Choices

So, here's the question, are we subject to the Rule of Law or are we subjects of the Law as Ruler? Are we really going to confine ourselves, in particular those who have chosen the role of defending us, to choose between this:

Habeus corpus, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is a right under the US Constitution that allows US citizens to challenge their incarceration in court. What this ruling means is that terrorist non-citizens now have the right to go to court before a federal judge who will determine whether the government has sufficient evidence that they committed crimes, and who may order the release of these men if the judge decides the government lacks grounds for holding them.

Aside from stretching the Constitution out of shape to cover non-citizens who basically amount to POW's, the Court's action also negates a system of military tribunals already okayed by Congress and signed into law ...

... (A)nd there's no limit to how insane this can get...was the prisoner read his Miranda rights? Did the soldier who captured him use excessive force? Is there any conclusive proof that the AK 47 found with the prisoner in that cave was actually used to fire at US soldiers? Anybody actually see the prisoner performing aggressive acts, or did he just look like he was about to? Was the prisoner allowed to talk to a lawyer before he was interrogated?

And what about discovery, the legal procedure that allows a defendant's lawyers access to all the evidence the prosecution has...including secret informants within groups like al-Qaeda, top secret methods of surveillance and even access to ongoing investigations on other related terrorists? How many jihadis will the US government have to kick loose simply because they can't afford to compromise US security operations in open court?

Or this:

... the Supreme Court decision on Habeus Corpus for non-citizen, non-combatants is a disaster for the American people and the war against terror.

I have a question: are our soldiers on foreign shores now required to read the Miranda rights to Islamo Nazi scum?

Here's my suggestion to our troops: Take no prisoners.

Really? And it's no good quoting Andrew Jackson now, either. I don't recall him being all that successful with the idea back in the day.

So, either we isolate ourselves from all other nations through their quite reasonable fear of our revealing their intelligence in open court (not to mention our own data), or we commit ourselves to, as official policy, an endless succession of atrocities to avoid the alternative.

"Accept No Surrender" = "Kill Them All".

I certainly hope this is only an example of "unintended consequence" as I'm really not looking forward to the virtually inevitable alternative.