On Thursday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 that terrorist suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay can challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. Apparently the phrase, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact,” no longer applies.
The MSM characterized the ruling as a “blow to the Bush administration.” Wrong. It’s a blow to every American for whom national security takes precedence over the “rights” of non-American, non-uniformed, enemy combatants. And it raises some troubling questions:
Will terrorist defense attorneys now get access to top-secret information that details who is involved in protecting us and how they do so? If so, what will stop that information from getting into the hands of al Qaeda operatives and other terrorist organizations throughout the world? Is every terrorist individual American troops do battle with now a “de facto” American citizen who must be informed of his Miranda rights upon his capture? Will American troops who kill terrorists in the field of battle have to “collect evidence” justifying that decision in order to escape being charged with murder?
Predictably, it was the Court’s liberal faction that favored the decision. Liberalism is all about the sanctity of rights-in-a-vacuum absent any consideration whatsoever of of reality. In their view, all rights are sacrosanct, even during wartime. The fact that Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and six WWll German spies were executed after a trial by an FDR-appointed Military Commission (which also denied writs of habeas corpus) apparently had no influence on Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, Kennedy and Stevens.
Unfortunately, this is unsurprising. For the last seven years, it has been the American left’s mission–via Congress, the media and the courts–to demonize the Bush administration, irrespective of the damage it does to country, and despite the reality that we’ve had no more domestic terror attacks since 9/11. In a sane country, the prevention of a repeat–or worse–of the horror we endured on that day would engender tremendous gratitude. For liberals, it has bred contempt: the terrorist threat is “bumper sticker slogan,” “fear-mongering,” or a “plot to strip Americans of their rights.”
Those who think this is a proper decision should ask themselves a question: if it had been made on Sept. 12, 2001 instead of June 12, 2008, would you still be applauding it?
atahlert@comcast.net
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