Geneva Convention Rights for Al-Qaeda
By Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu
The Supreme Court decided Thursday by a 5-3 vote that in effect granted al-
Qaeda terrorists the same rights as American soldiers. (Chief Justice
Roberts recused himself because of a previous decision on the case while at
the appellate court level; Thursday’s ruling overturned his decision.) Judge
Clarence Thomas, reading a dissent from the bench for the first time in more
than 15 years on the Court, scathingly criticized the majority for a
decision that he said would sorely hamper the president’s ability to
confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.
In a stark reflection of the Left’s inability to comprehend the core facts
of this war, including even the simplest grasp of the nature of the enemy,
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said vacuously that today’s decision is a
rebuke of the Bush administration’s detainee policies and a reminder of our
responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional
rights. Can the woman who may be the next Speaker of the House really think
that extending Constitutional safeguards for imprisoned Guantanamo
terrorists somehow protects the American people? Or is she simply so blinded
by leftist ideology and a pathological hatred for George Bush that she is
willing to support Constitutional protections for enemy combatants in order
to defeat him?
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Conversations with senior Department of Justice and Department of Defense
officials later on Thursday afternoon revealed concern but by no means
panic. This decision deals more with process, a senior Justice official
explained. It does not in any way affect the president’s ability to confine
these enemy combatants to Guantanamo and in no manner does the decision
imply or state that closure of the facility is necessary or desirable. Nor,
the point was made, does the decision necessarily have an impact on most of
the detainees. Only those who are being charged with war crimes, capital
offenses, or offenses that could result in lengthy confinement beyond the
conclusion of the war are affected by the decision.
Are the government’s attorneys upset by the SCOTUS decision? You bet. They
stand strongly on the position that foreign terrorists do not deserve the
same levels of protection that American citizens do, especially American
soldiers – or even foreign saints. We were told by the Court to make the
protections for the detainees in question more like a military court
martial, a senior Defense official explained. Others at the meeting bitingly
criticized the Court for being more concerned with terrorists than with our
own soldiers, a sentiment clearly reflected in Pelos’s empty-headed remarks,
gushing over Constitution protection for those who are sworn to destroy it.
The positive part of the decision came from Judge Stephen Breyer remarks
that said nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek
the authority he believes necessary to carry out the military commissions.
Was the Court intrusive on Executive Branch privileges? It would appear so
to many, although the decision was far from the nail in the coffin for the
idea that the president can set up these trials, that Barbara Olshansky
claimed it to be. Olshansky is legal director of the hard-Left, New
York-based Center for
Constitutional Rights, an organization that represents about 300 Guantanamo
detainees.
Funding for the CCR allowing them to give pro bono representation to
Guantanamo terrorists such as Salim Ahmed Hamden, the plaintiff in this
case, is derived from a number of suspect sources. Analysts claim that CCR
funding includes large amounts from Gulf and Saudi sheiks as well as
governments known to sponsor terrorism. Hamden was Osama bin Laden’s driver
and bodyguard, a position in a terrorist organization that is given only to
highly reliable and totally committed jihadists, not someone seeking work to
feed his family, as Hamden claimed. Nonetheless, Hamden is hailed as a
victim of American fascist imperialism by the CCR and the Legal Left, cited
as an example of the many innocents confined at Guantanamo.
So what does the Court decision mean for Americans, practically speaking? It
does not mean that any of these terrorists now held at Guantanamo will be
arbitrarily released or brought before a left-wing judge and set out on bail
anytime soon. It does mean that military commissions, being conducted on ten
detainees charged with war crimes, including Australian David Hicks and
Hamden himself, will be once more placed on hold. The irony is that defense
attorneys for these men decry that they have been held without trial and yet
these same attorneys spent years and millions of dollars upsetting the
process that the president put into place to give them a fair hearing in the
first place.
Thankfully Guantanamo, an essential node in the War on Terror because of its
confinement and interrogation capabilities, is to stay intact and fully
functioning. In fact the Court did not challenge either the justification
for existence of the facility or the notion that interrogations are
conducted on the detainees, both issues that defense attorneys sought to get
a judgment in their favor. On the Hill, Arizona Senator Kyl and other
like-minded, national security Senators are rushing to work with the
administration to formulate a bill that would give the president sufficient
latitude to deal with our enemies without constant interference from those
who would do us harm, including home-grown threats.
Meanwhile, in the field American soldiers consider that they have once again
been slapped in the face by American leftists. They have endured the
constant pressure of harsh criticism from the left including hysterical
allegations of out-of-control brutality, incompetence, and poor morale.
Repeatedly they have watched major news media casually release information
to the public which, were they to release it, would merit them
courts-martial. The Court decision is yet another nail, not in Bush coffin,
as the Left wishes it to be, but in the heart of American resolve.
Almost five years past 9/11 and Americans, particularly our soldiers, are as
Hugh Hewitt and Mark Steyn succinctly put it – still dealing with a 9/10
judiciary, Congress, and Democratic Party. We won’t lose on the battlefield
but have yet to recognize that the real fight is in the media,in public
opinion polls, and against slack-minded, overly ambitious politicians that
their primary job is protecting America, not winning reelection. We can only
hope that the Court can be fixed before it gives away all of our
protections.