Interest and Perspective

a navy lawyer who argued for hamdan called the current adjudicative system in gitmo rigged. ouch on bush - his guys say congress should just enact exceptions to geneva conventions . . . . and bush's guys say treatment is already humane (and, given recent scotus opinions regarding the required constitutional treatment of prisoners, they're probably right), so the rest of common article 3 is being complied with already. i guess it doesn't matter how much face they save now; let 'em have it - the important thing is that we shouldn't be torturing anyone anytime soon (at least, not in gitmo, not officially). Also, because of political pressures Congress will get rid of the kangaroo courts (they could just give them the thumbs-up, i think). the Court went out of its way, again for political reasons, or judicially defensive/pragmatice reasons (they do have a constitutional duty to defend their governmental territory a/g the other branches) to make it clear that they were ruling on more than just the narrow issue of what procedural rights a detainee has and that they were actually rebuffing the Executive. Bush's guys statements today reflect their aquiescence to the mighty scotus (whicnh is easy to do when you're running a sinking ship of an administration and you appointed two of the nine, so you let them carry the day). The Rule of Law: Recognizing the Power of the Courts, Finally - New York Times