Bloggledygook

Supreme Court Rules Against Bush On Guantanamo.

The Supreme Court has ruled against Bush on his plans to try Gitmo detainees. The court ruled that the trials must follow the UCMJ. It also ruled that the Geneva Conventions do apply to detainees. So I guess that settles that. Now we will see how much this administration actually respects Supreme Court Rulings.

The ruling was 5-3, so Roberts' recusal would not have had any effect.

The government will have to revamp its plans for trials, essentially still leaving Gitmo detainees in limbo.

I'll be reading as much analysis as I can find, but I won't be blogging on it; I'm not a constitutional scholar.

However, this is an important repudiation of Bush policies vis-a-vis enemy combatants. The ruling is a blow to what some people have termed an Imperial Presidency.

The right will be wailing, the left hooting.

The only thing I will say is that this ruling seems to mean two things: that the United States is more obligated than al Qaeda in the treatment of detainees, and possibly, in other areas of the conflict, and that miscreants from around the world are now afforded the same legal rights and protections that Americans citizens enjoy.

MORE: Two questions and one observation:

Can this be construed as a defacto recognition of the Taliban and al Qaeda by the Supreme Court?

What are the likely next steps the government will be required to take?

President Bush has stated that he has been waiting for this ruling, and must have known that Justice Kennedy would swing towards the liberals. There must be some contingency plan drawn up.

Okay, one more observation: This does not seem to mean that the detainees are now free to go, but that the government has to set up a different process, by statutes that would establish military tribunals for detainees.

MORE: Tom Maguire has an open thread on the decision.

I found this comment very interesting, and one I was wondering about:

If as I understand, the S.Ct. affirmed that the prisoners can be held during hostilities, just that the war crimes trials are not legal, then practically this is not a defeat for the Bush administration. The administration did not really want to hold criminal proceedings but was pushed to do so politically by critics of Guantanamo Bay. I suspect that the Bush administration is actually pleased with the ruling.

No doubt we'll see a lot of silly claims about this ruling.

Hope I haven't made any silly claims, though.

MORE: There are some rumblings that there will be some "big news" following the ruling. Some are saying that Justice Stevens will announced his retirement, others that there is some bigger news still to come out of the ruling itself. We'll see, of course, if any of this is true or just your run ofthe mill blog hysteria.

Thirty Years Since Entebbe: Will We See A Replay?

The latest Middle East crisis, that of the abduction of an Israeli Corporal, could be the trigger that finally unleashes all out war in the region. That the kidnapping came hard on the heels of a Hamas-Fatah agreement to "implicitly recognize Israel" seems to be confounding the experts who just can't fathom why this would happen now.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has apparently decided that this kidnapping will not lesson his resolve to withdraw from much of the West Bank, but he realizes what the ramifications of a soft response would be. He has his own cabinet to deal with, and many members who are skeptical of his lack of military prowess.

Still, Israel is not kidding around and will wait only so long before an all out retaliation. Cpl. Shalit must know that his army will do everything possible to retrieve him, but the government won't negotiate for his release. It seems, barring some Entebbe-like operation, that Cpl. Shalit's hours are waning.

This July 4 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the end of that mission (it began on June 27, 1976). I wouldn't be surprised to find that this is in the mind of Israeli planners right now. Even as an IDF spokesman told the press that they know where Cpl. Shalit is, it's hard to imagine how that can be known. This is very different from Entebbe, where the hostages were held at a known location that could be surveilled.

There is some criticism that Israel is being disproportionate in its response, but this misses the point. Negotiating for Shalit's release may still be an option, but in the mean time Israel can't afford to give Hamas and its allies reason to think that kidnapping is a successful tactic.

If Shalit is killed, or if Israel jumps the gun, it could inflame already hot tempers in the region. Hamas has an out, and could use the release of Shalit as a propaganda tool. It looks as if Egypt isn't going to help them out, and from what I am hearing, private opinions are that Hamas has stepped in it big time and may not be able to count on much help.

Irreconcilable.

While flags, fags and rags are dominating the news cycle, some actual progress may be in the making in Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's reconciliation plan has been given major support from a prominent Sunni group. This is an interesting development, and one that could signal an Iraqi solution to the Iraq Problem. Of course, demagogues in the Congress are already jumping on it as being an insult to the US and the Armed Forces, which again, smacks of political gamesmanship.

All wars ends with some of the belligerents going their own way and melting back into the populace. al-Maliki's proposal should be taken seriously, it seems, especially by those who have been screeching for a negotiated end to the war.

