The rights of the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendment cannot be denied to anyone accused of a crime against the United States. The Court has upheld this many times, and I have posted the cases for salty in other threads. That is not what the court is saying at all with this ruling. It is saying that Bush cannot pick and choose criteria from national and international law and ignore others. It is saying if he wants to try enemy combatants with military tribunals then Congress must pass legislation defining what an enemy combatant is and define the rules for their trials before the trial begins. The Supreme Court is not going to let Bush make this up on the fly, nor should it.
If this is the case then FDR broke the law and should've been prosecuted for breaking the law. I will point out that we, congress hasn't declared war since 1942, pearl harbor. I will point out that 9/11 was just as bad as pearl harbor and Congress has dropped the ball. WE must be the laughing stock of the world, we were attacked and we are too busy fighting amongst ourselves, the 2 parties, that we can't even have a common enemy and declare war. Bin Ladin and others must be laughing their asses off, we are proving him right. This country has no stomach for a real war.
Why? And what does any of that have to do to the legal status of the enemy combatants? Their status needs to be defined before they can be tried.
FDR had military tribunals during WWII, German POW's. The point is FDR could and Bush couldn't and this enemy doesn't belong to any country. I thought they had a legal status as enemy combatants, the enemy or terrorists or Al Quada. I guess we need to label them as they kill us? I'm not trying to be a pain in the neck but none of this makes sense to me? All I know is that Congress is part of the problem, its a shame the way we were attacked on 9/11 and they didn't have any balls to declare war. People want to blame the NY times for what they did while once again Congress gets a pass because of non-action. I think 9/11 was just as bad as Pearl Harbor but our government doesn't act like it. I still say they kill us while we sit around and argue if they are the enemy or not or what we should really call them? I really think Congress should order these people free since they didn't declare war we must not be at war. Maybe NY times isn't as bad as I thought and Congress is the real problem here.
The military Tribunals during WWII were for POWs. The protocols to try these people existed. No such protocols exist for enemy combatbants. The Supreme Court is saying these protocols must be in place before trials can begin. It is hard to understand. It seems like semantics, but these trials need to be as transparent as possible. Part of the problem is who should we declare war on. Terrorist is a very broad term. Are we at war with all terrorists or just terrorists that want to hurt us. Not knowing the enemy makes a formal declaration of war difficult. I think you are missing the point. No one wants to set the terrorist at Gitmo free. The Supreme Court is essentially telling the President to define what an enemy combatant is and the protocols to be followed when they are tried. The legeslative branch needs to be involved in this process. As I said before these trials are too important to have the rules made up on the fly.
