Analysis & Commentary
Detention & Habeas Corpus
Taking Back the Pentagon
These are not auspicious days for defense secretaries new and old. Incoming Pentagon boss Robert Gates must negotiate the gap between the Iraq Study Group’s position and his boss’s obdurate refusal to see the implausibility of current strategy for that war. While Iraq must loom large on the Pentagon’s agenda for the foreseeable future, there is much more unfinished business from the era of Donald Rumsfeld.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 12/12/06
No Blank Checks on Torture
More than two years ago, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cautioned that “a state of war is not a blank check for the President.” The United States Congress, apparently, never got the memo. Last week, lawmakers passed a bill that hands the President sweeping detention and interrogation powers while eliminating habeas corpus review for any noncitizen he labels an “enemy combatant.”
Authored by: Jonathan Hafetz
– 10/09/06
Terror 2016
This week, Republicans -aided by Democratic fecklessness-bargained away both liberty and decency in the name of partisan security
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 09/29/06
Derelict on Detainees
Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted out a bill labeled “the Military Commission Act of 2006.” Media attention in leading East and West Coast papers generally lauded the senators’ supposed new-found spine, standing up to the president’s suggested rules on military commissions for alleged terrorists seized overseas. But is this really a victory for measured moderation? On closer inspection, it turns out the bill that came out of committee is, in most important respects, practically a blank check when it comes to executive detention authority.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 09/15/06
Thinking Beyond Violence
The practice ofextraordinary rendition has left a trail of broken lives in its wake. The Canadian citizen Mahar Arar and the German citizen Khaled Masri are but the two most well-known examples. Worse, extraordinary rendition inflicts incalculable harm on countries that cooperate with the United States. It strengthens undemocratic, brutal Middle Eastern dictatorships, including, ironically, some of the regimes that first spawned the cancer of transnational jihadism. Islamists such as Hasan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, precursors to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, were reactions to those regimes’ repressive policies. America’s continued support of undemocratic regimes, and its failure to support real democracies, is today tilling the soil once more for a new crop of jihadists.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 09/11/06
First, Do Harm
Dr. Steven H. Miles is the author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror (Random House 2006). Miles, an expert in medical ethics, human rights, and international health care, is professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty member of its Center for Bioethics. His book explores the role of military physicians in aiding and abetting abuse and torture at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantamano.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 08/11/06
We’re All Enemy Combatants Now
Today in the Senate Judiciary Committee the Bush administration will unveil proposed new legislation to respond to the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. A final version of this legislation remained concealed right up to the day before the Senate hearing. Such secrecy disarms the public-and more importantly for today’s hearing, congressional staffers who need to brief their bosses-from analyzing and understanding the draft. This secrecy, aside from some leaked drafts of the bill, should sound alarm bells about what the administration is about to propose.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 08/02/06
Hamdan v. Rumsfield: Guidepost or Relic?
When the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, striking down the Bush Administration’s military tribunals, former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger III pronounced it “simply the most important decision on presidential power and the rule of law ever. Ever.”
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 07/14/06
What Geneva Means to Hamdan
The Supreme Court’s ruling last week in Hamdan that military commissions erected at Guantánamo are inconsistent with our military law and the Geneva Conventions has already prompted fierce-and flawed-debate. One key question, especially relevant in next week’s Judiciary Committee hearings on Hamdan, is whether and how the Geneva Conventions apply to military commissions. The many factually and legally incorrect assertions clogging the air make it worth stepping back to understand what Geneva does, and why it matters for our success against the terrorist threat.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 07/07/06
Hamdan: Not Over Yet
The rule of law is a fragile, tenuous thing. It depends on the willingness of judges to stand fast to core principles. It needs legislators to eschew feverish panic and cheap partisan gain, especially in times of crisis. And it demands that officials of the executive branch respect the will of the people, embodied in laws enacted each day on Capitol Hill. We’ve not been doing this so well recently, as the president repeatedly indicates his willingness to cast aside law and Congress stands aside heedlessly. But yesterday, the Supreme Court put the other two branches to shame when it confirmed that “the executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction.” Now it’s up to the other two branches to follow its wise lead.
Authored by: Aziz Huq
– 06/30/06