15 June 2008

Boumediene v. Bush: Follow Up

Here's a story that appeared in the Albany paper today that backs up my point about many of the prisoners at Guantanamo. Whatever the niceties of constitutional law may be, this goes to prove that the Supreme Court's decision was a just one. At the very least, these accounts of hapless captives should be thrown in the balance against Justice Scalia's horror stories of freed prisoners who resumed or took up the jihad. I don't doubt that all his stories are true, but that doesn't remove the burden of proof upon our government when it proposes to confine people indefinitely without red-handed evidence of terrorist activity. For those who yell, "We're at war!" the question is, why don't we treat these people as prisoners of war, then? Because they're something else? A category entitled to no legal protection whatsoever? Prove it. And since this is a democratic republic, prove it to us.

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