Gitmo and Geneva: A Reversal Of Course
The OTHER big story today is that the Pentagon has affirmed the Bush administration’s change of heart (prompted by the Supreme Court’s Hamdan ruling) regarding GWOT detainees and the Geneva Convention with a new memorandum:
The Bush administration, called to account by Congress in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling blocking military tribunals, said Tuesday all detainees at Guantanamo Bay and in U.S. military custody everywhere are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said the policy, outlined in a new Defense Department memo, reflects the recent 5-3 Supreme Court decision blocking military tribunals set up by President Bush. That decision struck down the tribunals because they did not obey international law and had not been authorized by Congress.
The policy, described in a memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, appears to reverse the administration’s earlier insistence that the detainees are not prisoners of war and thus subject to the Geneva protections.
Curiouisly, Glenn Greenwald, who just yesterday issued another stinging critique of President Bush’s imperial haughtiness, specifically referencing this very issue, has had nothing at all to say about this decision, a decision that looks for all the world like American democracy at its finest (the President reaches too far, the Supreme Court says whoa, and POTUS pulls back – isn’t that the way things are supposed to work? Checks and balances, right?).
Glenn did find time, however, to trot out a tiresome attack on Joe Lieberman that oh-so-cleverly references neoconservatism. Most curious in its implications, to be sure; and odd behavior, to boot, for such an avowed non-partisan whose only concern is for the purity of the Constitution. Perhaps Glenn will relieve my disappointment by explaining how the new Defense Department memo fits into the grand scheme of a President so drunk on his own power that he is willing to scuttle the Constitution. I patiently await…
“looks”
“appears”
“seems“
Mark claims:
That isn’t what Glenn’s post is about. He laboriously and cogently (with excessive wordiness but extreme clarity) sets forth what the neoconservatives believe, the power they wield, and the post-911 political realignment in which their role is pivotal. That realignment makes sense of why many Democrats oppose Leiberman, and why many Bush supporters (who mostly are Republicans) react with anger to attacks on, and a primary challenge to, a Democrat, Joe Lieberman. (Why do Republicans care? Glenn answers that question, correctly.)
Mona, you say to-MAY-to; I say to-ma-to…Glenn is a blogger; he’s not the final arbitror. I will continue to exercise my right to disagree with him when I feel the need…when you say Glenn answers the question correctly, you are offering an opinion, just as I am.
I ask again why this non-partisan defender of the Constitution would rather slam Joe Lieberman than remark on an event that contradicts one of the fundamental tenents of his recent bestseller…
Andy, your link looks interesting…though I cannot read it at the moment, I will this evening…
Here’s another one.
Executive authority is this administration’s raison d’être. Cheney would give his left nutsack before conceding his view of Article II and the FedSoc monomaniacs are dug in the OLC like the Japanese at Rabaul.
“The fatman chronicles–all hope renounce, ye lost, who enter here”…Trackback to “Rules of War”
“A great many on the left complain that we aren’t treating the prisoners that we’re holding at Guantanomo Bay and elsewhere fairly or humanely. That we should abide by the Geneva Conventions in…”
[...] Decision '08 [...]
[...] Earlier this week, the Bush Administration and the Pentagon agreed to affirm that all GWOT detainees fall under Geneva Convention protections, a development that must have come as quite a shock to those who proselytize endlessly on the imperial presidency of George W. Bush. Today, Arlen Specter announced that the Bush Administration has agreed in principle to allow FISA to review the NSA spying program that caused such consternation when it was revealed last december, specifically with an eye towards its constitutionality: The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday. [...]