Third Time's a Charm? The Supreme Court Rules That Guantanamo Bay Detainees DO have rights! Again!

Here we go again.....For the third time, the Supreme Court has ruled that foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts in the U.S., and that they have been denied their right to habeas corpus, and all that silly stuff that the Bush administration would have us believe is less important than our "safety."

The 270 men held at Guantanamo as suspected enemy combatants have been in limbo, some for over 6 years, as the lack of due process, evidence, and justification for their imprisonment, has created a smokescreen preventing any realistic procedure or outcome. Many of these men have been tortured, and since the evidence gained by such treatment is not reliable, its been impossible for a full case to be made without the issues becoming bigger than the particular case trying to be heard.. But really, according to first hand accounts of the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo have left many of them in such states as to make it hard to release them to their home countries, much less any other country that might agree to take them. The longer this goes on, the more we look like the bad guys, (too late,) and if there ever was a case to be made, we have lost it completely ethically and morally, and we have lost the ability to punish the guilty in any reasonable way.

The emotional and physical fallout from this sort of imprisonment and torture will leave lasting effects that should not be underestimated. I guess that John McCain could be cited as an example of a POW who emerged seemingly unscathed from his ordeal, but then the stories of his vicious temper and his vile treatment of those around him, as cited by Cliff Schecter in his excellent book, The Real McCain, coupled with his seeming disconnect with reality and always changing beliefs and opinions, leads one to think that he is still deeply effected by PTSD, and driven by some deep anger to wage more and more war and to get some sort of revenge. Surely some of the detainees could walk among us with little sign of where they've been; like McCain, they will be time bombs ready to explode at any time.

Without due process, its been impossible to classify these prisoners as true "illegal enemy combatants." With no clear classification and with the republican led congress blocking the last 2 SCOTUS rulings on this by passing laws and limiting judicial oversight, a ripple effect has caused any cases that have made it to a court or tribunal to be sent back to lower courts to sort out the legalities. So, how can we know if this new decision will amount to anything at all before the next administration takes office? Since the designation of the detainees is decided by the president himself and his top cabinet, and is very confidential, its impossible to know what it is based on. Add to that the fear that hovers around the disinformation and/or PR campaign that has painted these prisoners as criminals, terrorists, and enemy combatants, and it's unlikely that they will ever see the light of day in any meaningful way. Its also unlikely that justice will be done or that any deterrence that might be fostered by America's ability to kick the collective asses of the bad-guys, will be evident at all.

America, as it stands, appears to be run by a bunch of heartless, bungling, idiots, with an administration that doesn't even follow our own laws or the rulings of our own court. If they don't like the rulings of the highest court in the country, they just go about circumventing them. With this kind of leadership and the track record of the last 7 years, we have no way ever again to claim the moral high-ground, or to claim that spreading our brand of freedom or democracy is superior to the individual evolution of any country.

The really troubling part of this mess is that the dissenting members of the court, being the usual suspects, joined Alito's written dissent which assumed the guilt of the prisoners and stated a political opinion about the danger that America is in (with the implication being that these prisoners who have not been charged or tried are the reason,) as noted in the Washington Post:

Justice Antonin Scalia took the unusual step of summarizing his dissent from the bench, calling the court's decision a "self-invited . . . incursion into military affairs," and was even stronger in a written dissent joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

"America is at war with radical Islamists," Scalia wrote, adding that the decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

I thought that the court was in place to ensure the sanctity of American laws and the way that we do things. If the reason why Scalia dissents as he does, (joined by certain of his colleagues,) is that he feels that these prisoners are, in fact, enemy combatants, with no evidence or due process stating such, or even alleging it, then he is stating mere opinion based on gut feelings and stories drawn out of tortured prisoners who have likely not seen the light of day or another human being, except their torturers, for months. Our justice system doesn't work this way and the highest court is not supposed to issue dissents or opinions based on personal feelings about issues that are clearly political, (and unproven, at that!)

I don't believe that the court's job is to tell us that their decision is based on the danger that America is in if certain prisoners happen to be what one or another of them thinks they may be. I believe that they are supposed to comment on whether the information presented and the treatment of those prisoners follows the LAW! isn't the Supreme court the last stop in decision making and a place where the information and evidence is looked at as already revealed and consideration is given to process? If not, then I would like to see where new evidence...real evidence...was introduced that might indicate that these people are combatants of any kind. If not, and if this is purely an oversight of law decisions, then why is the dissent written in terms of political opinion regarding the safety of Americans? The laws of our country are not in place so that we can cringe behind them, but rather so that we can stand boldly and die to protect them...right? This is just more of the Karl Rovian "Be Very Afraid" brand of fear-politics.

We can guess that these prisoners are bad guys. We can know that they are hardened and hateful, and even that some of them have been driven crazy. We can also guess that they come from a place where bad guys hide out, and we can go with the gut feelings of military interrogators that has filtered down through layers and layers of pundits, informers, and gossips, but unless these guys stand before an open court with independent lawyers, we've got nothing.

