"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Are Captured Terrorists War Prisoners? No, Just Criminals With Lawyers

The Washington Times carried AP’s version of the story today . Our Supreme Court has assigned new rights to captured terrorists.An email from (attorney) Laura Ingraham’s website puts the case all too well:
ANTHONY “THE FLIPPER” KENNEDY STRIKES AGAIN!
In a major defeat to America and the War on Terror, the Supreme Court this morning ruled that enemies captured on the battlefield have habeas corpus rights under the U.S. Constitution. It is almost impossible to explain just how damaging this decision is, though we get an idea when Justice Scalia notes in his dissent that the ruling “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” That outcome, he says, might be tolerable if the Court were upholding longstanding legal precedent. Instead it’s a stark reversal of precedent that opens this country up to new security threats.
For example…
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There currently are no rules for trying enemy combatants in American courtrooms -- that will be left up to the courts themselves. (The Court did insist on defendants having access to witnesses; does that mean U.S. soldiers serving in the field?) Assuming defendants receive legal protections on par with U.S. citizens, terrorists will be able to easily manipulate our court system for access to classified government intel. Scalia notes that when the terrorists behind the first World Trade Center attack were tried, federal prosecutors produced the names of 200 unindicted co-conspirators, and “that information was in the hands of Osama bin Laden within two weeks.”Insanely, the military tribunals that were today declared unconstitutional had been set up by Congress and the White House at the direction of an earlier SCOTUS ruling. [my emphasis -- D]“Turns out they were just kidding,” Scalia notes wryly.It also turns out the Constitution’s a suicide pact after all.
This can only bring more chaos to what passes for our judicial system in the U.S. Sometimes you can hardly bear to read about it anymore.Welcome to Kafka Land.
By Dymphna
As in the days of Noah....