GITMO and the Supreme Court/HAMAS Truce

"You can't have a final disposition about Guantánamo until the Supreme Court has ruled on the Hamdan case," said Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, referring to a pending decision on whether detainees at Guantánamo may be tried as war criminals before military commissions and whether they may challenge their detentions in federal courts.


Questions persist regarding the suicides inside the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility this week. The US Navy’s investigation will reveal if present regulations were followed adequately and if the regulations are in need of change.

Meeting with the media, General Bantz J. Craddock, Commander US Southern Command speculated at a Washington press conference today that the suicides may have been intended to influence the Supreme Court’s ruling.

At stake is the right of the President to wage war as he sees fit. If the combatants captured on the battlefield are allowed to challenge their detention in an American court, then they exercise the same rights afforded to you and I. This access to the courts was granted in 2003, in a court led by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has subsequently retired and been replaced by a substantially more conservative judge.

With the three successful suicides this week at GITMO, pressure on American authorities to close the detention facility code named “Camp X-Ray” will elevate. If the President cannot press his case as lawful, he may be required to change the detention policy in some way.
If those currently being held are allowed to reinfiltrate the ranks of our enemy across the world, they may come full circle and create terror in your neighborhood.

Much is at stake in the ruling this Supreme Court will make as to the Gitmo detainees, as well as Jose Padilla and other’s accused under US anti-terrorism laws. The first decision will be the most important. Never before have enemy combatants been afforded the rights of the U.S. citizens he deemed fit to kill. Lets hope President Bush’s recent appointee to the country’s highest court will uphold our constitution.

6-13-06













HAMAS Calls Off Truce?

In an action far from comical, HAMAS, the 3-month old political leadership of the Palestinian State, decided to no longer abide by a peace agreement they claim to have largely held to. On Thursday, Israeli airstrikes hit their mark and a high-ranking member of Palestinian leadership and others were killed. With tensions stretched, Israel was reacting to Palestinian gunmen’s mortar fire into Israel with artillery barrages and airstrikes as losses on both sides mount.

Factions struggle for power in the Palestinian leadership, current Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas and HAMAS Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh both condemned Israel’s artillery attack on civilians on a beach on Friday- Israeli military commanders are investigating a possible mistake.

Crippling sanctions have Abbas at the bargaining table with the Israelis, but HAMAS is bent on nullifying any talks, pending language changes in the proposals. Many of the Palestinian people currently bear the day to day hardships of an elected government that can’t get a quorum to enact growth, and take strides to end the people’s suffering. There are many economic enticements that HAMAS hardliners seem to sniff at. Yet the people allow this to go on, ah, they’re still on the honeymoon!

6-9-06


The honeymoon’s over for HAMAS. Fatah loyalists, in reaction to HAMAS’s attack on Fatah headquarters, attacked several HAMAS political offices today and even shot out windows of the Palestinian Parliament building set it afire and attempted to let it burn, shooting at responding firefighters in Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Territories.
HAMAS opposes rival political opponent party Fatah's calls for talks with the Israelis, and official recognition of the state of Israel, a recognition HAMAS shuns.
The bullets and grenades haven’t yet stopped flying, but when they do, the propaganda on both sides will resume, politicians will argue, and although Israel, for now, can only stand aside and watch the Palestinian power struggle, it must gird itself for the possiblility of giving back many many square miles of territory it calls its own in the name of peace.

6-13-06