Gitmo & Boumediene Fallout

The very first effects of the Supreme Court's activist, unjustifiable and unconscionable decision in Boumediene - extending for the first time in world history the right of habeus corpus to prisoners taken in war, giving the judiciary a direct role in our decisions on national security and war despite the plain language of the Constitution, and "forcing a reconception of war, even combat, as a form of police work" - are just begining to be felt. Our war on terror is likely to become at least as dysfunctional as is Britain's. Fox News reports that the White House and lower federal courts are now trying to sort out how to keep the worst of our guests at Gitmo from not just walking free - which will certainly happen - but from walking free in the U.S.
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This today from Fox News:

The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.

The high court ruling, which gave all detainees the right to petition federal judges for immediate release, has intensified discussions within the Bush administration about what to do with the roughly 270 detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I'm sure that none of us want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed walking around our neighborhoods," White House press secretary Dana Perino said about Al Qaeda's former third in command.

. . . The legal ramifications of the Supreme Court decision remain fuzzy, but it's unlikely that a federal appeals court would order a detainee released into the United States even if a judge finds that the government was holding the detainee improperly. A court might tell the Bush administration to let a prisoner go, but it presumably would be up to the executive branch to figure out where.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey had predicted that the Supreme Court's decision would unleash a torrent of court filings from detainees seeking their freedom. Judges, however, have been particularly wary of telling the executive branch what to do with the detainees.

Late last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the military had improperly labeled Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim, as an enemy combatant. The court said Parhat deserved a new hearing or should be released. But the court deftly avoided saying where he should be released — an indication that the courts expect the executive branch to wrestle with that decision.

. . . "We are in uncharted territory, and we have never had enemy combatants afforded constitutional rights like all of us have, so anybody who thinks that they know exactly what's going to happen if a detainee challenges his detention — his or her detention — in court, they're not being honest because we don't know what's going to happen," Perino said.

"But there is considered judgment, from many federal government lawyers — all the way up to the attorney general of the United States — that it is a very real possibility that a dangerous detainee could be released into the United States as a result of this Supreme Court decision."

Judges at Washington's federal courthouse are moving quickly to process about 200 cases involving Guantanamo Bay detainees. Those cases would force the Justice Department to say why the detainees are being held and defend the decision to label them enemy combatants. Defense attorneys are convinced that, in many cases, the evidence will not hold up.

"The judge might say to the United States, 'You don't have enough evidence to hold this person,'" Perino said. "And then what do we do? ... Is he allowed to leave? And if so, is he picked up by immigration? Even if that's the case, they're only allowed to be held for six months."

Judge Thomas F. Hogan set a hearing for Tuesday to decide how the cases will proceed. Under the schedule expected to be adopted, judges could start reviewing evidence in a matter of weeks and some cases could be decided by September.

Read the entire article. Given that many of the countries to which these terrorists are native have refused repatriation, I do not see how the Courts who order release will be able to stop these individuals from being released into the U.S. If there were real justice in the world, we would build public housing for them next to the estates of Justices Kennedy, Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg, Stevens and all of the people involved in their appointment to the Supreme Court. Among other things, the Boumediene decision will start to make the U.S. resemble Britain, unable to prosecute or deport the world's worst terrorists. This is insanity indeed.

The left is gradually taking over the West, both in Britain, Europe and America. And they are utopian and fantasy based, meaning that their decisions will only fail in the long run. It is the Boumediene decision, however, which promises to do the most fundamental damage to our nation.