Monday, April 03, 2006

The Supreme Court decided today not to consider the question whether the US Government can hold an alleged terrorist indefinitely without trial.

85% of US troops in Iraq think they're there in retaliation for Saddam's "role" in the 9/11 attacks.

The Sunni minority in Iraq is desperate to get the US Army to leave Iraq so that the better-armed Shiites, who hate and outnumber them, can massacre them and take their land.

Does any of this make sense to someone?

1:51 PM

3 Comments:

I'll take a crack:

The lower court ruling was that detaines did require a trial/can't be held indefinitely without a trail. If the Supremes won't rule on this, then I assume the lower court's ruling will stand.

There is no group more relentlessly targeted with propaganda than the military. So that might explain that. Of course, the military is in no way encouraged to express differing opinions they might hold, so who knows. Maybe the truth of their involvement is too terrible to accept. Maybe they're just goofing on the pollsters.

And, nationalists aren't always rationalists.

By  Not Cliff Geertz, at 4:02 PM  

The U.S. Supreme Court is limited to hearing "cases and controversies". This means, among other things, it cannot issue advisory opinions, which are common in the high courts of other countries.

Jose Padilla sued, claiming that he was being illegally held, and demanded transfer to the civilian legal system. The Bush Administration recently transferred him to the civilian system, largely to prevent his case from reaching the Supreme Court. This gambit was successful - the opinion denying review essentially held that Padilla, who is now in the civilian legal system, can no longer logically seek to be transferred to the civilian legal system. Whether the administration can hold someone outside of this system is an interesting and vital question, but the Supreme Court can only address this in the context of an aforementioned "case or controversy", which this is not.

At least that's how I understand things - this sort of stuff is complicated. For context and expert analysis, I recommend SCOTUSblog.

By  Kane, at 7:30 PM  

It all makes perfect sense. We're fighting Eurasia.

By  Lisa Hunter, at 12:10 AM  

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