Blue Crab Boulevard

Hamdan Blog Explosion

I'm not a lawyer and have nothing particularly to add to the enormous burst of electrons flying about the blogospere right now. One opinion I read makes a lot of sense and I suspect it's a lot closer to what the upshot of this decision will be than a lot of the hyperventilation going on right now.

Because, at the end of the day, something has to be done with the detainees.

Andrew Cochran at the Counterterrorism Blog has a thoughtful take on it that sounds right to my ear:

The decision is actually a huge political gift to President Bush, and the detainees will not be released that easily. The President and GOP leaders will propose a bill to override the decision and keep the terrorists in jail until they are securely transferred to host countries for permanent punishment. The Administration and its allies will release plenty of information on the terrorist acts committed by the detainees for which they were detained (see this great ABC News interview with the Gitmo warden). They will also release information about those terrorist acts committed by Gitmo prisoners after they were released. They will challenge the "judicial interference with national security" and challenge dissenting Congressmen and civil libertarians to either stand with the terrorists or the American people. The Pentagon will continue to release a small number of detainees as circumstances allow. The bill will pass easily and quickly. And if the Supremes invalidate that law, we'll see another legislative response, and another, until they get it right. Just watch.

Something does, indeed, have to be done, and Congress will work with the White House to make sure it happens.

Blogosphere, Media, Politics, War | Gaius June 29, 2006

By Hurricane Shirley, June 29, 2006 @ 3:40 pm

Wow. Thanks for posting this, Gaius. Makes sense.
By Gaius, June 29, 2006 @ 3:45 pm

I thought so.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, June 29, 2006 @ 6:29 pm

The SC says this Hamdan mook cannot be tried in a military tribunal.

Fine. No trial, period. He’s a P.O.W.; the Geneva Conventions plainly state no P.O.W. can be tried by his captors while hostilities between continue (out of fear that kangaroo courts would be hanging prisoners at a record clip).

Send his ass back to a cell in Gitmo and tell the ACLU or any other “human/civil” rights group when Osama signs a cease-fire or surrender agreement we’ll be more than happy to crank up “Nuremburg II, Jihadie Edition.”
By Roland Hesz, June 30, 2006 @ 1:21 am

Lol, suddenly the Geneve Convention is coming up. Only when it’s convenient, right?

Btw. what about the innocent detainees?
They will die there, and then you will say “sorry, chap, you know how it is.”?
By Gaius, June 30, 2006 @ 5:27 am

The conventions were never intended to fit a situation like this.
By BubbaB, June 30, 2006 @ 2:16 pm

Just a reminder – The SCOTUS said that the current laws would not allow military tribunals. If Congress changes the laws to allow it, SCOTUS basically said that there would be no constitutional issue.
By Gaius, June 30, 2006 @ 2:20 pm

That’s why I think Cochrane has it right here. Something has to be done.