enemies in a time of war.  It would only be natural to assume that they will be afforded the same Miranda Rights that are the rights of an American under arrest; including the right to an attorney, and if he cannot afford an attorney one will be provided for him at “no charge.”

Of course “no charge” really means at the tax payer’s expense.  This will come out of our pocket.  The tax payers will be held responsible for footing the legal costs of this mess.  Luckily many of the lawyers who defend the Guantanamo detainees will probably be zealous ACLU volunteers.  That just might defer cost from the American people.  That is of course until the ACLU attorneys represent these same terrorists in civil court and sue the nation over any number of charges. Michelle Malkin discribes this as “opening GITMO lawsuit floodgates.” 

Of course to prosecute these criminals in civilian court requires a different set of guidelines and a different kind of evidence than does a military war crimes tribunal.  In this civilian process top secret information will have to be made available for the general public and the world, which could potentially expose American operatives and informants working in terrorist organizations, putting their lives at risk and endangering national security.  This is a win for Jihadist terrorism.

Then the Unites States can break off another billion or so dollars of tax payer’s money awarded in lawsuits that will go back to financing the next attack on Americans and our allies.  Don’t doubt it, more Americans will die because of this ruling and we will be the people who financed it by order of the 5 member’s of the Supreme Court headed up by Darth Vader Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 

It’s not bad enough that men and women just barely out of high school are armed with an M16, shuttled off to that godforsaken desert and then placed on trial for doing the job they were sent there to do—now we’re going to afford the enemy the same constitutional protections they hope to destroy and replace with the Koran.  Our soldiers are going to have to act like police and secure judicial warrants before raiding terrorist strongholds, which will make it harder to protect our interests and allies overseas.

 

Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissenting opinion said this judgment will “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.”  Thomas further said; “to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous.”

In the 232 years that the United States has existed these rights have never been afforded to foreign illegal enemy combatants.

According to Fox News Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman has described these detainees as “dangerous people … Many have vowed to go back to the battlefield if released.”

But this is not just about detainees.  This will no doubt set a precedent that will ravage the United States and unravel the very foundation of our nation.  The precedent that this sets will be even more costly than just these 200 plus enemy combatants in Guantanamo.  Once it is firmly established that the Constitution covers enemy combatants it will be nothing the stretch those rights to cover illegal immigrants.  After all, the detainees were terrorists and these poor souls are just “undocumented workers.”  I don’t even want to calculate the billions of dollars worth of legal expenses that would come with buying every deported illegal immigrant a lawyer first.  But we won’t have to worry about that.

The cost of paying the legal fees for a nation full of illegal immigrants would be so exorbitant that there is no way we could afford it.  They would have to grant amnesty to the millions of illegal immigrants in the US in order to avoid this cost.  And THAT I would bet is the target.  Well that and sticking it to George Bush.  I agree that Bush has needed a good sticking for years, but did they have stick the American people while they were doing it?

You see it’s not just Mexican or Salvadoran workers who are here illegally.  There are illegal aliens from other countries here too.  Some illegal aliens are terrorist sleepers from Syria, Iran and other radical countries.  So the Supreme Court has ruled that we will now support terrorism with our tax dollars, legal system and our Constitution and will soon be setting many of these illegal enemy combatants free to rejoin their comrades in jihad against … well everything, most especially the United States and Western Europe.  Next we have to look forward to Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution applies to illegal immigrants and the eventual granting of amnesty to undocumented terrorists in our own country. 

The point should not be confused that the 5 justices on the supreme court value these illegal enemy combatants as being as good or innocent as the average American citizen, but rather that we American citizens are to be considered no better than these terrorists and illegal enemy combatants.