The fucking Bush Administration, in person as it turns out, have made the world incredibly less safe by not following the law as it stood. If they hadn't had a field trip to Guantanamo to witness actual interrogation techniques and take it upon themselves to shape a policy that has pieces of the TV show 24, and techniques that have been proven to not work within it, then we might have been able to prove if these guys are criminals or not; we wouldn't have to have them walking free among us if they are guilty. But I think that this whole thing really wasn't about combatants, or safety, or the law; it was about being macho and showing the world that they can change and defy American law anytime they want. That probably buys some sorta tough street cred in the higher echelons of power where the real dealing is done, just for the rush of the huge chess game that is Planet Earth.

So, forgive me if I am not counting my prisoners before they get their hearings. An administration that bends the law wherever they see fit, and a senate with Joe Lieberman leaning to the right, and that slim of a majority, will stand in the way of this too. Soon it will Be Obama's problem, and a mark on his record that he had this horrible war and had to house these poor guys forever because they had nowhere to go....I like to see as much of this as possible get on the record, but honestly, unless we impeach Bush and Cheney (and indict Gonzalez and Rumsfeld, and do something to Condi Rice, which I haven't figured out yet,) we've got nothing.

...except other secret prisons around the world, most notably in Afghanistan, that are doing the same thing, but reportedly worse....

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

I

Is It Bad? Is It Wrong?...One Foot Still Firmly Planted in the Other America...head in the Cotton Candy Clouds...

I was running around today...through the treadmill of what has become of our social services, and looking up as I drove away from the project town, a beautiful cousin was looking forlornly down from the little white house at the thugs next door who always hang on the steps and always have the thud, thud, thud of rap shaking the house, and knowing that the grandmother is working 24 hours per day till Saturday, and the mother is sort of a wreck, kicked out of her housing in Bridgeport...I looked up as I was driving away from this masterpiece of social engineering, and I thought to myself, how long till she comes down to hang with the guys, ends up pregnant or jumped into a gang? Is she the one with enough resilience to stand her ground and go through the horrible schools and maybe, just maybe, get to college? ....will she be the one to get out?
I drove away with Ben...the chosen one, because I have grown to love him gradually over time, and quite by accident...and why should it be just him?
Well there we were hauling $270 worth of groceries, that I hope will hold them through the Kos weekend along with some pizza and maybe a little Chinese food here and there. Two 13 year old boys eat alot more than you'd think....and how does Ben's mom do it on so little income and so many other kids to feed?
The radio came on and I heard the end of a report about Roberts having fallen at his Maine summer place. I held my breath because I don't want to be someone who hopes for the worst...and away we went to the pharmacy when the 1010 WINS finally came round again to the story and, shushing Ben, I raised my hands and yelled "Seizure!! That could be a stroke or a tumor!!"
Then I felt bad.
Is it wrong?

Ben said something about my reaction and I just looked at him and said something to the effect of, you know, this man represents someone who wants to take your rights away and keep us all trapped in the little box where he thinks god intended us to be..and that he is in his spot forever and is a Bush person.
I stopped and thought to myself, could we be lucky enough to just lose one by accident or by medical tragedy?...maybe he could hold on just long enough to expire when the dems take over.

And so, now I am who Bill O'Reilly says I am.

And he is already fully recovered. It was a known problem and he probably takes medication for it, and its perfectly controlled or he wouldn't have been nominated to the position that he is in.

Today I managed to get little done and come away from what I did feeling really disappointed and downtrodden. My son, Will, is really feeling badly and we've been up at night every night. I'm worried about leaving him, but I think I have to go...and that maybe part of his anxiety is that I am going...
And I have alot of busywork to do involving printing cards and writing up directions about dog food and how to get to appointments.
Then I got a call from Ben saying that his Mom has an emergency and needs me to call her at work...oh, and could I please come and get him because he is alone with his cousins and its so noisy that he cant ready, and hasn't slept....
It turned out, from what I could understand, that she had gotten a notice when she got home on Saturday that she had been behind on the electric bill and that the power was going to be turned off today. She spoke to the electric company and they told her that she had to pay $500 immediately or the power would be gone by the end of today. There she was at work, knowing that everything is precariously balanced and thinking that she would pay what she could by Saturday when she got her welfare checks for the 2 grand kids ($600...$500 of which she had just found out she would have to give to the electric company,) and since she had screwed up the "arrangement" that she had made during her medical crisis in May, she was stone out of luck.
Here is the deal: An "arrangement" with Connecticut Light and Power is what happens when there is no work and you have been sick so cant make the sporadic payments that you usually make just before its too late, as you juggle too many bills, too many kids, and not enough services.
The budget program isn't even an option because you can never quite pay off the arrangement, and every time you are late you sink deeper and deeper towards losing everything....because this is not the only "arrangement" that you've got going.

