OJ, meet Osama.
Our Supreme Court has such confidence in our legal system that it wants to extend rights to a particular group of non-citizens not on American soil. No, not individuals who are not American citizens here illegally, mowing our lawns, but enemy combatants held on foreign soil.
The link to the decision, in PDF format, is HERE for those with the stomach to read it. The majority opinion has this tidbit on page 41:
“[i]t is true that before today the Court has never held that noncitizens detained by our Government in territory over which another country maintains de jure sovereignty have any rights under our Constitution.”
In predictable fashion, this is seen as a “setback” to the Bush Administration rather than viewed in the long term sense. But this decision has long term consequences that extend far beyond our partisan idiocy.
Given this decision, American forces may have to consider “taking no prisoners” when faced with illegal enemy combatants. The un-uniformed enemy combatants are illegal terrorists, and certainly do not merit the same protections that has OJ Simpson playing golf this afternoon instead of spending another day of a life sentence. But killing them all on the battlefield is not the American way. “Extraordinary rendition”, created under the Clinton Administration, may be the model for the new treatment: all terrorists captured are remanded to the country of their birth, or to one of the countries joining us in the fight against terror.
At the minimum, Congress should act to establish a federal court that can hear the cases and provide the level of secrecy needed to allow the government to produce evidence that can compromise intelligence sources. Barring that, most of the enemy combatants will go free. A mere eleven high jackers killed 2500 people on 9/11; there are over 200 of these guys.
For a great analysis of the decision, see Jeffrey Imm’s article at CounterTerrorism Blog .
