The decision was far, far narrower than you make it seem. The issue on appeal wasn't whether or not to hand Terrorists a large bundle of constitutional rights as a great big christmas present; rather, the issue was whether or not the district court had jurisdiction to hear the habeas corpus petition when the detainees were being indefinitely detained for indefinite reasons by US forces on US territory with no other court either presently or in the near future available to hear their appeal. It ruled that they did. Our own soldiers in war, as far as I know, are not only entitled to counsel but can bring challenges in the form of a habeas corpus petition in a military court; the detainees could not, until yesterday, even do that. As I pointed out before, these "military tribunals" that we've heard about for two full years now have yet to be established. They basically had no recourse whatsoever until yesterday.
i admittedly am speaking very generally... i admittedly haven't read near enough about all of this to be commenting as much as i have in this thread... it's my understanding, however, that military tribunals do not afford the same concepts of due process during wartime. but i certainly don't know that from any experience i've ever had. thanks for the info.
I don't pretend to be an authority on the law, but if you read the sign outside any military base, you would see that the Constitution is not completely in force, because the sign will say that everyone is subject to no-notice searches of belongings and vehicles, a clear violation of the 4th Amendment: And I ask this question for the umpteenth time, why should enemy combatants engaged in war against our sovereign nation be given constitutional rights that they sought to destroy? No one will answer that question except with the "it would be the right thing to do." No, it would not. The 9th Circus is way off-base with this ruling, because once you force the military to give constitutional rights to every captured enemy combatant or POW, we might as well kill the sonuvabitches and cut our losses. Now in the case of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who has been held without charge for several months in violation of the 6th Amendment, he deserves those rights because he is a CITIZEN and protected under the Constitution. Even if he was a conspirator in a dirty bomb plot, he should not be treated like those folks in Gitmo and given a speedy public trial.
I really respect your stance on this and I find it understandable. I feel it might sometimes be harder to argue for protecting the rights of these crooks, because they are such damn assholes that something inside of me wants to see them get the worst treatment as well. BUT - I still think the biggest test for how constitutional rights are protected is still to see how the worst of the worst are treated. If even those are treated with a minimum level of human dignity - you have a level of constitutional protection that is admirable. They might not deserve it - but the values your constitution stands for - they deserve it.
