The U.S. Supreme Court has just issued a challenge to the Congress. It goes like this: We disagree with your constitutional authority to limit our right of judicial review. Furthermore, we’re going to decide the case you told us not to decide, and we’re going to base that decision on international law – even if we have to soak that poor treaty in the Potomac first, then twist it inside-out and hang it upside-down to dry so we make it fit our needs. So there. Take that.
The case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, purports to decide whether Osama bin Laden’s driver, captured while fighting in Afghanistan, is a lawful combatant under the Geneva Conventions. Hmm, let’s see, that should be simple enough. Is al-Qaida a signatory to the treaty? Nope. Did they ever petition to become a signatory? Nope. Do they confine their attacks to soldiers on the battlefield? Nope – they specialize in murdering civilians.
Simple enough, said the court. They’re covered. But they’re not bound to obey the Conventions themselves.
In the recently passed Detainee Treatment Act, Congress expressly told the federal courts, “stay out of it.” Silly boys and girls. They just didn’t know the Constitution is no longer used by the Court to reach its decisions. Perhaps they counted on Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, to “get some respect.” That states: “… the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.” Oh, well; yes – that.
As Mark Steyn wrote in commenting on the decision (“Court finds a right to jihad in the constitution,” July 2, Chicago Sun Times):
“And, of course, al-Qaida never need to sign the Conventions now, do they? As the ultimate beneficiaries of the progressive mindset, they get all the benefits with none of the obligations. We’re bound, they’re not. If you’re captured with the severed head of a U.S. soldier in your knapsack, you’re covered by Geneva – and, as your victim learned a mile back up the road, it’s too late for him to call his lawyer.”
Oh yes, thank you Justice Stevens. Where would be we without your tremendous legal intellect to guide us? How could we ever have known that our Constitution is toilet paper? Who had a clue that international treaties don’t mean what the parties who actually signed them agreed upon? And best of all, who would have suspected that the world is really run by the U.S. Supreme Court? Yes, Swami Stevens. Please, may We The People have more of your exalted wisdom?
Can there really be any reasonable doubt that some of the boys on the Supreme Court have been sipping too much of the polluted Potomac? They’ve contracted a new, mutated internationalist version of Potomac Fever. Early reports are that it is a rather virulent strain and has already been spread directly from politician to politician.
America, take note. The election is this fall. The doctor is Congress. The remedy is impeachment.
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