McCain attacks Guantanamo decision

He doesn't exaggerate. This is one of the five worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Our ability to prosecute any future war is immensely impaired, seeing as now we'll have to grant all POWs access to domestic civilian courts. No other country in the world is saddled by that foolhardy restriction.

Not to mention that these individuals are UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS...by extension POW"s who adhere to the rules of law should also be allowed access to our civilian courts for HabeusCorpus purposes...

This decision is a disgrace...

Good people, bad people. Aren't we being a little black and white here. Is McCain cognitively delayed? Well, yes, that is the tone of the last 8 years. So sad.

While I AGREE with the U. S. Supreme Court's "GITMO" majority opinion that "all enemy combatants detained during a war, at least insofar as they are confined in an area away from the battlefield, [but] over which the United States exercises 'absolute and indefinite' control, may seek a writ of habeas corpus in federal court," I also AGREE with Chief Justice Roberts (and his fellow dissenters) that the Writ can be suspended in time of war, such as the war on terror that we find ourselves involved in right now, and that suspension power belongs to Congress, such as Congress has exercised in this case, "as the Constitution surely allows Congress to [wield]."

Although Justice Scalia stated that this ruling may end up costing American lives, he failed at the same time to point out that the Executive branch's erosion of the Constitution renders the core basis for the sacrifice of American lives for any cause to become without value ...
It is good to see that America is preserving core values, even in the face of Britain's abrogating the Magna Carta.

Toutee Joubert asks if calling Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters "bad" and the American military trying to defeat them "good" is "a little black and white." Yes. Yes it is. And it's an odd type of color-blindness that you have that won't allow you to discern those tones.

What color is the sky in your world where the people who killed thousands on 9/11 were really neither good nor bad - it depends on one's perspective? SOMETIMES black is actually black and white is actually white. But I'm sure you feel very self congratulatory that you're so evolved that everything looks gray to you. Unfortunately, all you're revealing to the thinking world is your lack of any gray matter inside your skull.

Quite possibly the worst decision ever. If the constitutional protection that our citizens are entitled to is extended to illegal combatants, why not to legal combatants (i.e Prisoners of War). I'm sure that local commanders in the heat of battle and its immediate aftermath have nothing better to do than rigorously document in triplicate the specifics of each prisoners capture.

Commenter #5, you might think this is a preservation of our core values but you are sorely mistaken. This ruling is a complete repudiation of the settled precedent in Eisentrager (1950) regarding the rights of combatants. Extending the Constitution to apply to people that it was never intended to apply to should not be considered as somehow offsetting your perception of eroded civil liberties.

"Seeing as now we'll have to grant all POWs access to domestic civilian courts"

A fine example of the amount of disinformation swirling around this issue. This ruling has nothing to do with POW's. It has to do with the administration's attempt to pretend that they AREN"T POW's without providing any alternative method for determining their status.

Obvious solution to the decision. Interrogate the schmucks on the battlefield, then terminate with extreme prejudice on the spot. No way to waste our resources in pandering the tender sensibilities of radical Muslims as they get fat and get Qurans- except for the cost of the bullets.

delta 7777 says? "Although Justice Scalia stated that this ruling may end up costing American lives, he failed at the same time to point out that the Executive branch's erosion of the Constitution renders the core basis for the sacrifice of American lives for any cause to become without value ..."

I'm sure that feels all good inside for you to say such things. But that feeling you are enjoying doesn't turn your cant into anything more than the piece of fluff that it is. I'm fairly certain you cannot identify a single "erosion of the Constitution" that is anything more than a partisan political gripe. And the hyperbolic and shrill garbage about the ideals of this country no longer having value is just asinine and shows more about your political inspidness then it does about the reality of this country.

This is a horrible decision for legal reasons. But for people who can't think beyond their simple binary political worldview, the only thing that matters is the result. You don't care about the Constitution you were just bemoaning: if you did, you'd care about the Rule of Law. No, you are happy with the result because that comports with whatever bumper sticker-level thought process you are parroting that day.

"Unfortunately, all you're revealing to the thinking world is your lack of any gray matter inside your skull. "

I believe the correct term is "cognitively delayed."

This is perhaps the most depressing and frightening decision I have ever seen from the Supreme Court, and totally unheard of in Common Law jurisprudence that covers dozens of countries and centuries of Common Law history.

How bitterly sad that some judges and their allies seem intent on mainstreaming and sanitizing terrorists and unlawful combatants, undermining therein the strict classifications of the Geneva Conventions. Not only that, the judgement has opened up unlimited Federal lower court wrangling over possible extentions of this ruling, that could conceivably cover every soldier or terrorist that ever takes up arms against the USA! I am shocked and appalled.

Foolhardy! A disgrace! The worst decision evah! So men and women who have been detained indefinitely and without charges - some for as long as six years -now have the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts, and apparently, this a bad thing (indeed, as David instructs us between slavers, an impediment to prosecuting more glorious wars). God you people are assholes.

If the Bush administration contends that the detainees at Guantanamo aren't POW's, that makes them spies or saboteurs or an equivalent, under the terms of the Geneva Convention.

And what many Bush apologists don't understand is that we can't indefinitely detain spies or saboteurs without access to a court. We can EXECUTE them if we can convict them, but we can't just hold them without trial. Spies can be executed by military justice, but only in the battlefield zone. Once you move them out of the battlefield zone, they are subject to civilian justice. So all of you fantasists dreaming of summary execution lost your chance for that years ago.