Meanwhile, there is more rumbling about timetables, even after the full Congress rejected the idea. It's looking as if the only factions unable to come to some reconciliation are the Democrats and Republicans in the US.

A Burning Sensation.

One free speech stalwart held out and the once again "topical," though always stupid flag "desecration" amendment (Yes, a Constitutional Amendment to stop something that basically never happens) failed in the Senate.

It seems necessary to point out that one of the Republican Senators voting for the measure was John McCain, who also wants to control political speech of many stripes, along with Democratic darling Russ Feingold (who thinks that the flag burning amendment is dumb, but wants you to shut the hell up about candidates).

It's also telling that Harry Reid voted for the Amendment, as did Chuck Hagel, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe, all Republicans that Republicans hate.

So this can be stood up next to the apparent rampant epidemic of heterosexuals that are waiting, just straining at the reins, to break out the old Village People cassettes and the Harvey Fierstein DVDs once gays and lesbians get the go ahead to go ahead. Personally, I have begun to look askance at those married friends whom I have always wondered about. Which husband, I ask, is leaving the closet doors ajar? Because, you know, millions upon millions of male breeders can't wait until they can marry the softball team. On the other hand, perhaps thousands of Penthouse readers or webporn surfers will finally have a legitimate reason to believe that the vast majority of lesbians are twenty-three year old hotties.

(To this end, so to speak, and as a hearty public service, Christopher Hitchens treats us all in this month's Vanity Fair (a title which has to be the gayest of any mainstream mag) to our American oral history and sows the seeds of doubt about every manly man's favorite sex act.)

This kind of crap is what happens when we have one party in power and another that seems to refuse to put up a fight. What we have right now is a GOP full of hubris while believing that they will lose their cranky, radical base if they don't "protect" marriage and Old Glory, even though marriage and flags seems to be doing well enough on their own.

Well, I wish that I could see this backfire, that there were enough thinking GOP voters who wise up, that this would in some way turn conservatives against overreaching lawmakers. But I'm not holding my match.

Apparently, there's nothing else to worry about. The Iraq War is going fine, immigration issues have evaporated and everything else is just dandy.

Well, no. While the GOP is playing "Look over there!" Saudi visas have doubled. Funny that this story is in the Jerusalem Post and not the Washington Post. Our president, without Congressional oversight or voter approval, continues to negotiate US sovereignty away. This is no joke. Critics range from John Edwards to Michelle Malkin. How bad could this be to get those two agreeing?

So we Americans can now sport our own private Nero, a president who is fiddling with all sorts of burning issues while attention to real threats are diverted. If this continues, we will light the fire of our own ruin and be consumed by the bonfire of our vanities.

The Boss Having Some Fun.

Take eight-and-a-half minutes and watch this video of Bruce Springsteen and friends singing "Pay Me My Money Down" (from his Pete Seeger CD) on Conan O'Brien. You'll be very glad you did.

I am very happy to see this effort by Springsteen to resurrect some of the old folk standards and maybe spark a new revival and inspire another generation of folk singers and writers that are less self-indulgent than folk singers have tended to be lately. Not that I am against introspection or personal story-telling, but that we are ripe for a more universal popular art, something that takes larger themes and communicates them and not in the slick package of production or the obscure flannel circuit.

Watching Springsteen pulling in O'Brien for the last jump at the chorus reminds us that this is exuberant music: transcendent, flawed and deeply joyful. We need to be done with morbid tunes and get some feet tapping.

Hat tip to Sheila O'Malley, herself and her blog two pure joys.

NYT's Bill Keller: I Know More Than You Do.

The right and part of the center of the blogs are hopping all over Bill Keller's kind-of explanation of his paper's reasoning to go ahead with the story on the program to track financial records of terrorists. While Keller makes a better case for himself than most of his critics contend, he isn't doing himself any favors by the condescending attitude of much of his letter.

It's becoming more and more popular for those in the media and among the intelligentsia of various disciplines to speak about democratic ideals and information while proclaiming their own expertise and making it well known that if one wishes to dispute certain methodologies, one damn well better have a particular degree or imprimatur in some form or another.

Too many of our experts consider themselves not public advisers and opinion setters, but infallible prelates speaking to a great mass of bumpkins. We are told that data is inviolable and that facts are facts. But taken and agreed-upon facts often change with time and data, and, well, I'll just hint at the Disraeli remark on statistics.

