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Friday, June 30, 2006

The Significance of the Hamdan Decision

This will be a resource, which will be added to as I find more great analyses of the Hamden decision and its implications. Like I wrote yesterday, the implications are great, opening up the government to challenges of the NSA warantless spying program and rebuking the argument that The Executive Branch has expanded power which must be unhindered by the other 2 branches during times of war.

Here we go:

Supreme Court Decision on Gitmo Undermines Bush's Legal Case For Warrantless Wiretapping - Think Progress

The Significance of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld - Glenn Greenwald

Hamdan Summary -- And HUGE News - SCOTUS Blog by poster Marty Lederman (Best one)

More as I find em!!

Michelle Malkin - The Jihad Raping Racist


Via SadlyNo we learn about Michelle Malkin and her Jihad Rap. Here is a brief picture sample of the inanity.

Yeah, real Hardcore...

No I have not watched it as I wish to refrain from slaming my head through my laptop and this is the only way for me to do my blogging thing. The brain damage is also likely to impair my other favorite funtions like thinking and...uh...stuff (what was I talking about?)

Anyways this was funnier:

"Bradrocket adds: “I like internment camps and I cannot lie,
You otha wingnuts can’t deny,
That openin’ camps to lock up Japs,
And anyone you don’t like makes you get sprung,
And then you feel tough,
‘Cuz you noticed them camps was stuffed,
Full of brown and yellows peeps,
To make them left-wing pussies weep,
But take the average white guy and and ask him that,
He gotta love them camps!
So if ya wanna put up fences,
To contain the yellow menace,
Dial 1-900-MALK-A-LOT,
And indulge them racist thoughts,
Malkin love camps!

Yeah, baby, when it comes to choosing a cell size,
Geneva ain’t got nothin’ to do with my selection,
12-by-14? Huh! Only if the height’s three-foot-three!”

Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Hamdan SCOTUS Decision

Disclaimer: I'm no constitutional law scholar, a lawyer or someone who is very knowledgable about cases and precedents and all that jazz.

As some of you know, the Supreme Court has recently decided the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and some already are hailing it as a landmark and important decision. I've heard the decision called a defeat for the President and and a repudiation of this presidents attempts to expand his power as the Executive in times of war (a war that even they believe will not end). I wanted to know more so cruising the blogs I came across these very great very knowledgable blogs and authors:

ACSBlog with guest poster Aziz Huq "Associate Councel of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law" (great post) and for a Supreme Court-themed blog SCOTUSBlog

From Guest Poster Aziz Huq via ACSBlog we learn about the significance, both short and long-term, of the Hamdan decision: (Note: There is so much legalese and references to court cases that I'll try my best to get the main points)

Two years and one day ago, a plurality of the Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (with Justice O’Connor writing) invoked Jackson’s Youngstown opinion for the proposition that “a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens.” Until today, the Administration might have argued that this statement only applied to citizens (like Hamdi) who were detained in the United States (as Hamdi was at the time his habeas petition was filed)

....

But a narrow reading of Hamdi is no longer tenable. In Hamdan, both Justice Stevens (in footnote 23) and Justice Kennedy explicitly invoke Jackson in Youngstown once again as the framework governing the handling of non-citizen detainees held outside the United States. As Justice Breyer says (quoting Justice O’Connor’s Hamdi opinion), the Hamdan Court keeps “faith in those democratic means” necessarily implicit in the tripartite structure of the Constitution. The vision of unchecked presidential power at the heart of many counter-terrorism policies today is thus decisively rejected across the board – and not only for citizens.

....

The Court’s decision to rest its holding on the Milligan/Youngstown vision of separate branches, sharing powers represents an important blow to the present Administration’s campaign to accumulate the powers to make laws, enforce laws, and then punish those it deems in violation of those laws. As Jane Mayer nicely explains in this week’s New
Yorker
(and as developed at length in the book by Fritz Schwarz and me to be published at the beginning of 2007), this vision is understood by the Vice-President and others to be at the core of this Administration’s legacy: Hamdan rejects that legacy. This surely will be one of the decision’s pivotal long-term legacies.

