The Day After - Flopping Aces

The left will never let us down. You can take that one to your grave. Just when you think they may have a slight upperhand they go freaking NUTS! I mean come on! A War crime trial against Bush, are you people for real?

But the real blockbuster in the Hamdan decision is the court’s holding that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention applies to the conflict with Al Qaeda — a holding that makes high-ranking Bush administration officials potentially subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act.

You just had to know it. They cannot be rational, it is not in their nature. They will lose everytime because they are just so far out there that even their compatriots think they are crazy. You do not win elections by going over the cliff of rational thought. You win elections by having a plan, a moderate plan. A plan to make this country safe against terrorism and to keep this economy growing.

But to even think that this ruling, which basically tells Bush, “hey…go back to congress if you want tribunals or you can just keep these guys locked away indefinately, it’s up to you”, is some kind of ticket towards impeachment or war crimes is just plain freakin crazy man. Get a grip people. Maybe direct some of this hate towards those who want you dead, specifically Al-Qaeda.

I know, I know, it’s a lost cause.

Now back to the ruling. One day later and people are starting to come to grips that the Supreme Court has overstepped it’s bounds. The Supreme Court cannot….let me repeat this….CANNOT tell our Commander In Chief of our Armed Forces how to conduct a war. That is his primary responsibility. That is it. He is our Commander and Chief and neither the courts nor congress can tell him how to conduct it. Congress can cut off funds and declare war, nothing else. As J. Peter Mulhern writes in today’s American Thinker, Bush should basically do as Lincoln did when the courts got into a tizzy over his suspension of habeas corpus, he should ignore them:

Either five members of the Supreme Court can’t parse the phrase “Commander in Chief” or they haven’t grasped that we are at war. In wartime, finding, killing, capturing, confining and punishing the enemy is the President’s job, his core function. Congress has only a peripheral role in running a war. It gets to decide whether we are going to engage in hostilities and it gets to appropriate the funds to do so.

The judiciary has no proper function in the conduct of a war at all.

The constitutional scheme for running a war is simple–the President leads, Congress follows and the judiciary gets out of the way.

[…]Sixty years ago everyone understood this. In connection with World War II the Supreme Court upheld the President’s authority to intern thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent on the off chance that some of them might be a security risk. President Roosevelt made a bad decision in that instance but, as the Court properly recognized, it was his decision to make. It also upheld the President’s power to convene a military commission that sentenced eight German spies to death.

This was before the Court got drunk on its own power and lost the ability to steer between the constitutional lines.

Our history gives us an instructive example of judicial meddling in the conduct of a war. The Supreme Court tried to get in President Lincoln’s face during the Civil War. In particular, Chief Justice Roger Taney took a dim view of the President’s decision to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Justice Stevens and his cohorts would do well to remember that disagreement. Lincoln politely told the Taney Court to pound sand. And yet, astoundingly, he is not widely remembered as a tyrant.

[…]After he gives Congress a decent interval in which to act, President Bush should follow Lincoln’s example. He should just start trying terrorists before military commissions. When he is accused of lawlessness he should explain that the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdan is not law because the Court lacked jurisdiction to make it. He should go on to say that, with or without jurisdiction, the Court can’t put arbitrary limits on his war powers. The power to “say what the law is” doesn’t justify boldly taking the law where it has no business going.

He could end by paraphrasing President Jackson: “Justice Stevens has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”

John Yoo, writing in the USA Today, agrees:

By putting on hold military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes, five Supreme Court justices have made the legal system part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the challenges of the war on terrorism. They tossed aside centuries of American history, judicial decisions of long standing, and a December 2005 law ordering them not to interfere with the military trials.

As commander in chief, President Bush has the authority to decide on wartime tactics and strategies. Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR settled on military commissions, sometimes with congressional approval and sometimes without, as the best tool to punish and deter enemy war crimes. Bush used them to solve a difficult tension: how to try terrorists fairly without blowing intelligence sources and methods.

[…]What the justices did would have been unthinkable in prior military conflicts: Judicial intervention in the decisions of the president and Congress on how best to wage war. They replaced his wartime judgment and Congress’ support with their own speculation that open trials would not run intelligence risks. Their decision to impose specific rules and override political judgments about military necessity mistakes war — inherently unpredictable, and where our government must act quickly and sometimes secretly to protect national security — for the familiarity of the criminal justice system.

John C. Eastman also recognized the overstepping of authority by the Supreme Court:

The merits portion of the Court’s holding is even more troubling, as Justice Stevens and the Court majority seem bent not only on ignoring congressional mandates but on assuming to themselves the powers of the office of president as well. Article II of the Constitution makes absolutely clear that the president, not the courts, is commander-in-chief. His power in this arena is particularly strong when Congress has lent its own support, as it did with the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, enacted shortly after September 11, 2001. That Act of Congress authorized the president to use all necessary and proper force to capture or kill those who had a hand in the attacks on the United States and to prevent similar attacks in the future. The power to detain enemy combatants has always been considered as incident to the war-making power, as a matter of both domestic and international law. That power has also included the power to try detainees for violations of the laws of war, without having to submit to the oversight of civilian courts in the process. The Constitution even permits trials of our own servicemen in military rather than civilian courts, yet Justice Stevens and the Court majority seem intent on extending greater protections to our terrorist enemies than the Constitution affords to our own men in uniform.

And finally Andy McCarthy writes about the another amazing facet of this decision. That we should now abide by International Law rather then our own Constitution by handing over intelligence to Al-Qaeda, so they can properly defend themselves…..simply amazing:

One of the principal reasons for having commissions rather than courts-martial or civilian trials is to prevent our enemies from learning what we know and how we know it. But the court held that the president had not justified procedures which call, potentially, for excluding the terrorists from the courtroom when classified information is introduced.

Now, let’s compare. Alien combatants have no constitutional rights; therefore, they have no constitutional right to be present at trial. On the other hand, protecting the security of the American people — which is what classified information is all about — is the number one obligation of government. So by what law does an al Qaeda killer’s purported right to be present outweigh the American people’s unquestioned right to have the government protect them (by, for example, not providing the enemy with sensitive intelligence)?

It could only conceivably be Geneva’s Common Article 3 — an international law provision the court had to twist beyond recognition to give the enemy its benefit. That fuzzy language talks about providing “judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people.” OK, but who says all “civilized people” would opt to elevate a homicidal maniac’s right of access to the government’s most sensitive information over the government’s obligation to protect its citizens by withholding intelligence that may help those trying to kill them do just that?

I am absolutely certain, I don’t have one doubt, that Bush will NOT let this happen. He will tell the world that we will withdraw from the Geneva Convention before he is forced to hand over vital security information to Al-Qaeda. I mean the stupidity of this decision is mind boggling.

I can hear it now from the lefties “but but but the President can’t withdraw from the Geneva Convention”….oh silly boys and girls. The Conventions are a Treaty. Who has the authority to enter into and exit out of treaties?

Yup, our Commander In Chief.

In the end this is going to force those in Congress to choose sides, and in an election year. How much you want to bet the majority will not side with Al-Qaeda?

On a side note, check out this new video made by Hot Air:

[flv:forget.flv 400 300]

Other’s Blogging:

In the end this is going to force those in Congress to choose sides, and in an election year. How much you want to bet the majority will not side with Al-Qaeda?

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Curt

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