NATIONAL NEWS The Supreme Court Rules!... and they also made a ruling
The Supreme Court ruled today on the Ahmed Salim Hamden case. Hamden was the driver/bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden and was detained as an "enemy combatant" at Gitmo in Guantanama Bay (Prisoners Of War have to be part of an army and al Qaeda, while highly organized, is somehow not considered an army). And, because of the symantics--because of the language of who this person was to America--we thought we did not, as a government, have to afford him the same rights that a POW is afforded (thank you Geneva Convention). What today's Supreme Court ruling says--basically--is that the idea of an "enemy combatant" being different than a POW is wrong, and it's time to afford these people the same basic rights as POWs. A better way of putting this, and the way my dad said it in his email is: "the Bush administration did not have authority to set up the war crimes tribunals and found the military commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention."
This seems a large blow to Bush's "Let's get those freedom-haters" attitude and is something of a surprise to me. Bush personally appointed two of these Justices, his father appointed two others... I just assumed (like a moron) that he'd always have at least four votes in his pocket. This particular ruling was 5-3 (with Chief Justice Roberts obstaining from the vote), with the three descenting votes Thomas, Scalia, and Alito. Perhaps that should read Scalia then the other two... as they've both been acqused of blindly following Scalia in their Justice careers. Regardless, it's refreshing to see that no President, no matter how many Justices they appoint, is above the reach of the Court.
Now it's time to figure out what to do with all those people in Gitmo. Bush says he wants to just send them all home and I don't blame him. The only problem now (I'm going to sound so conservative) is that we've just held 400 people in pretty poor conditions and we're going to release them? How pissed would you be if that was you? And how badly do you think they would want to come back here and get some retribution? I think this situation is only going to get more complicated before it gets better. Keep your eyes peeled on this one!