Here's the conclusion to Justice Scalia's opinion (Adobe Acrobat document) dissenting from the Supreme Court's Rasul (Gitmo detainees) decision:
Departure from our rule of stare decisis in statutory cases is always extraordinary; it ought to be unthinkable when the departure has a potentially harmful effect upon the Nation’s conduct of a war. The Commander in Chief and his subordinates had every reason to expect that the internment of combatants at Guantanamo Bay would not have the consequence of bringing the cumbersome machinery of our domestic courts into military affairs. Congress is in session. If it wished to change federal judges’ habeas jurisdiction from what this Court had previously held that to be, it could have done so. And it could have done so by intelligent revision of the statute, instead of by today’s clumsy, countertextual reinterpretation that confers upon wartime prisoners greater habeas rights than domestic detainees. The latter must challenge their present physical confinement in the district of their confinement, see Rumsfeld v. Padilla, ante, whereas under today’s strange holding Guantanamo Bay detainees can petition in any of the 94 federal judicial districts. The fact that extraterritorially located detainees lack the district of detention that the statute requires has been converted from a factor that precludes their ability to bring a petition at all into a factor that frees them to petition wherever they wish—and, as a result, to forum shop. For this Court to create such a monstrous scheme in time of war, and in frustration of our military commanders’ reliance upon clearly stated prior law, is judicial adventurism of the worst sort. I dissent.
(footnote omitted.)
Today, on NRO, Robert Alt discusses the decision. Key excerpt:
Most important, the decision will have a deleterious effect on the military's ability to carry out the war on terror. The evidentiary issues arising from presenting testimony from the war zone are larger than the Court concedes. Indeed, one need only look at the district court's opinion in the complementary Hamdi decision, in which the lower court requested statements from field combatants who were not in the U.S. military, but rather were members of the Northern Alliance, in order to understand how deeply this decision inserts the courts into military processes. The Supreme Court recognized this 54 years ago in Eisentrager when it found thatsuch trials would hamper the war effort and bring aid and comfort to the enemy. They would diminish the prestige of our commanders, not only with enemies but with wavering neutrals. It would be difficult to devise more effective fettering of a field commander than to allow the very enemies he is ordered to reduce to submission to call him to account in his own civil courts and divert his efforts and attention from the military offensive abroad to the legal defensive at home. Nor is it unlikely that the result of such enemy litigiousness would be conflict between judicial and military opinion highly comforting to enemies of the United States.
Argh.
The office manager of a company we do business with stopped by the office today to say, "hi," and he brought me a box of Godiva chocolates. Normally, I would just put this kind of thing in the kitchen for anyone in the office to help themselves to, or, if I'm feeling greedy, I would put them in my desk and save them for later.
Today, I felt a bit of a sugar craving so, about an hour after the guy left, I opened the box. It was pretty clear right away something was wrong. I had a tough time peeling the first layer of foil off the chocolates. When I got it off, I wished I hadn't opened the box at all. Everyone of the chocolates was bad. Not just bad, but most of them were broken and stuck to one side of the box with their fillings smushed all over the place. Of course, I had to check the second layer. More of the same.
You never know what you're gonna get.
I really hope my life is not like that box of chocolates.
Boo.
Everyone has probably already taken this, but, in case not, you can test your vocabulary with Peter Schmies's Word Classification Test.
I got 168 of 200 correct. I wonder if I would have done better if I'd taken longer than 10 minutes to complete the test. (Probably not.)
(via Horologium.)
Four posts after the long work-induced hiatus comes the short vacation-induced hiatus. Things should return to "normal" here on Monday or soon thereafter, though I may try to post from the road.
I hope any readers have a great week and weekend.
Also, please join me in wishing my rarely-seen co-blogger, Maureen, a very happy birthday.
On NRO, Victor Davis Hanson writes about the "conventional ignorance" on, and our real difficulty in succeeding in, Iraq. Excerpt:
Partisanship about the war earlier on established the present sad paradox of election-year politicking: Good news from Iraq is seen as bad news for John Kerry, and vice versa. If that seems too harsh a judgment, we should ask whether Terry McAuliffe would prefer, as would the American people, Osama bin Laden captured in June, more sarin-laced artillery shells found in July, al-Zarqawi killed in August, al-Sadr tried and convicted by Iraqi courts in September, an October sense of security and calm in Baghdad, and Syria pulling a Libya in November.These depressing times really are much like the late 1960s, when only a few dared to plead that Hue and Tet were not abject defeats, but rare examples of American courage and skill. But now as then, the louder voice of defeatism smothers all reason, all perspective, all sense of balance — and so the war is not assessed in terms of five years but rather by the last five hours of ignorant punditry. Shame on us all.
It's recommended reading.
David Warren has a nice essay up prasing both the Bush administration and the Iraqis for the recent developments in Iraq. Excerpt:
On the ground in Iraq, it is obvious from the range of sources the Western media do not bother with, that things are still going exceedingly well. There are more than 8,000 municipalities in Iraq, and serious violence in only five or six. Free elections for local governments have taken place or probably will in most of the others. The foreign troops are already out of sight and out of mind in much of the country, where crops are growing, generators are humming, and people are going about their lives.My philosophy is, we do not know what tomorrow will bring, so let us celebrate today. Iraqis, Americans, allies, and all men of goodwill have reason to be happy about what has been accomplished in Iraq. Pray, pray, it continues.
It's recommended reading.
On OpinionJournal, L. Gordon Crovitz recalls an earlier preemptiveunilateral attack in the Middle East which raised the ire of most of the world, the "United Nations," the American media and many in the Republican Executive branch. A couple of small excerpts:
Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his Likud allies, such as Ariel Sharon, had to stiffen the spines of Labor Party and intelligence officials who feared the repercussions of such a raid. "If I have a choice of being popular and dead or unpopular and alive," Mr. Sharon told fellow cabinet members, "I choose being alive and unpopular."
If the administration's official reaction was to condemn, the president's private reaction was to admire: "What a terrific piece of bombing," Mr. Reagan said upon seeing photos of the reactor site.
I think it is likely that, again, in the passage of time, griping will be replaced with gratitude.
I know this site has been dormant for the better part of the last three months, but did I really miss the fact that The Last Page (version 2.0, no less) is back? Well, back on the blogroll she goes.
(via CGHill.)
Hey, maybe that Protein Wisdom guy will finally return from his long hiatus, too!
What else have I missed these last few months?
Anyway, I think things should be a little more lively around here, at least until the vacation next week.
