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June 30, 2004
Supreme Court Decisions are Generally Favorable to the Administration
The decisions of the Supreme Court regarding various cases involving Guantanamo detainees or American citizens designated as "enemy combatants" have been portrayed as victory agains the Bush administration's attempts to decimate civil liberties. Many commentators have praised the Court, one called it a "mortal blow to the President's vision of limitless power"-- and newspapers headlines ranged from "Wartime President Is Again Outflanked" to "Supreme Court Deals Blow to War on Terror"
My read is that's all wishful thinking by a press and a punditry that is now riding on a "Bush is sinking" meme, partly helped by Fahreneit 911's success.
Bushies may hope for just such a feeling in the country, come November. What better to get out their voters who appear to be somewhat upset about Iraq, the deficit, the economy...
It appears to me that most of the country is fairly decided on who they are going to vote for, with perhaps 10 percent up for grabs -- and that 10 percent will most likely be influenced by factors outside each of the campaigns such as the war in Iraq or the economy. In such an environment, the magic word is turnout. Remember, millions of eligible voters do not vote and it may well be that this election will go to the party whose base is most afraid of the other guy taking over. In such an environment, appearing to be on the verge of losing is not that bad.
Going back to the Supreme Court decision, I recognize that the some limitations have been finally placed on the royalist interpretation of the constitution but things are really bad if this is what we cheer now. The court allowed the category of enemy combatants, recognized that they may be held without charges, and also allowed that non-citizens could be held without charges in various sites of dubious jurisdictionality.
What's the victory? The detainees have some access to the courts to challenge their indefinite detention. Not full access, mind you, and they certainly do not have the usual rights of criminal defendants in regular federal courts. However, the wheels of justice may now grind for them, however slowly and however unfairly weighed against them -- imagine trying to prove your innocence while in solitary confinement for perhaps years under harsh conditions. (Here's the story of a Purna Raj Bajracharya, a Nepalese man who was held without charges for three months in "special detention" which meant solitary confinement, even after his arresting officer realized it had all been a mistake and tried to get him released. He was finally deported, much to his relief.)
And while those wheel slowly grind, wars will be waged and elections will come and go -- and sometimes get stolen. It will be just like the Weapons of Mass Destruction story. Oops, we might have been mistaken, the administration now says after Iraq's invaded, occupied and CIA-asset Ayad Allawi is appointed the prime minister. Facts coming out ex-post-war may help discredit the administration but by then what's done is done. What counts would be to have the facts publicly and widely available while there is time to stop a course of events that may well prove very hard to reverse -- and it may be impossible to undo the damage caused by then. (Of course, we knew Bush was lying in the run-up to the war but facts then just couldn't make it through the media filters of the time. Now that it doesn't matter that much, our courageous reporters are a bit better in reporting yesterday's lies.)
If you want to go through the cases to understand what I'm arguing here, here's some more detailed analysis by Elaine Cassel, who also has an upcoming book titled War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights.
Posted by zeynep at June 30, 2004 02:36 AM
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Comments
Thank you, Zeynep. I thought that I had heard a different decision than everyone else. The few liberals in the mainstream media have fallen all over themselves praising these decisions by an executive lapdog court. Jose Padilla is still in Gulag captivity as the court cowardly rejected his suit on the technicality that he should have sued the D.A. in South Carolina rather than Herr Rumsfeld. Now Mr. Padilla has to start his lawsuit over from the beginning which means it will be that much longer before he has even a glimpse of hope of being treated justly and fairly. These decisions by this repressive court were not victories for anyone who is serious about social justice. Get real, people. A bone thrown to a starving dog is not a meal and is most assuredly not a victory!!
Sincerely,
Old & In The Way
Posted by: Phil Cicchi at June 30, 2004 05:59 PM