Thursday, June 29, 2006

Cutting Through the Hyperbole on Hamdan

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Cutting Through the Hyperbole on Hamdan: "With all the confusion, rushed judgments and overheated rhetoric created by the U.S. Supreme Court's Hamdan complex decision, it's perhaps best to first look at what it does not do.

It does not:

• Satisfy the supposed demands of 'world opinion:' the closing of the Guantanamo Bay camp and the immediate release of its detainees.

• Free Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the acknowledged driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

• Exclude Hamdan from a court martial or, if Congress decides, trail by a military tribunal.

• Say that Hamdan or any others cannot be held 'for the duration of active hostilities.'

• Require that he, or other detainees, be tried before a civilian court, as some anti-war activists had demanded.

• Prohibit the United States from detaining future enemy combatants.

Truth is, Hamdan remains ours, and the Bush administration and Congress still have plenty of ways to ladle out justice to him and other enemy combatants. Despite the hysteria of both sides, the war on terror continues as before."

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is true. What the Supreme Court did was to confirm the status qup. I think what a lot of folks are upset about is the reference to ghe Geneva Conventions and what if any impact that might have on interrogations, but as sual people are getting ahead of themselves.

Besides think about it, if we can no try them and are limited in our ability to interrogate them then what is the point in taking them alive? I do not thaink that is the outcome Amnesty International was hoping for.

vnjagvet said...

It is black letter law that courts do not issue advisory opinions.

The declatory judgment is a remedy that is infrequently requested and even more infrequently granted because of that black letter principle.

What Justice Stevens has done in Hamdan is the closest thing to an advisory opinion we are likely to see from the SCOTUS.

This case now creates a roadmap for the Defense Department and Congress to come up with a procedure that accomplishes the needs of the "War on Terror".

I think it is a pretty creative, result, because of the factors set out in the article Seneca cites.

However, I think I will wait for a while to share this observation on free republic or polipundit.