Yesterday, after reading newspaper headlines and hearing TV sound bites about the notorious Gitmo case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, one might have thought the U.S. Supreme Court had decided that President George W. Bush was himself a war criminal. But after reading the decision (and all the news deemed fit to print about it), I realized that the court merely handed the detainees in purgatory at Guantanamo a procedural victory, which offered no substantive reprieve.
In fact, the Court ruled that the ad hoc military tribunals Bush and Rumsfeld concocted to prosecute (or persecute) these prisoners violate U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of war prisoners. And, that the Bush administration is now obligated to defer to Congressional codification of the rules of criminal procedures that shall obtain with respect to all Gitmo detainees.
Significantly, however, the Court did not rule that their capture and (prolonged) detention were illegal or that their treatment constituted torture or that the U.S. has no authority to try them for war crimes or that the Guantanamo Bay prison had to be closed as a matter of law – as most Bush detractors (domestic and foreign) have pleaded, indignantly.
But here’s the good news:
No matter how cleverly his telegenic press secretary spins it, this ruling is tantamount to a long overdue slap in the war-on-terror face of President Bush. And that might be just enough chastisement to snap him and Rumsfeld out of their deluded mindset that anything they do in this post 9/11 world “to protect the American people” is beyond reproach.
In addition to teaching Bush a much-needed lesson, however, this ruling reinforces America’s vanguard respect for human rights and the rule of law. And that alone is worthy of praise; notwithstanding patently-absurd carping (mostly from conservative Republicans) that it has compromised America’s ability to fight Islamic terrorists.
NOTE: The instructive irony should not be lost on anyone that, yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court reprimanded the president of the United States in order to vindicate the due-process rights of Osama bin-Laden’s former chauffer (he’s the Hamdan in Hamdan v Rumsfeld).
Moreover, despite Abu Ghraib, I am constrained to point out that al-Qaeda detainees were and are invariably accorded more dignity, respect and rights than they would have received in the custody of Islamic wardens in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
Therefore, let’s keep this ruling in proper perspective…shall we?
ENDNOTE: Two more Caribbean countries signed on to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s PetroCaribe oil initiative that he’s touting as an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas being touted by the President Bush. I fear, however, that they may be buying snake, not crude, oil. Click here to read my CNN column which explains why….
Guantanamo Bay prison, Supreme Court, Hamdan v Rumsfeld
sinclair says
Glad to see you got this one right ALH. I agree that Bush needed that “slap” and thank you for putting things into “proper perspective” on this whole gitmo thing. Great post!!!