Given my limited understanding I believe, basically, that this is the Supreme Court rebuking the Presidents argument that in times of war it has way more powers free from checks from the other braches of government. It seems to say that even in times of war, the government is run by the 3 co-equal branches of government. Also a punch against those who's goal is to concentrate more and more power in the executive using the "Unitary Executive Theory"

From the long article a few of the things that stick out about the decision:

The military tribunals that the president established were deemed illegal without Congress say so

" As Marty Lederman notes, the Court’s opinion rests on the fact that Common Article 3 (of the Geneva Convention) applies to individuals detained in the course of global counter-terrorism operations. This means that the Court rejects the President’s February 7, 2002 “determination” that “common Article 3 of Geneva does not apply to either al Qaeda or Taliban detainees.”"

In other words, torture is illegal and the argument that it is not because Al-Qaeda are not protected by the Geneva Conventions is wrong. The Geneva Convention is said to cover the so-called "enemy combatants" if it doesn't already demolish the term. Plus certain violations of Article III are deemed criminal and as war crimes because of the "War Crimes Act" which could spell trouble for the administration.

I'm hopefull that this will convince or force the administration to give up on the use of torture to garner information. Not only is torture a very unreliable way to get real information (tortured people tell you what they think you want to hear) it is immoral and certainly does not line up with American values.

In any case, perhaps fear of criminal charges will deter use of torture There's also this: since the government now has to give these inmates fair trials that gurantee the inmates rights (either through a newly established court or through the military courts-martial) and yes they do have to be tried eventually. The thing is, information and evidence garnered through torture will not be accepted in a fair trial and could result (possibly) in the possible terrorist being let go due to the lack of legitimate evidence because they were tortures. Guilty parties, tortured, may be let go.

Again, this may force the administration to forgo use of torture and inhumane interogation techniques.

We'll see what happens.

PS: I hope I didn't over anayze or more likely misanalyze this decision, especially the end of my post.


Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Is Amnesty for Iraqi insurgents bad?

I've read criticism, including criticism from Democrats and some in the liberal blogosphere (I have no idea about the conservative blogosphere) about giving Iraqi insurgents, particularly those who have taken part in attacking or killing US Soldiers, amnesty. I can understand the sentiment: why should we allow people who have attacked or killed our precious own to go free in a new Iraq?

My view is that we have to be pragmatic about this; the point is to ensure that most of the insurgency will find incentive to give up their fighting and enter the political process. In no way would I support amnesty for groups other than the homegrown Iraqi insurgency (the non-al-Qaeda). But if we stipulate that only insurgents who have never attacked Americans are eligible, how many insurgents would really be brough into the political fold? In effect, those most likely and known to have committed acts of violence will continue to be outside the political process and will likely continue to commit acts of violence.

I'm not saying amnesty must be given for the Iraqi's to succeed but I'm not against such a thing per se.

Algeria is a model for Iraqi amnesty according to some, but its effectiveness, pitfalls, and trackrecord are not exactly all that great as the following Times article on Algerian amnesty makes clear:

But interviews with dozens of people affected by Algeria's approach suggest that its amnesty program is less a model than a cautionary tale. Few are happy, and the fighting is not over. Dozens of people are dying monthly, according to journalists here who follow the killing. "We've reached a dangerous point when the criminals are out of prison and the people who don't agree with it are arrested," said Cherifa Kheddar, whose brother and sister were killed by Islamic extremists in 1996.

The Algerian Amnesty model is spelled out further down:

The Algerian approach is this: a national reconciliation law, approved by referendum in September and promulgated in March, set thousands of convicted Islamist fighters free while ordering silence from their victims. The law shelters government death squads from prosecution. It provides money to some Islamist fighters to help them start new lives and even seeks to expunge the word terrorist from the national discourse. The people who cut throats and those whose throats were cut are now referred to as "victims of the national tragedy."
The article is a must read. It explains how Algerian victims of the AIG are not happy with what they feel is giving "impunity even to those who have kiled hundreds of times" plus the fact that they are discouraged from talking about it. Militants are not happy because they feel true reconsiliation and old wounds wil not be healed without a "real political settlement" (not defined). Or else they believe that "the tensions that led to the violence would build once again."