Now, before I get branded with some lowly moniker, I will point out that I have spent much of my work life, and all of the last ten years working with data of some sort, and am now working with specific data to follow specific trends (sorry that's all you're gonna get). What is so interesting about trend analysis is that one is always working with a moving target. Therefore, it is not only perilous, but fundamentally foolish to assume that the data will give one a straight-line prediction.

Witness this article on TIME's recent global warming story:

WASHINGTON - The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."

Now, I have no expertise and no reason to doubt this conclusion. If this is what the data is telling us, then this is what the data is telling us. Who would want, say, a doctor to inform us that one of our loved ones was still alive when in fact they had died five minutes earlier? Stick with the truth, people.

However, let's say that we are the warmest we have been in 400 years (I will not address the "potentially the last several millennia" because this veers into conjecture). Would that not mean that sometime around 1600 or so the earth was in the grips of a period of scorching temperatures? Who the hell was driving the SUVs then?

Of course we must rely on those trained in specific fields. To do otherwise would be folly. And to blindly criticize because the known data does not line up with our own assumptions and prejudices does in fact make the general populace seem a bit stupid from time to time. But it is incumbent on our scientists to acknowledge the difference between theory and fact. Many scientists, after all, are human.

What does this have to do with Keller? Only that with this letter, he further removes himself from the public he purports to serve. I do not doubt that Keller actually sees himself as a protector of the public's right to know, and I would rather have a press that distrusts government as much as I do. What we don't need, however, is a press that sees no reason not to publish every story that comes its way.

So I do not call for the heads of the New York Times editorial board, and would just ask that they keep their heads about them. I am more concerned with governmental apparatchiks that take it upon themselves to anonymously harm counter-terror efforts.

That said, I also allow for the possibility that this leak was unofficially official and that the administration is protesting too much. This president is his own expert, you see, and as the Decider-in-Chief, he doesn't hold a much higher opinion of you and me than Keller does.

Recommended Reading: After Londonistan.

Yesterday's NYT Magazine sported an article by Christopher Caldwell, "After Londonistan." I found it to be one of the best and most fair articles on the subject I have yet read.

Also see:

Michael Gove in The Times Online.

This poll in The Guardian.

World Cup 2006: England-Ecuadaor 1:0.

David Beckham gets a goal off of a free kick to score the only goal of the match and spends the next twenty minutes vomiting on the pitch. The best player today was Wayne Rooney who showed some individual spark late in the match. Ashley Cole also stood out in defense by deflecting what would have been an early Ecuadoran goal.

Terror Arrest: Less Than Meets The Eye?

The big story, of course, is the arrest of seven suspects on charges of terrorist planning. And the newsies are throbbing with what they must think is a big story, because Alberto Gonzales says it is. The line so far is that this was a sting operation wherein the FBI infiltrated the gang of "home grown" jihadis.

Something stinks.

Neighbors who lived nearby said young men, who appeared to be in their teens and 20s, slept in the warehouse, running what looked like a militaristic group. They appeared brainwashed, some said.

"They would come out late at night and exercise," said Tashawn Rose, 29. "It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."

Right. A super secret group of terrorists who dress in balaclavas and carry out paramilitary exercises for all to see?

I'm thinking that this is trumped up. So far (and I will retract if I am wrong) none of this makes sense. The group, if legitimate at all, must be among the sloppiest terrorists we have seen. The FBI certainly didn't need to infiltrate a group that was openly talking about jihad, if in fact that is what they were doing. Or maybe, this was staged for some other reason.

I generally wave off those seeing conspiracy under every rock, but who would stand to gain from finding a cell of so-called "home grown" terrorists? You see, now the fight isn't against Muslims and Arabs, foreigners who hate our way of life, but is growing unabated in our populace, save for the heroic actions of the government.

So I'm calling BS on this one until proved wrong.

UPDATE: As I hoped, Dave Schuler (a Chicagoan himself) at The Glittering Eye provides a roundup of local media coverage. Dave shares my skepticism, here. We both used "Less than meets the eye" without checking with each other. Honest. Makes me more confident than I am right on this one.

The New York Times Exposes Yet Another Secret Program.

This isn't illegal on the New York Times part, but it might be on the part of whoever leaked this story.

Once again, NYT publishes information on a secret program being run against a terror organization. Why the NYT thinks that it must publish this is beyond me. I am starting to believe all those who have been screaming about press bias and the NYT's campaign against the Bush Administration. I don't see tha this does anything except tip off our enemies to our tactics.

This is disgraceful and may end up being dangerous.