How the Courts jeopardize national security

[JMak]

RACK Andy McCarthy at National Review Online's The Corner for this bit...

Excellent op-ed in the WSJ this morning by the dynamic duo of David Rivkin and Lee Casey. They show how a federal appeals court's recent extension of the Supreme Court's disastrous Boumediene decision is giving terrorists cover in Afghanistan.

Boumediene extended the U.S. constitutional right to judicial review of detention (habeas corpus) to alien enemy combatants detained at Guantanamo Bay — a terrible decision but containable if the damage applies only to the 230+ prisoners now held there. But the Supremes promiscuously suggested their reasoning might well apply outside Gitmo. Picking up that ball and running with it, the D.C. Circuit, in the Maqaleh case, gave habeas rights to jihadist prisoners held at the Bagram base in Afghanistan — at least if the prisoners were captured outside the combat zone in Afghanistan. The result? David and Lee explain:

American special forces, have now limited their activities in the Afghan-Pakistan border region — where al Qaeda and the Taliban are now most active — to avoid claims by enemy fighters that they were captured outside of Afghanistan, in Pakistan. If those enemy fighters were captured outside of Afghanistan, then according to the Maqaleh decision, they are eligible for habeas relief. This provides a strategic sanctuary for Pakistan-based enemy operatives, who are now effectively immune from U.S. ground attacks.

The rationale of the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit in these cases, as David and Lee recount, is that "permitting the president to move captured enemies from one location to another without judicial review would simply give the executive too much power." That's absurd. The president is the commander-in-chief and prisoner transfers in warfare are his constitutional prerogative, subject to Congress's power to fund such operations. The courts, with no institutional competence or political accountability, should have nothing to do with this matter. And that's certainly how the courts see their own constitutional prerogatives: When was the last time a president or Congress said we shouldn't allow the courts alone to decide, say, the parameters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms because that would simply give the judiciary too much power?

And now that the Courts have injected themselves into national security matters...our military's warfighting capacity is being undermined.

So...now that we have Obama's reckless announcement to close Gitmo, now that we're freeing alien enemy combatants, and now that we're laying off capturing terrorists, all in the name of due process for terrorists, now what? When are you going to object to Obama's Predator attacks....errrr...targeted killings? Doesn't that also deny due process to these mere common criminals?

Assholes.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Nobody cares. I think the real question is, are you still slamming Zimas in Taco Bell drive thrus?

[JMak]

Piss weak strawman bullshit.

Where's the strawman. The reporting is that the US military is backing off operations to capture terrorists.

1. "Pakistan-based enemy operatives" are already "effectively immune from US ground attacks" and it doesn't have dick to do with this ruling. It doesn't seem to stop us from blowing them the fuck up with Predator drones.

Correct. I didn't read closely enough the first time to recognize this. Rather, in this area they are immune from capture and detention. But killing them with the Predators is a better option anyway...unless you're a lefty simp.

2. There is nothing to prevent us from reasonably extending the combat zone to include the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Agreed. However, the US military is not pursuing this because of the obvious legal implication it draws the military into which is caused by these court rulings.

3. Captured suspects who are not battlefield detainees should have habeas rights or they shouldn't be taken prisoner. They should be discretely wrung of all useful intelligence and then killed. Just keep it on the down low.

Word. Wish someone would tell the lefties this...abnd the courts.

Do you ever do anything except whimper and cry?

Pointing our that the courts are jeopardizing our national security ain't crying or whimpering...it's simply observing a fact of life.

[JMak]

The implication they are attempting to make is that this is because of the court ruling. That is pure, 100% bullshit. There is not a single shred of evidence to support that conclusion as Predator strikes have continued unabated. It also ignores the fact that the AQ douches who are being captured in Pakistan are being captured by Pakis not by us.

Well, Rivkin and Casey present no evidence to support their statement that Americans have limited their actions in that theatre, so we cannot evaluate. I took their statement in good faith, And I don't think that the fact that Predator attacks continue demonstrates anything at all regarding whether US forces have limited their efforts to capture/detain terrorists. Maybe you can explain that.

This piece is nothing but horseshit propaganda to get mouthbreathing simpletons all wound up.

So there's no concern to be had with the courts overstepping their constitutional authority and imposing a check a President's perogatives as C-in-C? None at all?

Wrong again. We aren't pursuing this because Pakistan does not want US troops openly operating in Pakistan. It has nothing to do with this court ruling.

That's not the point. Because habeas relief is there, it becomes the military's burden to demonstrate that the individuals detained were detained in Afghanistan and not in Pakistan,

They haven't. The Chimpy Adminstration is responsible for jeopardizing our national security by failing to distinguish battlefield detainees from criminal suspects and mixing them together.
There are separate and explicit rules for handling such prisoners and always have been. Deal with it.

No confusion on how enemy combatants are treated/handled from my end. Problem is that the courts seem to be confused. If the Bush admin was improperly classifying some that doesn't greenlight the courts to start modifying existing law and international alw relating to the detention and treatment of such enemy combatants, does it? You seem to be implying that because Bush fucked up and treated seom detainees as criminals then the courts all of a sudden have the authority to modify international agreements and US law. Are you? I can deal with criticizing Chimpy for wanting to treat some but not all as criminals, that's warranted. But the courts have clearly overstepped their authority. And, according to Rivkin & Casey this is affecting how the US military is fighting the war against terrorism.

[JMak]

Yet another example example of the courts jeopardizing national security and what looks to be an awfully similar affair to the one noted above...again, Andy McCarthy at NRO:

The New York Times reports that the Second Circuit federal appeals court (Judge Sotomayor's court) has ruled that the Bush administration improperly barred Tariq Ramadan from entering the U.S.

Ramadan (described by the Times as a "Swiss academic") is the grandson of Muslim Brotherbood founder Hassan al-Banna. He was excluded by the Bush administration on the ground that he'd contributed funds to a terrorist organization. Ramadan is a non-American who has no right to come to the United States, yet the three-judge panel ruled that the government was somehow required to “confront Ramadan with the allegation against him and afford him the subsequent opportunity to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he did not know, and reasonably should not have known, that the recipient of his contributions was a terrorist organization.”

Just as the existence of habeas relief for caputred enemy conbatants is or will hamper US efforts to detain terrorists on the battlefield (i.e., requiring US forces to convincingly demonstrate that the terrorist was captured on the battlefield), so too does this court now require the US government to afford those with no right to enter the nation an opportunity to dispute the government's refusal to grant entry.

Pathetic.