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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 30, 2006 / 4 Tamuz, 5766

The Supreme Court at war

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Children play a game called "opposite day." Whatever someone says is taken to mean the opposite. Some Supreme Court justices have apparently never grown out of their appreciation of this game, to judge by their ruling in the Hamdan case involving military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.


Last year, Congress (you might have heard of it — it writes the nation's laws) passed a bill signed into law by the president of the United States (he also should be familiar — the nation's commander in chief). It said that "no court, justice or judge" shall have the jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus applications of detainees at Gitmo. It would take a legal escape artist on par with David Blaine to wiggle out of that one, but, sure enough, five Supreme Court justices were up to the task.


The Supreme Court has an important role in our constitutional scheme, but it is not fit to, nor was it ever meant to, render fundamental judgments about matters of war and peace. For that we have the elected branches, primarily the executive, which has the flexibility and the focus to prosecute wars. But today's court knows no bounds.


In writing for the majority in Hamdan, Justice John Paul Stevens ripped off his black robe and beat his chest, declaring to the world, "Stand aside Congress, stand aside Mr. President, you constitutional weaklings. We, the court, can win the War on Terror and will do it with judicial overreaching, tendentious statutory construction and implausible renderings of international law."


The saving grace of Hamdan is that it preserves the option of trying al-Qaida members before military commissions, as long as Congress and the president work to craft the commissions just so. Otherwise, the decision is a disgrace and is a step toward affording members of al-Qaida the full panoply of rights and protections criminal suspects enjoy in the American civil court system.


Or, as Nancy Pelosi put it in a statement hailing the decision, it "reaffirms the American ideal that all are entitled to the basic guarantees of our justice system." That "all" is quite literal, whether someone is a foreigner or an American, an al-Qaida warrior or a shoplifter. Never have enemy fighters — especially fighters belonging to a criminal band with no regard for the laws of war — had it so good.


The court moves in this direction by effectively reading al-Qaida into the Geneva Conventions. The conventions are a treaty to which nations voluntarily bind themselves. Al-Qaida has never signed on, since 1) it isn't a nation; and 2) it would be an obstacle to practices that are central to its organization, including slaughtering civilians and beheading prisoners. But the court bestows a bonus membership to al-Qaida, because it furthers the court's goal of dictating how captured al-Qaida members should be tried.

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It's not that the court's reading of the Geneva Conventions is entirely implausible, but that the president has another, more reasonable reading of Geneva that there is no reason for the court to trample on. But trample it does, a quality of its decision throughout.


Justice Clarence Thomas writes in dissent, "Those Justices who today disregard the commander-in-chief's wartime decisions, only 10 days ago deferred to the judgment of the Corps of Engineers with regard to a matter much more within the competence of lawyers, upholding that agency's wildly implausible conclusions that a storm drain is a tributary of the water of the United States. It goes without saying that there is much more at stake here than storm drains."


From its conclusion that Geneva applies to al-Qaida, the court works its way toward mandating that military commissions must duplicate the structure of courts-martial. This in itself needn't be disastrous, but the court is on a dangerous path. The decision sets the table for more severe judicial interference in the war-making of the executive branch and Congress. Justice Stevens surely has many impressive talents, but fighting al-Qaida isn't one of them.

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Rich Lowry Archives

© 2006 King Features Syndicate

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