The US Supreme Court came through ... for a change!

Wasn't it only Monday that I posted a blog relating to the "combatants" being held at Gitmo that stated, "Even without a poll to lend support to my personal repulsion of such an obvious breach of either international laws (Geneva Conventions apply if they are POWs) or our own laws (if they are suspects in a crime), no one should be held indefinitely without the right to hearing the charges against them and (ultimately) a fair trial"?

Well, most of you now know that the Supreme Court agreed with Mediawingnuts on this one and handed down today what can only be regarded as a real blow to the President and his principal advisors.

The ruling came in many parts, of course (lawyers like to use lots of words), but the principal ideas presented were that (1) Bush didn't have the authority to hold the tribunals he (reluctantly and after almost five years) said he was going to hold and (2) the tribunals (if held) would "violate the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Gee, I got that one right ...

I have to add that the radio news I heard on the way back from Grays Harbor College also said that the Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, was going to introduce legislation authorizing the tribunals that Bush desires. I'll have to read the wording of that bill, but the above statement about such tribunals violating the GC and the UCMJ ought to cover that possibility too, I would think.

Here's hoping ...

Let's call these prisoners what they really are -- either POWs, foreign spies or common criminals guilty of treason (if any are US citizens) -- and be done with it. Why do we have to deprive them of some sort of legal defense and timely trials? There's something about this whole "enemy combatants" terminology that eludes me -- and has a rotten smell to it besides. Also, what will this ruling have to say (if anything) about "enemy combatants" (hell, many of them are out-and-out terrorists, but deserve to be charged and tried) that are being held secretly in other countries? That program, when it was leaked to the press, taught me an entirely new English-language word -- rendering!

I agree with George Bush that these dudes are, by and large, pretty awful people, but we are a nation of laws and a constitution -- besides operating under the regulations of the Geneva Conventions for POWs -- if this is really a "war," as we have been told often enough.