Rob Port responds to my riposte to his rebuttal of my earlier take on the Military Commissions Act.

I won’t prolong this disagreement with further point-by-points--except for one that seems crucial. Port writes: “I cannot fathom an American citizen being denied access to the civilian courts by a military tribunal.” But that was precisely the question at issue in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which was a principal impetus for the MCA. Here is a summary by the Fourth Circuit’s Diana Gribbon Motz:

For more than a year, a United States citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi, has been labeled an enemy combatant and held in solitary confinement in a Norfolk, Virginia, naval brig. He has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. The Executive [the president] will not state when, if ever, he will be released. Nor has the Executive allowed Hamdi to appear in court, consult with counsel, or communicate in any way with the outside world.

It’s tempting to assume the best intentions all around, and there are many in federal agencies (Jim Comey, formerly John Ashcroft’s No. 2 at Justice, for instance) whose intentions and integrity are beyond question. But cases of individuals such as Hamdi, Maher Arar, Murat Kurnaz, and other innocents wrongly held induce skepticism about others in this administration and future ones. And even if those cases didn’t, historical episodes such as the 1918 Red Scare and the Japanese internment in WWII ought to remind us of the dangers of overreaching in the name of security. If fellows such as Rob and other liberty-loving patriots were always in charge, I might be more complaisant. But the smarter course is to ask what those in power with less common sense and fewer noble intentions might do with the power granted to them--and how many more miles they might take if given another inch.

We didn’t need to lock up Japanese-Americans and Japanese immigrants to win WWII; we won with Fat Man and Little Boy and a lot of blood and guts on places like Mt. Suribachi. I’d rather win the war on terror the same way, without compromising the principles we’re fighting for.

Regarding the discussion of the MCA...what, exactly, is an ‘unlawful combatant’?  There seems to be concern about people who engage in ‘combat’ while not acting under color of any nation’s flag. 

Doesn’t that include any lawbreaker?  At some fundamental level, isn’t anyone who wilfully breaks the law acting as an ‘unlawful combatant’ against the United States?  What distinguishes hijacking a plane from cheating on taxes or distributing drugs or bribing a congressman?  Are we going to see American militia activists being detained without habeas rights?  Under the MCA, could people arrested after a Waco-style incident be detained without habeas rights?  What about environmental activists caught planning to spike trees in a national forest?  Is that unlawful combat designed to terrorize and change public policy with force?

Civil war in Iraq?...They should be worrying about the potential for civil war in the United States.

I do believe I have just been royally insulted! Sorry, it’s to late to shut American women up. We do so love to talk.So I think I won’t confine myself to knitting and taking care of Himself.

Kings have a long tradition of locking up wayward wives away from the public eye (and, more importantly, the public ear).  Some have gone so far as to write new religious codes to support their positions.

A dangerous path to travel when we start messing with the civil rights of everyone. They don’t have to defeat us, we’ve done it to ourselves when we betray who we are. It’s amazing how many people think that allowing a certain number of innocents who fall through the cracks to stay imprisoned is an acceptable thing---for the common good!

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