The very root of this sort of thing smacks of the Company Store that enables but never really gives you an out unless you win the lottery... and there is nothing to do to get out of the hole no matter how hard any one tries. So, why try? Why strive for the American dream or anything? And this is what leads to the thugs who wander the streets and have outstanding warrants for this and that. This is what leads to the accidental pregnancy, the random shooting, the robbery and jail time. But most of all, this is what leads to the anger out of helplessness...and stories of a deported sister who stabbed someone and was jailed and then deported; and that's how that little grandchild came to be here, motherless and an America citizen, but stuck in the other America, which, even as it is, beats the hell out of Haiti right now....

When I called the electric company, I hit the same wall that she had. But I am articulate and was able to implore the woman to look at all possibilities....things that might never get mentioned to someone who speaks broken English and who is making a call from work to keep the lights on for the children that she wont see until Saturday (and did I mention that her pay works out to around $4 an hour before taxes?) got mentioned and I wasn't going away or backing down.
The deal is that there might be some program here in town, and indeed, even the electric company has people who speak French Creole, if one knows that they should ask for that, but it all involves going on the Internet, or going to the government center, and being able to have the translator call at a particular time, and one has to pay for a new pay-as-you-go card for the cell phone...yes, that is 25 cents a minute...because its expensive to be poor and to have no credit.

The deal was that she actually had, over the past couple of years of not having work and not having money, not taking her medication for blood pressure, getting sick, going to school to get the certification for this $4 an hour job, racked up a bill for over $800...and the last "arrangement was for just a few months to take $300 per month, which equals one child's total monthly upkeep, just for the electric bill, to try to make this up. This unreasonable plan could not possibly succeed, but at a point I think that people will just take whatever is offered for fear of having their electricity cut off by the man. I knew that I could offer $20 per month to pay off the balance, and they would have to take it, but the deal that they offered would still make her pay $500 to keep the power on because she had to pay off the last "arrangement" as per "company policy"
The woman was very apologetic, but couldn't budge. Since I am leaving town I am not able to go and barge into the government center tomorrow and figure this out in some reasonable way....I know that there are some services or charities to help with things like this...small loans to set people free, perhaps?
I kept asking a million questions about different possibilities, and finally I said that it was just impossible that they couldn't have a budget plan for people like this. She said, oh yes, but you cant have any outstanding balance. I asked what the monthly payment would be on the budget plan and she said $109. I asked if they had ever been on it...ever..and she said no, that they had just paid sporadically.

So, here is someone who doesn't know what is available to her, and has already fallen behind before she has the opportunity to figure it out. The applications are so difficult anyway that people just stop trying.

What did I do? I paid the entire bill on a credit card and got her back on the budget plan. I told her to pay me what she could when her checks come, but not so much that she cant pay her other bills...and that we can work the rest out. The important thing is that going forward her electric bill is a reasonable amount. I told her that if she gets in trouble that she has to ask for help before it grows beyond the $109...and meanwhile, I have a new job of finding out what assistance exists for the oil bill and the rest. I know that there must be assistance available and that there is also help with the language barrier; its just a matter of having the TIME to make the calls and do the research. Time is what I don't have these days...and I am so troubled about some things I found out about the community center where the inner city kids go for camp and after school programs ...but that is for another day...and as soon as I can catch up with this one family, I have to attack this from a different angle, involving the fantasy world of the Joe Lieberman's and the Chris Shays' who believe that they are fully caring for all the children of this state in a wonderful world of cotton candy clouds and candy cane lanes ...(cue the Sam Seder "world of your imagination" music....)

I do need a respite, but how can I look at the matter at hand without extrapolating this entire setup of a situation into what it is....The fix is in and from the very core of that rotten Supreme Court comes the conviction of those who hold themselves superior and above the rabble, (include women in that equation, along with the poor and people of color,) and so when any opportunity comes for a ray of hope against the body that would force those young girls and boys to resign themselves to another generation of hopelessness, I perk up...I'm hoping...and if that makes me an evil, negative, lefty, creep, then so be it...
But I challenge OReilly and his chit-chat board to do anything like what Ive been doing, actually get your hands dirty kids, and then set up a charity to continue this work.... and then to continue to agree with these smug social engineers that women don't deserve to have choice, that affirmative action isn't needed, and that enough time has long ago passed in order to make up for all the wrongs done to the minorities of this country. We need some balance back on the court, and if there aren't gonna be term limits then maybe a couple of them are gonna have to meet with natural disaster...
And what better place to seize than on your dock at your country place?...at least its damned beautiful there...enjoy it John...you've worked so hard...

If John Edwards isn't exactly what this country needs, I don't know what is. The very point of this whole story is that the returning army is largely made up of poor minorities, and the cards are already stacked against them. Getting out of the war is one thing, restoring diplomatic ties is another...but social services is THE thing....forcing the poor to play on a clearly uneven playing field while funds to education and services are clearly cut, and forcing anyone to decide about family planning with the help of anyone but their family and their doctor is just not fair and its not allowing everyone the same chance...because we know that the prep school kids have a huge boost up, and we know that rich kids who make mistakes get special treatment, be it private doctors, special lawyers, or extra educational help...not to mention those great oceanfront summer homes with docks....
Education, medical care, insurance, the American dream....what else?