Debra Burlingame: Boumediene v. Bush a Strategic Victory for al Qaeda

911FamiliesForAmerica.org ^ | June 12, 2008 | Debra Burlingame

[Sergeant Tim]

The lawyers who are championing the rights of terrorists should tell the public what this decision really means. It means that terrorists will be entitled to Miranda rights, to legal representation and the right to remain silent. And they will. When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, was handed over to the U.S. after his capture in Karachi in 2003, he taunted his interrogators with this, "I'll talk to you guys in New York when I see my lawyer." But they won't tell the public, they will continue to talk about preserving the rights of people who would behead journalists, blow up children and fly commercial airliners into buildings, as if those acts are an abstraction. What this decision ultimately means is that the vital intelligence we need to prevent future attacks -- the kind intelligence we didn't have on September 10, 2001 -- will dry up. We will be left reacting to these attacks after the fact -- just as we did in the ten years prior to the murder of 3,000 of our fellow human beings.

[JamesP81]

Alright, it’s simple. Since the prisoners can’t be made to talk, there’s no longer any need to take prisoners.

[Diogenesis]

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to (have their citizens suffer and) repeat it."
George Santayana

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[bamahead]

In the long term, then, the Court’s decision today accomplishes little, except perhaps to reduce the well-being of enemy combatants that the Court ostensibly seeks to protect. In the short term, however, the decision is devastating. At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to the battlefield. See S. Rep. No. 110–90, pt. 7, p. 13 (2007) (Minority Views of Sens. Kyl, Sessions, Graham, Cornyn, and Coburn) (hereinafter Minority Report). Some have been captured or killed. See ibid.; see also Mintz, Released Detainees Rejoining the Fight, Washington Post, Oct. 22, 2004, pp. A1, A12. But others have succeeded in carrying on their atrocities against innocent civilians. In one case, a detainee released from Guantanamo Bay masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese dam workers, one of whom was later shot to death when used as a human shield against Pakistani commandoes. See Khan & Lancaster, Pakistanis Rescue Hostage; 2nd Dies, Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2004, p. A18. Another former detainee promptly resumed his post as a senior Taliban commander and murdered a United Nations engineer and three Afghan soldiers. Mintz, supra. Still another murdered an Afghan judge. See Minority Report 13. It was reported only last month that a released detainee carried out a suicide bombing against Iraqi soldiers in Mosul, Iraq. See White, Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Joined Iraq Suicide Attack, Washington Post, May 8, 2008, p. A18.

Scalia did his homework on this. Lotta good it did.

[Sergeant Tim]

Ping!

See this Freeper site post and be listening to The Great One tonight.

[SE Mom]

Thanks for the ping- I wouldn’t miss Mark tonight for anything.

This outrageous ruling will have FAR REACHING effects.

[marron]

You cannot litigate war.

War is the state that exists when you are beyond the capacity of civilian law to protect you. When normal civilian law is insufficient to contain or resolve a conflict, when men in suits with briefcases backed by cops with pistols are no longer adequate to the threat at hand, you are by definition at war.

During this period in time you are not going to issue subpoenas, you are not going to read anyone their rights, you are not going to cite anyone or see them in court. You are going to send stout men with guns to kill them, them and anyone unfortunate or foolish enough to be standing nearby. You are going to re-define the facts on the ground, you are going to create a new status quo.

You are not going to recreate the previous status quo, because that is the “status quo” that brought you into war in the first place. You are going to re-draw the maps, redefine the demographics, re-write constitutions, and put people into graves who sorely need to be there.

Then, and only then, when a new status quo emerges that you can live with, that does not threaten you, you return to “rule of law” and the rule by men in suits with briefcases.

If judges and attorneys are sufficient to protect you, you are not yet at war. But once you realize you are at war, judges and attorneys are of no use to you until the war is won and over.

[ataDude]

<< thumbs up >>

[JamesP81]

If judges and attorneys are sufficient to protect you, you are not yet at war. But once you realize you are at war, judges and attorneys are of no use to you until the war is won and over.

And frequently, they are a problem while the war is being fought.

As a smarter man than I once said, "Laws are silent during times of war."