I'm a technical writer. I translate unintelligible gobbledygook into language that makes sense. I help people and companies stay on message and communicate accurately and precisely. So when I accepted a freelance job from John Yoo to edit his
USA Today article, (yeah, I know, but it pays the bills) I figured it was a routine brush and polish. I should have known better. The draft was a load of unsupported claims and footstomping reiterating the same line Yoo and Abu Gonzalez have been spouting from the beginning. Below the fold, the article as it was returned to me with my edits and suggestions redacted. He included a snooty hand written note: "Only patriots work for me." I guess I won't get that next job from him.
A poor judgement call? 5 Wrong Justices
By
limiting executive authority and clearing the way for habeus corpus at Guantanamo, putting on hold military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes,
a solid Supreme Court majority five Supreme Court justices
told President Bush to fight the war on terror within legal and decent parameters have made the legal system part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to the challenges of the war on terrorism.
The justices also refused to cede their authority to interpret the Constituion to a rubber-stamp congress They tossed aside centuries of American history, judicial decisions of long standing, and a December 2005 law ordering them not to interfere with the military trials.
As commander in chief, President Bush has the authority to decide on wartime tactics and strategies, but in the post 9/11 world, we have blurred the lines between what is "war" and what is not. Presidents Washington, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR settled on military commissions, sometimes with congressional approval and sometimes without, as the best tool to punish and deter enemy war crimes. Bush used them to solve a difficult tension: how to try terrorists fairly without blowing intelligence sources and methods. It would have worked, too, if only we had captured any terrorists in our sweeps in Kandahar and Baghdad.
The circus that was the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui shows the dangers in trying to use normal courtroom rules to mentally unstable religious fanatics. prosecute terrorists intent on harming the USA. Bush's decision was supported by Congress, which authorized the president to use force in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, and every congressperson who voted to authorize war implicitly authorized whatever means were necessary to prosecute it as Bush saw fit. Earlier, Congress had recognized commissions in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and last year it created an appeals process for them. This doesn't have anything to do with anything--I'm just upset that me and my special legal reasoning just got bitchslapped by 5 activist judges.
What the justices did would have been unthinkable in prior military conflicts because the U.S. was recognized as a human rights leader and adhered strictly to the Geneva Conventions: Judicial intervention in the decisions of the president and Congress on how best to wage war. They replaced his wartime judgment and the support of Republicans in Congress' support with their own conviction that holding a prisoner indefinitley without charges violates everything we claim to represent speculation that open trials would not run intelligence risks. Their decision to impose specific rules and override political judgments about military necessity mistakes war -- inherently unpredictable, and where our government must act quickly and sometimes secretly to protect national security -- for the familiarity of the criminal justice system. Editor's note: I had cut this entire sentence, but Yoo obviously likes it. I still don't know what the hell it means. Oh, wait! Yes I do: "9/11 changed everything."
Two years ago, the same justices ordered Bush to give fair trials to the accused declared they would review the military's detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Republicans in Congress and the president expended time and energy to overrule them. Hamdan will force our selected leaders to go through the same exercise again, because they refused to obey the law the first time. effort better spent preventing the next terrorist attack by stuffing more Arabs into Guantanamo.