What this instructive example may mean for Iraq is that, amnesty will not solve the problems of Iraq if the sectarian conflicts that dominate Iraq continue to exist. And this sectarian conflict will endure irregardless if the US leaves today or a year from now or 2 years from now. The political process is the only way but how exactly do you get the different sectarian groups to work exclusively in the political realm? And how do you get insurgents in the political process without amnesty?

I certaintly don't know, hopefully someone does...

Update: Insurgents offer to end attacks if US leaves by '08

The groups who’ve made contact have largely shunned attacks on Iraqi civilians, focusing instead on the U.S.-led coalition forces. Their offer coincides with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s decision to reach out to the Sunni insurgency with a reconciliation plan that includes an amnesty for fighters.....

Naseer al-Ani, a Sunni Arab politician and official with the largest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said that al-Maliki should encourage the process by guaranteeing security for those making the offer and not immediately reject their demands. “The government should prove its goodwill and not establish red lines,” al-Ani said.
“If the initiative is implemented in a good way, 70 percent of the insurgent groups will respond positively.” Al-Maliki, in televised remarks Wednesday, did not issue an outright rejection of the timetable demand. But he said it was unrealistic, because he could not be certain when the Iraqi army and police would be strong enough to make a foreign presence unnecessary for Iraq’s security.

Islamic Militants Sure Knew What They Were Doing

I can't understand Israeli leaders sometimes. The militants have a playbook and strategy: when there is pressure on them, or when there is political progress being made that goes against what the Islamic militants want (Abbas and the International community forcing Hamas into an agreement to recognize Israel for example), Hamas and others will resort to their old and very succesfull standby, attack Israel. In this case they kidnapped a 19 yr old Israeli soldier.

The response from Israel has been, quite predictably, violence against Palestine and Israeli threats to widen the conflict to nations such as Syria.

Israel today stepped up its confrontation with Palestinian militants over the capture of an Israeli soldier and threatened an even broader response —including possibly a strike in Syria — if the young man is not freed.

Israel started shelling areas in northern Gaza where Palestinians often fire Qassam rockets into Israeli, preparing for a possible incursion in the north, and also flew
warplanes over the house of Syrian president Bashar Assad, a blunt message, Israelis said, that he should help in freeing the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

As Israeli tanks hunkered down inside southern Gaza at the airport here, with warplanes knocking out half of Gaza's electricity and pounding sonic booms over houses,
there were no signs that the confrontation would ease. Rather, the crisis seemed to tip toward wider violence.

Somewhere, hidden in one of their safehouses, a highlevel Hamas militant is gleefully hearing this news and and is not at all surprised at Israel's response, they in fact where hoping for such a response. They want such Israeli responses because it hampers any political solutions or talks between the PA and Israel, a circumstance Hamas definitely prefers since it is not exactly an organization open to much compromise, which any political process will inevitably lead.

Lets think back to the numerous instances in which negotiations and talks between Israel and the PA where, inevitably interupted or prefaced with increased militant attacks and suicide bombings? Why? Because they want any talks and possible compromises derailed because it is in Hamas' interest.

So why, why do the Israeli's continue to play into the hands of the Palestinian Muslim militants with such predictable shows of overreacting force?

Will this be the beggining of a tit-for-tat spiral of violence and counter-violence that will make negotiations all but impossible? I hope not.


Friday, June 09, 2006

Welcome!!

Hi, Oyka here. If your here, I have NO idea how you got here but please make sure to stop by from time to time for commentary on issues of the day, or or random rantings by yours trully.

This blog will have no specific focus, it will be a general issues blog dealing with anything that peeks my interest usually Congressional politics and policies, immigration, foreign policy; Foreign and Domestic politics and policies basically.

I'm not sure what will come of this blog, but stay tuned because I will be posting pretty soon (the issue likely will be on immigration and immigration reform.)

Welcome!!