Great read by Chris Floyd - 'Judge dread: John Roberts and enemy combatant

[springhill]

Posted this in editorial section also, but it's a very important article.


For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges upheld Bush's sovereign right to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way he pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone he likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted - a brutal sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a "kangaroo court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to "hide their oppression under U.S. precedent."

One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than John G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers, Roberts was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now he will be sitting in final judgment on this case - and any other challenges to Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in the tyrant trade, as "a safe pair of hands."

The ruling by Roberts and his fellow Republican jurists ignores the fact that the Geneva Conventions - which lay down strict guidelines for the handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless of the captive's status - have been incorporated into the U.S. legal code, as Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by presidential fiat. And anyone who commits a "grave breach" of the Conventions - by facilitating the killing, torture or inhuman treatment of detainees (e.g., stripping them of all legal status and subjecting them to rigged tribunals) - is subject to the death penalty under American law.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=22015&mode=nested&order=0