From: "Gary Britt" 


"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:442abb2b{at}w3....
> No Gary - Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift's a military layer assigned to
DEFEND
> Hamden. What would you have him do roll over and play dead like a good
> neocon?
>
>
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0603290179mar29,1,2440889.st
ory?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

A defense of Hamdan doesn't require questioning the venue for a review nor
does it require grandstanding at the court over policy matters that are 100
levels above his pay grade.  Nor does it require bullshit posturing about
applicability of a bill of rights to prisoners of war and enemy combatants.


>
> Justice Anthony Kennedy, usually a swing vote on the court, worried that
"if
> the president can do this . . . he can set up commissions in Toledo . . .
> and pick up an alien and not have any trial at all except before that
> special commission

And the problem with this would be what?  If an alien german operative were
found in Toledo during world war II would Justice Kennedy find a problem
with incarceration and military tribunals then?  I don't think so, and this
is no different.  In my view the Supreme Court is without constitutional
authority to tell the President SQUAT on his exercise of commander in chief
functions to defend this country at a time of war.  Let justice Kennedy and
the other liberals on the court show up at a military base and try to free
these enemy combatants and Bush should follow Lincoln's example and put
them in a military prison the way Lincoln put a federal district judge in
prison for trying to interfere where he has no constitutional authority.

>
>
> "Gary Britt"  wrote in message
> news:442ab662{at}w3....
> > The Bill of Rights IS IRRELEVANT when it comes to enemy combatants
> > captured
> > on the battlefield.   As justice Scalia pointed out to some pointy
headed
> > EU
> > trash in Switzerland recently, Germans brought not to a base OUTSIDE the
> > USA
> > but directly to prison camps INSIDE the USA did NOT have rights to any
> > kind
> > of trial or hearing in USA courts.  It would be "crazy" to assert
> > otherwise.
> >
> > If these few military lawyers brainwashed by the liberal educations they
> > received (and who likely became military lawyers because they couldn't
cut
> > it in the real world) don't like the military acting like the military,
> > they
> > should get the hell out of the military and go to work for scraps for
some
> > public interest legal group or the ACLU.
> >
> > The Bill of Rights applies to citizens and in a fairly limited context
to
> > non-citizens present in the country.  It does NOT apply and has NEVER
> > applied to prisoners of war and enemy combatants.
> >
> > Gary
> >
> > "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
> > news:442a8c21$1{at}w3....
> >> "If you believe that these are full and fair trials, you
believe that
the
> >> Bill of Rights is irrelevant," Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed defense
> > attorney,
> >> Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, declared on the front steps of the
> >> marble-columned courthouse.
> >>
> >> http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14208166.htm
> >>
> >> "The commission is operating in totally uncharted
waters; it's charging
a
> >> violation in a stateless, territorial-less conflict, something which
the
> >> full laws of war have never applied," replied Katyal, a Georgetown
> >> University Law Center professor who was a clerk for Justice Stephen
> >> Breyer
> > a
> >> decade ago.
> >>
> >> Uniformed American military officers were scattered throughout the
> > gallery,
> >> among them lawyers from all four services - Marines, Air Force, Army
and
> >> Navy - who in effect mutinied against their commander in chief by
> >> alleging
> >> that Bush's commissions strip foreign captives of fundamental rights.
> >>
> >> "If you believe that these are full and fair trials, you
believe that
the
> >> Bill of Rights is irrelevant," Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed defense
> > attorney,
> >> Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, declared on the front steps of the
> >> marble-columned courthouse.
> >>
> >> Retired military officers, civil liberties lawyers, former diplomats
and
> >> international law experts all filed briefs on behalf of the 36-year-old
> >> Yemeni with a fourth-grade education, arguing that the Bush
> >> administration
> >> went too far by creating a commission outside an explicit framework set
> > out
> >> by Congress and ignoring many of the protections of U.S. military
> >> justice,
> >> which has a provision for tribunals.
> >>
> >> The justices seemed especially intrigued with the nature of the crime
> >> alleged, conspiring with al-Qaida. At least four justices asked
questions
> >> related to the charge.
> >>
> >> Katyal called the conspiracy charge so broad and unfocused that "a
little
> >> old lady in Switzerland who donates money to al-Qaida, and that turns
out
> > to
> >> be a front for terrorist acts ... might be swept up within this broad
> >> definition. That's why international law has so rejected the concept of
> >> conspiracy."
> >>
> >> Clement argued that the court shouldn't even be considering the case
> > because
> >> Bush had signed a law Dec. 30 that effectively stripped Guantanamo
> > captives
> >> of pre-commission habeas corpus challenge.
> >>
> >> Some justices focused on whether Congress intentionally or
inadvertently
> >> suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus for captives in Cuba; Clement
argued
> >> that Congress' intent was irrelevant, an argument that seemed to find
> > favor
> >> from Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom Clement once clerked.
> >>
> >> Hamdan claims through his lawyers that he never joined al-Qaida, wasn't
a
> >> warrior and was merely a civilian driver who earned $200 a month
driving
> >> a
> >> pickup from bin Laden's private farm. His lawyer said Afghan militiamen
> >> captured him along the Afghan border in 2001, after he evacuated his
> >> pregnant wife and 2-year-old daughter to Pakistan, and turned him over
to
> >
> >> U.S. troops who sent him to Guantanamo.
> >>
> >> Breyer asked what would stop the president from "picking
up an alien"
and
> >> holding the same type of trial in Toledo, Ohio.
> >>
> >> Justice Anthony Kennedy questioned whether Hamdan wasn't "uniquely
> >> vulnerable," and therefore not entitled to certain prisoner-of-war
> >> considerations under the Geneva Conventions.
> >>
> >> "I don't think he's protected by the Geneva Conventions,
but that's
> > largely
> >> because he chose not to comply with the basic laws of
war," Clement
said.
> >> "Nobody has a claim here that they were part of the
uniformed al-Qaida
> >> division that complied with all of the laws of war such that they are
> >> entitled to POW status."
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5