A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Richard A. Stitt

The 5-4 decision upholding the right of habeas corpus is the break in the chain link in Bush's presumed unlimited, unbridled powers that he believes have been granted to him. The idea that terrorism can be erased somehow by this Bush-Republican-spawned atrocious policy of incarcerating (and even torturing) people indefinitely is as preposterous as it is inhumane. Yet, this is the heavy-handed policy that has driven Bush from Day One.

The ruling in favor of habeas corpus on June 12, 2008 extends to all persons. If the only legal standard for deciding just who is an enemy combatant or a terrorist rests with the president alone, then any person, including U.S. citizens, could be denied access to the U.S. courts.

As statistical evidence shows in the last 5½ years, terrorism has thrived and strengthened since Bush's bombing, invasion, and occupation of Iraq in March 2003. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, terrorist training and Taliban camps have proliferated inside the Pakistani border and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government has forged closer ties with a state sponsor of terrorism, the Shiite, Islamic Mullah-led Iran.

By a slim majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Bush's "inherent powers" have taken a big hit. It's unlikely that G.W. Bush will have an opportunity to stack the highest court with one more Republican rubber stamp justice before he departs the White House.

In spite of Bush's sneering disapproval of the Supreme Court's decision, he is becoming increasingly insignificant on the domestic and the international stage. But because of this latest diminishing of his powers, it is in his defiant, pugnacious nature to try to expand his war-making powers in his unquenchable thirst to bomb and immolate tens of thousands of Iranian people before he leaves office on January 20, 2009. His weakening powers has, for the moment, strengthened and affirmed the rule of law.

Scott McClellan, Bush's former press secretary and author of a book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," wrote that his job was to project the reality the White House wished the world to see, regardless of whether it actually existed. Astonishingly, Bush and his dwindling camorra of war hawks are determined once again to hoist red flags of Fear and threaten that mushroom clouds will burst over our cities unless American citizens submit to his mandates.

Democracy and the continued viability of our U.S. Constitution are on the razor's edge because there are at least four hard right wing, anti-U.S. Constitution judges hostile to the protections of civil rights and liberties: the activist, partisan ideologues, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia (RATS) and one so-called swing vote, Anthony Kennedy. In this case, Boumediene v. Bush, by the narrowest of margins, Kennedy, in one of his rare departures from the RATS ideologues, was the decisive swing vote.

Justice Anthony Kennedy in his majority opinion ruling wrote, "Congress has enacted a statute, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (DTA), 119 Stat. 2789, that provides certain procedures for review of the detainees' status. We hold that those procedures are not an adequate and effective substitute for habeas corpus. Therefore §7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA), 28 USCA...operates as an unconstitutional suspension of the writ."

The decision, close as it was, solidifies the strength of our U.S. Constitution. It does not weaken it as those such as Scalia and his three dissenting colleagues assert. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of people held at Guantanamo Bay prison have been released after years in confinement and no charges were ever brought against them. Many of these prisoners were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were swept up in the frenzy and the fog of war in which bounty hunters grabbed people randomly and turned them over to U.S. forces that then sent them off to Guantanamo.

A tremendous burden has been lifted from the shoulders of our U.S. military that has been under pressure to not only try these detainees, but also to get convictions and death penalties. Lower echelon officers charged with the prosecution of these prisoners, some held for as long as six years, under the laws set forth by the Military Commissions Act, were directed by their superiors that if they didn't get those convictions, they could kiss their military careers good-bye.

But some such as Scalia, Roberts, and Alito, do not believe our U.S. courts and legal system established by our U.S. Constitution over 200 years ago are adequate enough nor do they place much value in the strength of our citizens to be able to manage or handle our democracy.

As far as Clarence Thomas's opinion on this case is concerned, it probably matters little since he, as an automatic pro-Bush justice on the RATS court, has been as a reliable rubber stamp for right-wing ideology. Recently, according to Time Magazine and The Associated Press, "Two years and 144 cases have passed since Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas last spoke up at oral arguments. It is a period of unbroken silence that contrasts with the rest of the court's unceasing inquiries... "Thomas must have the easiest job in the world. His jurisprudence: "If Bush is fer it, I'm fer it. If Bush is agin it, then I'm agin it."

But Antonin "The Originalist" Scalia chose to inject a political rant that had nothing to do with an individual's right to defend themselves in the U.S. courts. The Military Commissions Act, rammed through in 2006 by the Republican majority, denied that right. In a snit, Scalia wrote, "The nation is "at war with radical Islamists" and that the court's decision "will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

We should be especially vigilant now. Once intransigent megalomaniacs such as G.W. Bush, Scalia, and Roberts have been spurned, you can be sure they will come back with a vengeance and try their utmost to undo a decision that, at least for now, restores the right for every person who is incarcerated to confront their accusers and defend themselves in a legitimate court of law. For now, we can breathe easier knowing that the rule of law has prevailed.

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

Richard A. Stitt
Austin, TX

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