My God, they are actually going to do it. They have just struck down the detention of the first Guantanamo detainee out on the basis of a civilian court hearing.
It turns out the court was not satisfied that the evidence against the detainee came from an objective source. The source was the government of China and its evidence against was against a Chinese national of Uighur descent. The Court even allowed itself some humor, saying that the government's reasoning came perilously close to the Alice in Wonderland logic "that whatever the government says must be treated as true, thus rendering superfluous both the role of the Tribunal and the role that Congress assigned to this court."
Funny, I don't remember the Congress being involved? I thought the Court had decided on its own to expand its jurisdiction in the face of Congress' decisions, but never mind. The Alice in wonderland comment is nice too, in that all the Court is claiming that whatever it says should be regarded as true, not the "government." The debate is over venue, who makes the decision. It is necessarily coming down to whose decision has to be regarded as true because of who says it, that is, who has the authority.
Courts are allowed to get things wrong because they presumably err on the side of protecting the innocent. But that is an illusion. They err on the side of not using force. This may or may not protect the innocent. It may, in fact, imperil them to a far greater degree than the most tyrannical government.
But the red Queen has spoken. And what could be more Alice in Wonderland like than the demand on the part of the Court that the evidence against terrorists come from a source that can be regarded as "objective"? Who is objective about terrorism? If we found such an entity would we find its objectivity admirable? Is it the fact that China bares particularly hard feelings against terrorists that aim to over throw its government that its evidence is to be disregarded? Or do we regard everything that the Chinese government says as unreliable?
The latter is a particularly interesting proposition, for isn't gaining the assent of the Chinese government the sine quo non of international legitimacy? It is, after all, the potential threat of a Chinese veto on such matters as Darfur, Zimbabwe and Burma that apparently makes interfering with genocide in those countries an illegal act.
In any case, the man admits he is an enemy of China. Do we now send him back to China? That is, after all, presumably where you go when you are freed from incarceration by a foreign government. The Court has left the question of remedy open--courts need never weigh options. The fact that its remedies might even be worse for its intended beneficiaries is a question that court never has to face.
Now the Pentagon employees that asked for confidentiality in the case have had their requests denied by the Court, saying that their requests lacked 'specificity.' Apparently they have to have had some specific threat from Islamist terrorists to merit privacy. Just the general policy the enemy has of killing our intelligence officials, let alone the common sense notion that who are personnel are and where they live might be something we would want to keep secret, is not satisfactory to the Court.
Who exactly is qualified to assess the worth of intelligence? Intelligence officers? No. They are now just writers. Their true judges are the literary critics of the court. Whatever deep judgments they are able to make based on years in the field and repeated dealings with a foreign intelligence service are now nothing. Our dealings with foreign intelligence services will now be reduced to DAs meeting with colleagues from different jurisdictions. The decisions will not be about their own judgments of the character of the source, the evidence and the object of their decision but only on how it will play before a DC court judge. Not much chance of the Chinese reaching that bar. Nor for any other intelligence service, for that matter. Expert-ism has met its match. Expert judgments reign supreme in every other field except the protection of ourselves and our allies from terrorists. Those judgments will now be the purview of the literary jesters at Court. The Red Queen also made type II errors. Unfortunately, when someone says "off with their heads," it is usually that of a father who wanted to send his daughter to school.
We will now wait for intelligence from "objective" nations. Afghans and Iraqis presumably need not apply.
It turns out the court was not satisfied that the evidence against the detainee came from an objective source. The source was the government of China and its evidence against was against a Chinese national of Uighur descent. The Court even allowed itself some humor, saying that the government's reasoning came perilously close to the Alice in Wonderland logic "that whatever the government says must be treated as true, thus rendering superfluous both the role of the Tribunal and the role that Congress assigned to this court."
Funny, I don't remember the Congress being involved? I thought the Court had decided on its own to expand its jurisdiction in the face of Congress' decisions, but never mind. The Alice in wonderland comment is nice too, in that all the Court is claiming that whatever it says should be regarded as true, not the "government." The debate is over venue, who makes the decision. It is necessarily coming down to whose decision has to be regarded as true because of who says it, that is, who has the authority.
Courts are allowed to get things wrong because they presumably err on the side of protecting the innocent. But that is an illusion. They err on the side of not using force. This may or may not protect the innocent. It may, in fact, imperil them to a far greater degree than the most tyrannical government.
But the red Queen has spoken. And what could be more Alice in Wonderland like than the demand on the part of the Court that the evidence against terrorists come from a source that can be regarded as "objective"? Who is objective about terrorism? If we found such an entity would we find its objectivity admirable? Is it the fact that China bares particularly hard feelings against terrorists that aim to over throw its government that its evidence is to be disregarded? Or do we regard everything that the Chinese government says as unreliable?
The latter is a particularly interesting proposition, for isn't gaining the assent of the Chinese government the sine quo non of international legitimacy? It is, after all, the potential threat of a Chinese veto on such matters as Darfur, Zimbabwe and Burma that apparently makes interfering with genocide in those countries an illegal act.
In any case, the man admits he is an enemy of China. Do we now send him back to China? That is, after all, presumably where you go when you are freed from incarceration by a foreign government. The Court has left the question of remedy open--courts need never weigh options. The fact that its remedies might even be worse for its intended beneficiaries is a question that court never has to face.
Now the Pentagon employees that asked for confidentiality in the case have had their requests denied by the Court, saying that their requests lacked 'specificity.' Apparently they have to have had some specific threat from Islamist terrorists to merit privacy. Just the general policy the enemy has of killing our intelligence officials, let alone the common sense notion that who are personnel are and where they live might be something we would want to keep secret, is not satisfactory to the Court.
Who exactly is qualified to assess the worth of intelligence? Intelligence officers? No. They are now just writers. Their true judges are the literary critics of the court. Whatever deep judgments they are able to make based on years in the field and repeated dealings with a foreign intelligence service are now nothing. Our dealings with foreign intelligence services will now be reduced to DAs meeting with colleagues from different jurisdictions. The decisions will not be about their own judgments of the character of the source, the evidence and the object of their decision but only on how it will play before a DC court judge. Not much chance of the Chinese reaching that bar. Nor for any other intelligence service, for that matter. Expert-ism has met its match. Expert judgments reign supreme in every other field except the protection of ourselves and our allies from terrorists. Those judgments will now be the purview of the literary jesters at Court. The Red Queen also made type II errors. Unfortunately, when someone says "off with their heads," it is usually that of a father who wanted to send his daughter to school.
We will now wait for intelligence from "objective" nations. Afghans and Iraqis presumably need not apply.
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