Tag: Guantánamo

December 4, 2007

Guantánamo Detainees’ Fate at Stake in Boumediene

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in Boumediene v. Bush. Most of the 34 detainees whose fate hangs in the balance in this case were brought to Guantánamo after being picked up by bounty hunters or tribesmen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet the Bush administration has fought hard to keep them away from… Read more »

October 22, 2007

Michael Mukasey: Another Loyal Bushie

The Michael Mukasey Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing has demonstrated that Mukasey cannot be relied upon to function independently as U.S. Attorney General. Nevertheless, Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem so thrilled that Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales that they’re willing to vote for him even though he’s another loyal Bushie. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),… Read more »

July 17, 2007

Reining In an Out-of-Control Executive

Our Founding Fathers created three separate but co-equal branches of government to check and balance each other so no one branch would become all powerful. Indeed, James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, “The preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.” Madison warned, “The accumulation of… Read more »

June 7, 2007

No Unlawful Enemy Combatants at Guantanamo

In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld famously called the detainees at Guantánamo “the worst of the worst.” General Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were “very dangerous people who would gnaw hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down.” These claims were designed to justify locking… Read more »

April 3, 2007

Coming Up Short on Habeas for Detainees

The Bush administration has stopped the Supreme Court from giving the Guantánamo detainees their day in court – at least for now. In Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, 45 men challenged the constitutionality of the habeas corpus-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act that Congress passed last year. On Monday Justices… Read more »

March 6, 2007

Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial

On March 6, the court-martial will begin in Germany for Army Specialist Augustín Aguayo, who faces up to seven years in prison for refusing to deploy to Iraq for a second tour of duty. His petition for habeas corpus was denied by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on February 16…. Read more »

February 27, 2007

Why Boumediene Was Wrongly Decided

Last week, in Boumediene v. Bush, two judges on a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that strips the rights of all Guantánamo detainees to have their habeas corpus petitions heard by U.S. federal courts. If that decision is left to stand,… Read more »

January 17, 2007

Pentagon Attacks Lawyers of Guantánamo Detainees

In one of the most severe blows the Bush administration has dealt to our constitutional democracy, the Pentagon attacked the lawyers who have volunteered to represent the Guantánamo detainees. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Stimson threatened corporate lawyers who agree to defend the men and boys imprisoned there. Flashing a list of corporations that… Read more »

June 13, 2006

Spinning Suicide

They are smart, they are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of Guantánamo prison camp Three men being held in the United… Read more »

May 21, 2006

UN to US: Close Guantánamo

For the second time this year, a United Nations body has chastised the United States for its torture of prisoners and told it to close its prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In February, the UN Human Rights Commission criticized the US government for force-feeding hunger strikers there – calling it torture – and urged… Read more »