Reality Check: Gitmo Ruling Won't Change Much And Bush Is Not Unhappy

[cali]

There will be NO material change for the detainees. They can still be held indefinitely. The court didn't rule on the legitimacy of holding prisoners at Gitmo. Only 10 have been charged before the now nixed tribunals. Essentially this simply shunts the matter of how to try those held, to Congress. And Bush, who's been frustrated with the tribunals, will not be unhappy about this decision.

Sorry to burst the bubble, but this is like yesterday's initial elation over the Texas redistricting case. It pays to be cautious about these decisions and hold off on reactions until you've either read the decision or read good analysis of it.

[LA lady]

1. I just read something similar.

Court ruling to have little impact on Guantanamo

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE (Reuters) - A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on war crimes tribunals being held at Guantanamo navy base will have little effect on the detention camp that holds 450 foreign captives, the camp commander said.

"I don't think there's any direct outcome on our detention operation," Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the prison commander, said in an interview this week.

The high court upheld on Thursday a Guantanamo defendant's challenge to President George W. Bush's power to create the military tribunals to try suspected al Qaeda conspirators and Taliban supporters after the September 11 attacks

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2006-06-29T142441Z_01_N29175313_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-GUANTANAMO.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

[Vyan]

2. They can't be held indefinately

without judicial review as was found by the previous detainee case Hamdi v Rumsfeld.

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation ’s citizens. Youngstown Sheet &Tube ,343 U.S.,at 587. Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict,it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake. Mistretta v.United States, 488 U.S.361,380 (1989)(it was “the central judgment of the Framers of the Constitution that,within our political scheme,the separation of governmental powers into three coordinate Branches is essential to the preservation of liberty ”);Home Building &Loan Assn.v.Blaisdell,290 U.S.398,426 (1934)(The war power “is a power to wage war successfully,and thus it permits the harnessing of the entire energies of the people in a supreme cooperative effort to preserve the nation.But even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties ”). Likewise,we have made clear that,unless Congress acts to suspend it, the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance, serving as an important judicial check on the Executive ’s discretion in the realm of detentions.

The real problem is that further modifications and corrections to Bushco's current policy is unlikely. When Congress passed the "anti-Torture" ban last year it contain provisions which prohibited detainees from issue further suits like Hamdan's and Hamdi's.


Vyan

[cali]

5. You're right,

and I didn't mean to mistate it. I was just trying to convey that this decision has very little practical effect of the detainees who have been held for years without being charged. That's unlikely to change.

[cali]

6. self-delete dupe

[spindrifter]

3. There are multiple levels to these decisions.

Yes--people are not able to make long-ranging assessments without reading the entire decision. Yes--there will be no practical effect on the detainees. Yes--Congress will have an opportunity to enact enabling legislation. Yes--* and his neocons will act like it's no big deal.
Nevertheless, a majority of justices have finally stood up to the Unitary Executive and said that unrestricted executive power is not the way the system works.

[The Stranger]

4. Not correct the habeas petitions will require that they be repatriated.

(I find myself constantly on the other side of issues with you, cali, especially as it pertains to the "war on terror" fraud).

[cali]

7. I guess we'll see.

whether a sizeable number will be repatriated via habeas petitions.

(I hadn't noticed that we were constantly on opposite sides of issues, but I imagine that on this issue, it's a matter of interpretation, and not philosophy. Like me, I'm sure you want Gitmo closed, and innocents who were caught up in this, released. I also imagine that you don't want anyone repatriated to a country that will torture or execute them)

[The Stranger]

9. I suppose this administration may defy the writs.

(I think the purported concern expressed by the Administration that the innocent, incarcerated people at Guantanamo would be tortured if they were repatriated is a "concern" that would be considered specious -- if only it rose to that level. The Bush Administration is already torturing these people.)

[Jack Rabbit]

8. I'll have to read more, but this is looks like big defeat for the neocons

Bush regime propaganda MO is to deny the effect of an adverse ruling or any other set back, so don't put too much in the spin.

First of all, the ruling as far as it went is pleasing. Even if there was nothing that said that the Bush's entire network of gulags is illegal, he will not be able to put any of the detainees (or POWs, since they really haven't been determined to be anything else) before an kangaroo court with the authority to sentence a defendant to death as he had planned. That in itself is a victory over the Bush regime for the cause of human rights.

Second, the Supreme Court did say that the Geneva Conventions apply and that the President cannot just make decrees about what his authority as commander-in-chief is (so much for the Nixonian unitary executive theory, as adumbrated by Cheney and Gonzales). If they apply in this matter, so they apply in all matters. That again is a victory over the Bush regime in the cause of human rights and international humanitarian law. That being the case, this decision opens the door for further cases to be heard that may lead to either the repatriation of the Guantánamo detainees to there home countries or to their being charged and tried before a fair court in which what is normally recognized as justice, presumption of innocence and the right to review evidence and cross examine witnesses is in place.

It is a victory for fair minded and justice loving people the world over and a defeat for the yuppie fascist Bush regime.