I'll see you in Guantanomo...

Pat Lang: The republic effectively ended today with the signing of the "Military Commissions Act" ...

Comments

[Michael Tanji]

When the arrests of political opponents and undesirables reaches Lincoln-inspired levels, let me know. Real life isn't _The Siege_.

[tim302]

John,
I felt that way as well.

[Marcello]

"When the arrests of political opponents and undesirables reaches Lincoln-inspired levels, let me know. Real life isn't _The Siege_."

And islamic terrorists ramming planes against skycrapers is what you would expect from a bad Hollywood action movie.

[zenpundit]

The Bush administration has handled the illegal combatant issue with a surprising degree of incompetence and incoherence. The legislation in question is also poorly designed. The law is ripe for abuse, no argument.

At the bottom though is the legal issue that members of al Qaida should not be processed like guys who just shot up a bank during a robbery. As well as the legal fact that neither the constitution nor international law nor the customary laws of war require us to do so. Nor should we, in my view.

The right thing to do is to put political pressure on the government to do the right thing, not bewail the "end of the Republic". Michael is right - this is a far cry from Woodrow Wilson, much less Abraham Lincoln.

[John Robb]

What is interesting about this legislation is that this isn't just short term war powers. This is a grant of power for an emergency of infinite duration. Hence, the dire predictions of Pat's statement make sense to a degree.

Also, it is interesting that this is what happens when we have our first brush with super-empowered individuals (GGs). What about the next confrontations? These are inevitable. So where does that put us?

[Michael Tanji]

Point of clarification . . .

As someone whose ethnicity makes him particularly responsive to talk about the actual abuse of citizens during wartime, I don’t come to this discussion from the “Uncle Sam is always right” angle. I would have loved to have seen a grandfather clause (Lincoln implied a term limit with his choice of the language “…during the existing insurrection…”) and a more delicate hand, but we have what we have. It isn’t like the watchdogs are going to start napping on this issue. I know site fans are supposed to show up with a healthy realistic outlook (a/k/a pessimism) but come on guys . . .

As far as dealing with GG’s goes, I think we only need to look at how the law deals with other sufficiently advanced issues – primarily technology oriented – to see that it isn’t going to be pretty. Future legal regimes might deal perfectly with 51% of the problems and leave the remainder wallowing in a sea of unintended consequences. Something tells me that things will get a lot more granular, which is good news for lawyers, bad news for enforcement and defense. In that sense the Military Commissions Act is probably the “best” piece of legislation we’ll see from now on.

Do these qualify as “interesting times?”

[gmoke]

Legally, the elimination of habeus corpus for those declared illegal combatants is the end of our Constitutional republic. There should be no question about that.

Practically, there are few that we know of being declared as illegal combatants and being locked up without recourse to law or a hearing. Yet.

Also practically, even the most enthusiastic supporters of these developments need to recognize that the legal machinery is in place for mass round-ups. I mean, that's why these laws were enacted - just in case. Whether those who may be incarcerated are guilty of anything at all is a moot question just as it is for those who are already locked up in Guantanimo.

Read Sebastian Haffner's _Defying Hitler_ and you will understand how quickly things can change after a Reichstag fire incident. What do you think the attitude will be if there are dirty bombs in the football stadia this weekend as CNN and others today are reporting is threatened? You think there won't be a whole bunch of people calling for mass round-ups and a new round of racial profiling?

I say let's go for the eco-freaks first. After all, they're the greatest domestic terrorist threat according to the FBI.

[zenpundit]

"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
Article 1.

Suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus may not be a great policy. The law just passed lacks adequate procedures for review and is overly broad when a narrowly tailored statute would do; and the situation could have been avoided entirely by following Ex parte Quirin and the precedents of military law from WWII.

But that doesn't mean the threat is imaginary or that the Republic has come to an end. I see a poorly crafted law hastily passed to remediate an incompetent policy, not the Reichstag Fire.