Enemy Combatant
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Worthless Justice
The latest news in the Hamdi saga should get you all hopping mad, if you take seriously at all the ideals of freedom and justice in this country:
Until late last year, the Pentagon insisted that Hamdi was a threat and refused to allow him to meet with lawyers. But after the Supreme Court agreed to hear Hamdi's case, Defense Department officials allowed Dunham to meet with his client under tightly monitored conditions.
At that time, the Pentagon said it had determined Hamdi no longer had any intelligence value to U.S. authorities.
Huh. I guess "intelligence value" must be something like "radioactivity," with a calculable half-life.
In any event, now that the Justice Department has (once again) tipped its empty hand, I hope Hamdi's trial judge, Judge Doumar (who has proven himself to be plenty independent and feisty in the past) tells the prosecutors they can shove their "settlement proposal" where the sun don't shine -- that, given the Government's outrageous behavior, he won't accept any plea bargain of the case that requires Hamdi either to renounce his US citizenship, or forego his right to sue the Government for his mistreatment. I hope Hamdi himself refuses to accept such an offer (although, given the way he's been treated, who could blame him if he decided his US citizenship wasn't worth keeping -- I mean, honestly, other than his -- apparently-phyrric -- Supreme Court victory, what good has it done him? The Justice Department hasn't treated him with the respect and dignity I'd grant a stray dog).
It's too bad, too, that no enterprising reporter isn't asking Justice Clarence Thomas ("our youngest, cruelest justice" as the NYTimes deftly pegged him a dozen years ago) the equivalent of Kerry's "Iraq war" question -- that is, given what we now know, would he still have voted as he did in Hamdi's case? (Remember, Thomas is the ONLY justice to buy into the Bush administration's breathtakingly totalitarian argument that the President has the authority, unilaterally, to cast a US citizen into perpetual gulag, and -- not only is this permitted under the Constitution -- but US courts are powerless to even review such an action.)
Go ahead, ask Clarence if he thinks jailing Hamdi for three years on nothing but Emperor Tipsy Dixit's word, when it turns out (once again) that his word wasn't worth shit, was justified.
Let's hear what the constitutional subgenius has to say for himself . . .