Bush has tried to invent new categories of law on the fly, and the Court appropriately slapped him down.

I think we also need to be disturbed by the fact that apparently McCain thinks that you use a writ of habeus corpus to complain about the food in prison. So we have a major SCOTUS decision on a critical issue of the day, and McCain has literally no idea what it's even about. McCain doesn't know what habeus corpus even IS, and he's supposed to be the President of the United States? It's absurd.

#9 Scott,

I like the way you think and I could not agree more. Get rid of this vermon right on the battlefield, after proper interrogation of course. It really is an obvious solution. Take no prisoners.

Oh, by the way I've got a question for all you libs out there: "How have Allied and American POWs been treated in the War on Terror?" How many are even alive now to tell? True evil does exist in this world even if you close your eyes to it.

You people make me want to puke.

Why is McCain in such a hurry to compromise some of our nation's core founding principles in order to... what? Avoid embarassement for Bush when some "detainee" (read: prisoner without trial) wins their freedom after six years?

I'm just wondering why people are so opposed to extending to these chumps the same rights that were enjoyed by... Timothy McVeigh.

It's time to send them back to Afghanistan and Iraq. Thsoe governments don't have to kowtow to Bader-Ginsberg, Kenedy, et al. I would hope that the majority of Gitmo's guests would sorely miss their old home in Cuba.

They are murders not detainees and certainly not U. S. citizens! They made their choice, now they can rot in their cells. These clowns don’t even have Geneva Convention rights and their kind don’t want anything to do with what’s right! Terrorist have only one goal/agenda in their black hearts and sinister like minuscule brain cells. That is to exterminate anyone who dose not have their same world view, (Kill all the worlds’ non-Muslim infidels!).

In addition, there are some things the public (and the rest of the world included) do not need to be privy to; this is just one of many. That’s another discussion all together. We have these organizations (FBI, CIA and others) in this country to handle these situations and they do it quite well with out any additional assistance. “So let them do their damn jobs and keep Gitmo open!”

On a personal note: we as a country need to get our back-bone back and stop being a bunch of jellyfish. The majority (conservatives and some undecided citizens) in this country need to stand up to the minority back ACLU leftist in this land and just tell these idiots to just sit down and shut the hell up, or go join the terrorist in their war on the world for dominance!!! You know at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, they (the leftist whiners of this land/world) are no better than the one’s wanting to desperately commit world wide genocide, when given the slightest opportunity to do so!

As for our Supreme Court justices and I use the word justices loosely for the one’s who seem to think these knuckle heads have rights? My point being: I prefer not to go back to the days of God Save the Queen! I think it’s a novelty when she visits this country; lets leave it that way, OK.

The question we should all be asking ourselves is this: we should be concerned as to whether or not we as a nation are on God’s side, rather than if He is on our side? Enough said.

GOD BLESS THIS NATION!!!

Time to stop capturing these cowards on the battlefield. Send them to meet their 17 virgins on the spot.

----Executive branch's erosion of the Constitution renders the core basis for the sacrifice of American lives for any cause to become without value ...

This is overwrought nonsense. All the measures taken (Patriot Act, NSA surveillance of INTERNATIONAL communication) have been measured and defensible. The left has truly made an alliance with islamic fascists and seeks our downfall.

“these individuals are UNLAWFUL COMBATANTS"

And we know that how? Because the government says so, no other reason. The plaintiff was a legal citizen living in Bosnia and snatched from his home. The Bosnia Supreme Court stated within 3 months of his arrest that there was insufficient evidence to hold him. He was given to the US and now held for 5 years. By the 'logic' of this Admin, anyone, including each person commenting here, could be arrested, declared an enemy combatant, and left to rot in Gitmo.
For the record, these are the “rights” one has to contest the designation: “The military assigns a “personal representative” to each detainee, but defense lawyers may not take part. Nor are the tribunals required to disclose to the detainee details of the evidence or witnesses against him — rights that have long been enjoyed by defendants in in American civilian and military courts.
Under the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, detainees may appeal decisions of the military tribunals to the District of Columbia Circuit, but only under circumscribed procedures, which include a presumption that the evidence before the military tribunal was accurate and complete.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/washington/12cnd-gitmo.html?pagewanted=2&bl&ei=5087&en=e1386be10edd4b27&ex=1213588800

Why argue with these Jesus freaks? Save them a lot of trouble and just send them to meet their eternal salvation on the spot.

It's a sad commentary on the efficiency of our military"s weapon's training - in particular the marksmanship of the common rifleman.

While I agree with most here that this is a dangerous decision by the Supreme Court and one I wish were different since I have a son and a daughter in-law currently serving, my issue is with Senator McCain's stance and delayed torrid response.

He has stated repeatedly in the last few months that he wanted to close GITMO and transfer those detainees to Ft. Leavenworth, KS. Immediately upon arrival on U. S. soil doesn't the said detainees obtain constitutional rights and are granted due process as all American citizens have? And if so, what is he crying about? The Supreme Court merely jettisoned the process which would be enacted after January since both he and Obama would close Guantanomo.

I don't know what part of the world you come from, but in the middle east, they get 72 virgins, not 17. You've been jipped :)

Last I checked, McCain lost. Don't like it? Move to a place where torture is encouraged, like the US a month ago.