"TRIBUNALS AND TRIBULATIONS"

Or, Four so-called “Justices” of our Extreme Court court Injustice in the Military Tribunal Case

Media reports have been overflowing with almost giddy accounts of how the Supreme Court thwarted the President’s use of secret military tribunals. Citing the complete lack of due process, fairness, procedural safeguards and need, not to mention the possible torture tainted “evidence” used in them, such tribunals violate not only the binding Geneva Conventions on warfare, but also numerous fundamental and critical principles of the US Constitution itself.

Utterly missed in all the hoopla is the fact that three Republican so-called “Justices” voted in favor of violating nearly every aspect of our governing legal and moral codes concerning trials. In fact, it was actually four votes out of nine in favor considering that Chief “Justice” Roberts, who temporarily abstained for this one case, had already declared as a lower court judge that he didn’t care about such human rights abuses.

It makes one wonder were those four got their law degrees. Fidel Castro University? Mobutu Law School? As Monty Pythonites say, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition,” but apparently the black robes on those four conceal a desire to return to those days when guilt was determined in advance and “proved” on the torture rack with confessions.

For those who do the math, that means President Bush is just one future appointee away from reversing the decision. And, that assumes he won’t simply ignore the court’s ruling or get his lapdogs in Congress to pass a law saying it’s okay to ignore the Constitution and international law.

Too bad the media did not notice the closeness of the vote which made the whole thing scary, not hopeful.