“This decision will come at a cost, the Supreme Court just moved us closer to the day when U.S. Marine rifle teams will have to have lawyers read Miranda rights to terrorists captured on the battlefield.”-- Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the House Armed Services Committee.(click on video)
Five Justices on the United States Supreme Court just created a Constitutional right for al Qaeda to wage war against the United States of America. In essence Justices Anthony Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer ruled that sworn enemy combatants who are captured on the battle field and actively engaged in war against the United States are protected by the Constitution of the United States to do so. (related story)
This ruling is analogous to saying that AIDS has the constitutional right to ravage a homosexual’s body and further the AIDS virus must be given adequate nourishment to conduct its goal of killing that body.
Here’s what others had to say about the 5-4 split decision:
"Enemies of the United States committed to attacking America and killing Americans who have been captured on the battlefield and designated alien enemy combatants are entitled to the protections afforded by the Geneva Convention, not the Constitution. The Supreme Court's decision changes that and does so in a way that will only increase the burdens and responsibilities placed on our brave men and women in the military.
The Supreme Court's decision fails, in a dramatic way, to appreciate that we are at war and that our enemies are relentless in their pursuit of our destruction. Let us not forget that at least 30 prisoners that have been released have already returned to the battlefield." —Senator Joseph Lieberman(I-Connecticutt)
"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 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 court's] ambitious opinion [means that Americans] today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this nation's foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges."—Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the minority
[The majority has extended] "a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war. . . . The nation will live to regret what the court has done today."—Justice Anthony ScaliaOf course Liberal Democrats hail the courts decision as a slap against President Bush and the war in Iraq.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) praised the Court for “uphold[ing] the constitution of the United States” and reiterated her desire to see Gitmo shut down.
If nothing else this ruling and Activist judges of the U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court are the strongest and only argument for voting for Sen. John McCain over any Democrat nominee.
To which I will hold my nose and vote.
