Appeals Court Judge Karen Henderson has upheld earlier decisions to deny detainees held by the US at Bagram Airfield from being able to file habeas corpus petitions, saying they are “beyond the reach” of the constitution.
Henderson cited administration claims that troops at Bagram “are actively engaged in a war with a determined enemy” as an argument that the constitution doesn’t apply to the captives therein.
Three of the five detainees in the case Henderson rejected had been involved in a previous case with the same result, and none of them were actually captured in Afghanistan but were simply relocated to Bagram to avoid legal scrutiny for their open-ended detention.
That seemed to suit Henderson just fine, and she added in her decision that the operation of Bagram is “committed uniquely to the political branches and we rarely scrutinize it.”
I can see how some of those arguments would work. But does that mean that human rights don't apply to them? That the US is beyond he Nurnberg Principles, the Geneva Convention?
One of the ideas in the Constitution that was supposed to safeguard our freedoms and liberties was the idea of checks and balances between the branches. Its her constitutional duty to scrutinize what the political branches are doing.
The only way anything like Bagram prison can exist under an American flag is because the three branches have all come together and decided to ignore not only the constitution, but also the very core of what America was supposed to be. Thus the system of checks and balances collapses and the protection is lost. Too bad this judge can't understand that, and thus can't or won't do her constitutional duty to scrutinize very carefully what the political branches are doing in secret.
Rulings like this one are further evidence that the constitutional republic that we thought we had, is lost and unrecoverable. The current government of the United States is illegitimate and should not be supported.
Rulings like this one are further evidence that the constitutional republic that we thought we had, is lost and unrecoverable. The current government of the United States is illegitimate and should not be supported.
Rulings like this one are further evidence that the constitutional republic that we thought we had, is lost and unrecoverable. The current government of the United States is illegitimate and should not be supported.
Actively engaged in war with a determined enemy?
When did the US or Afghanistan, or the Taliban, or Al-Qaeda, or anyone declare war?
Oh, it's a de facto war; who started that war? So far nothing shows, still less proves that Afghanistan, or the Taliban or Al-Qaeda were responsible for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers.
That so-called judge should try to study law; maybe she'll then learn that, even in situations of war, there is in cases where atrocities have been perpetrated, the notion of universal jurisdiction. America is the aggressor, America is the torturer, America is the war criminal, America is imprisoning, but America, thanks to corrupt, subservient judges, does not want to know anything about its wrongdoings. How noble of you people whose ancestors stole the land of the Red Indians and exterminated them!
How noble of you yourselves who still imprison the Natives in reserves!
On top of the judges blind hatred, the suspects are innocent of any crime against American civilians or military