Bush Administration Caves To ACLU

Posted on July 11, 2006

USAToday is reporting that the Bush Administration has caved to the ACLU by providing “rights” to detainees that they clearly are not entitled to:

“The Bush administration said Tuesday that all detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in U.S. military custody everywhere are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.”

Of course, the ACLU applaud!
Macsmind says its part of a bigger plan.
Allah Pundit:

Afghanistan is a High Contracting Party, so the question for the Court was whether Al Qaeda operatives captured there are subject to the Article. Answer: yes. “But,” you say, “it says it applies only to conflicts ‘not of an international character’ and the war on terror is as international as they come.” Indeed — but the Court is reading “international” in its literal sense, i.e., “between nations.” Al Qaeda isn’t a nation. Which means no matter how global the jihad might be, so long as a jihadi is captured within the territory of a signatory to the Conventions, he’s entitled to the protections of Article 3.

Pretty much everyone is a signatory to the Conventions — except Al-Qaeda, of course — so Article 3 essentially already applies worldwide by operation of the Hamdan decision itself. Changing the policy on his own initiative lets Bush bank some goodwill on the eve of the G8 with North Korea and Iran on the table.

Captain’s Quarters:

The real effect of this decision will be felt in international relations. Our allies will have themselves a victory in US policy that they can trumpet to their voters, and Bush will have less turbulence at home among the more squeamish of his political base in Congress. The only practical result in the field may come with less captures and more casualties for our enemies, as we will not put our soldiers at unnecessary risk for the minimal gain of capturing these terrorists if they give us no opportunity for giving us intel on ongoing operations.

Bryan Preston is on the same page with me and how I feel on this.

Andrew Sullivan and his ilk can crow about this change all they want to, but the bottom line that in the name of misreading and misinterpreting a bunch of rules drafted long before the idea of transnational terrorism equipped with WMDs was even conceived, we have now chosen to throw down one of the most important weapons available to us: intelligence gleaned from captured terrorists. People will die because of this decision, for the simple reason that we will no longer ask captured terrorists what they know and who they’re working with. We have made ourselves like a giant battling a swarm of poisonous hornets, but the giant has chosen to gouge his own eyes out and stuff his ears with cotton as he goes into the battle.

How does a country win a war when it has systematically stripped itself of its clandestine tools and publicly thrown off nearly all of its other ones? How does a country win a war when its top warrior breaks down like a baby in public when talking about his family history? How does a country win a war when it lacks a single leader who’s willing to look the enemy in the eye and do whatever it takes to defeat that enemy?

I have no idea.

But I do know that litigating this war and granting rights to mass murderers won’t get us there.

» Filed Under ACLU, News, War On Terror

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Comments

4 Responses to “Bush Administration Caves To ACLU”

The Thinking Man on July 11th, 2006 2:56 pm

Why don’t we put these people on trial already and get it over with. If they really are as guilty and dangerous as Bush says they are he should hav eno problem putting them away for life.
Draven32 on July 11th, 2006 3:43 pm

Away for life?

That isn’t the standard for illegal combatants under international law.

The Geneva Conventions do state what you’re supposed to do with combatants that are not part of a recognized fighting unit, that wear no identifying uniform or markings, and have no recognizable ranks. Go read them.
loboinok on July 11th, 2006 5:09 pm

“What DoD is saying is that they get Common Article 3 protection, which is minimal: they are entitled to be treated humanely, which was already U.S. policy, and – consistent with what the Supreme Court has ruled – they may not be subjected to military commissions as currently designed. No one really thought the administration was going to decline to comply with the Court’s ruling, so how this marks a “Big Shift,” as the New York Times’ headline proclaims, is beyond me.”

Per The National Review
kerwin_brown on July 12th, 2006 9:52 pm

A Global Government is not allowed for in the U.S. Constitution and for Bush to allow non-binding international law to supersede our laws is a violation of his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the land.