TheAgitator.com
Supreme Court Oopses
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008Glenn Reynolds notes that Justice John Paul Stevens made some gross factual errors in the Heller case.
He’s not the only one. Over at Obsidian Wings, Hilzoy points to a whopper by Justice Antonin Scalia in Boumediene, where Scalia cited a U.S. Senate minority report which cited a CNN reported which quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying that 30 former Gitmo detainees “have returned to the battlefield” after being released. Sounds like a high-stakes game of telephone.
Turns out, it all depends on what you mean by “returned,” and what you mean by “battlefield.” Hillzoy explains that the Pentagon now puts the number at 12 (and had released the revised number well before Scalia released his opinion). But it’s probably closer to three. Or maybe five. At least one. And the “battlefield” may have actually mean “somewhere in Turkey.” Or Morocco. Or Russia. In one case, the Pentagon counted a former detainee writing an op/ed in the New York Times as “returning to the battlefield.” For two others, it was appearing in a documentary critical of the U.S. war on terror.
Oh, and whatever the number, none of the former detainees were released by liberal judges giving undue deference to habeas claims. All of the 445 formerly captured “worst of the worst” Gitmo detainees thus far released were released by political appointees at the DoD, for their own reasons.
Soooo…..Scalia committed a “whopper” because he referenced a report in the media that wasn’t accurate? Well, wouldn’t it be nice if CNN would do their friggin’ job and actually report accurate numbers?
….and 445 of the “worst of the worst” that were found to be worthy of release….that vast majority of which haven’t found their way back into the fight…..hmmmm……sounds to me like the system that was put in place was working as designed……guess that’s clear evidence that the system is fatally flawed.
Here’s one they forgot, it happened in may so it may be too recent for Obsidian to have caught:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/08/africa/08iraq.php
16 dead, no biggie I guess.
Or this one:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/18/7_ex_detainees_return_to_fighting/
7 caught after their release, no word on how many they killed, I’m sure it wasn’t many.
or:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/world/europe/28russia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
of course he was only planning on killing russians so I guess he probably doesn’t count.
I found 9 within 3 mins with a google search. I’m certain there are more but I guess as long as we can’t authoritatively prove they’re terrorists they’re free to go.
The problem with the scalia dissent is that though his numbers might be off, depending on who you ask, his premise is entirely correct. The constitution grants the congress sole authority in dealing with enemy combatants, the courts have ZERO role. That was dealt with in the exceptions clause. People may not like it but dealing with these detainees is a political issue (don’t like how they’re dealing with detainee’s? vote) not a legal issue. Unless, of course, we’ve violated some international treaty we’re a part of, which we haven’t.
#1 — No he referenced a CNN report that quoted a Pentagon official saying something the Pentagon later retracted. You’d think a Supreme Court justice would be a bit more thorough than that, particularly when making a point so central to his dissent. As to your second point, how many Gitmo detainees have actually been convicted? Hint: it’s less than two.
#2 — Your first story is legit. He’s the one we definitely know about. Your second link is the very 2004 report Hillzoy was debunking. Your third link is about a Chechen separatist. I’d stop well short of lumping Chechen and Uighur separatists in with your average America-hating terrorist. If I were living in China or Russia, I’d probably want to secede, too. That’s not to excuse all of their tactics. It’s just to say that the good guys and bad guys aren’t so clear in those fights.
Tokin has the good? fortune of being wrong on nearly every count. If he’d read the Denbeaux article or Scalia’s dissent, he might discover that. The statement that “The constitution grants the congress sole authority in dealing with enemy combatants, the courts have ZERO role” is rooted in nothing more than a FoxNews ticker. The constitution says nothing directly on point, for starters, and Scalia would even concede a (limited) role for the courts. His premise is correct in the next season of 24. Otherwise its either – at the most innocent – embarrassing hyperbole or – at the most sinister – shrouded contempt for the entire justice system.
And we’ve violated the geneva conventions, a number of prohibitions on torture, the non-proliferation treaty, and several aspects of the UN charter literally dozens and dozens of times. It may not be an exaggeration to suggest that we do it every day. But we have the big dick, so no one says anything.
Thanks for the visual La Rana;
“we have the big dick”
if that’s Florida, I must be living in the taint. lol I feel dirty.
jwh! Hey, man. Why do you repeatedly poke your head in here, say something baseless, then retreat when challenged? People might get the wrong idea about you. Or the right one.
#3 I’m of the view that an islamic terrorist is an islamic terrorist and therefore a threat to everyone, not just us. When they tire of fighting in one spot, they move on to other targets. They hold a thousand years worth of grudges against virtually everyone. It doesn’t matter who takes them off the streets in my view, as long as someone does.
#4
Both points are a load of bunk. Stop getting your views from CNN or even the evil FoxNews teams. The supreme court ruled in 1942:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=317&invol=1
See anything in there about the courts deciding what happens to foreign enemy combatants? Their treatment is left up to congress, the people we elect. If “we the people” don’t care for how they’re being treated it is left to us to make those changes, not the courts.
2nd, the geneva conventions do not cover illegal enemy combatants. The whole point of the conventions was to eliminate attacks on civilians, something terrorists need in order to, you know, inspire terror. As far as the conventions are concerned, these guys can be tried on the spot and shot. As a matter-of-fact, thanks to the recent ruling that is exactly where this is all leading.
#7
That post is either LOL or WTF? It’s a tough choice.
You seem to infer the Judicial Branch has no check on the Executive. You have an interesting interpretation of the Constitution. No doubt the Bush Admin. would agree with you.
It’s extremely beneficial for us to be able to declare a war, decide who is and who is not an illegal enemy combatant (whatever the hell that is), and then tell our own courts how they will (or won’t) be prosecuted. That’s not only having our cake and eating it too. It’s also licking the spoon and the bowl.
I don’t condone flying a jet into a building, but I understand. I don’t condone fire bombing entire cities to the ground, but I understand. The first is a “terrorist” attack. The second is an acceptable way to conduct a war.
Standards of conduct are only useful if they ARE standards.
See anything in there about the courts deciding what happens to foreign enemy combatants?
There’s also nothing in there about how it is to be determined that a prisoner is, indeed, a foreign enemy combatant. So far, a lot of innocent people have been imprisoned. What do you believe should be done to minimize this problem?
You knew that one of the “Tipton Three” later confessed to visiting an Islamist training camp and learning to fire an AK-47 while on his little trip to Afghanistan, right? But I’m sure he was just a tourist, or there for “humanitarian” reasons.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jun/03/broadcasting.observerreview
CTD,
What’s your point, exactly. Nobody’s arguing that there weren’t bad people sent to gitmo or that bad people weren’t let out of gitmo. The problem is that hundreds of innocent people were sent there and spent years there for no reason and that some folks are so scared that they either still trust the government to get it right (when it repeatedly gets it wrong) or just don’t care that innocent people are being imprisoned.
Interesting, however I’m not sure that visiting an islamist training camp and learning to fire an AK-47 justify a trip to Gitmo for 2 years with little legal recourse (with this kind of justification we’d have to send half of Iraq to Gitmo). And keep in mind that the issue isn’t what they did that lead to them going to Gitmo, but what they’ve done afterwards? Has he taken up arms agains the U.S. since his release? If not, then it is wrong to claim he has “returned to the battle field”.