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• Sunday, August 19, 2007 12:18 PM

  That the relevance of the Bill of Rights, Geneva Conventions, et al are political decisions

  I commented before that the government's argument that habeus corpus, international laws against torture, and so forth should not be applied to Mr. Padilla, that is, that he is not worthy of the protections of law, is another development going back to the Vietnam war decisions.

  It was pointed out to me that yes, going to war is a political decision. The court's refusal to consider arguments about that war were based, as I understood it, on the idea that it's the role of the political parts of government, in the Executive and legislative branches that decide these things, and so the judicial has no role.

  Well, they were wrong about that. One claim, I believe, was that we were at war with Vietnam and since there was no declaration from Congress that we were in a war, the draft and other activities of war were unconstitutional and hence not in accordance with the will of the people. The SCOTUS refused to rule on this issue.

  There was the argument that even if there was a declaraction of war by the Congress, the invasion and killings going on in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were not justified by relevant international laws. That is, none of these countries ever attacked the United States or posed any threat, despite the events referred to in the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The argument was made that North Vietnam was set up and so the war was based on a lie. The SCOTUS refused to rule on the issue of whether the US governemt was in violation of its treaty obligations.

  Many people were interested to make the U.S. military obey relevant laws regarding the carrying out of that war. That is, they weren't wanting to stop the war, they just wanted to stop the carpet bombing, chemical weapons use, indiscriminate killings, Mai lai type atrocities, and so forth. The Scotus refused to rule on the U.S.G. responsibility for atrocities.

  Yes, it's a political decision to go to war, but there are certain restrictions which the courts have refused to recognize. My argument is that for the same reasons they refused to recognize that we just can't just go out killing and stealing to our heart's content, they will refuse to uphold the idea that we can't just throw people in jail and torture them to insanity or death.

  They will not protect the American people from the powers that be who want to go to war or torture people despite what the laws say.

  —steven andresen Read steven andresen's other letters
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