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Gitmo 'Justice' for US Citizens?

Most of this was Cutn'Pasted from a story by Robert Parry. July 21, 2008

The conservative-dominated U.S. Appeals Court has opened the door for President George W. Bush or a successor to throw American citizens – as well as non-citizens – into a legal black hole by designating them “enemy combatants,” even if they have engaged in no violent act and are living on U.S. soil.

The federal Appeals Court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled 5-4 on July 15 that Bush had the right, while prosecuting the “war on terror,” to hold Qatari citizen (and Peoria, Illinois, resident) Ali al-Marri indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”

But some of the court’s more liberal judges expressed alarm, saying the legal reasoning that denied al-Marri meaningful due process not only trampled on American legal traditions but could be used to lock up U.S. citizens as well.

“For over two centuries of growth and struggle, peace and war, the Constitution has secured our freedom through the guarantee that, in the United States, no one will be deprived of liberty without due process of law,” wrote Judge Diana Motz, a Bill Clinton appointee, who dissented against the court’s approval of sweeping presidential powers.

Motz noted that al-Marri has been imprisoned for more than five years, “without acknowledgement of the protection afforded by the Constitution, solely because the Executive believes that his indefinite military detention – or even the indefinite military detention of a similarly situated American citizen – is proper.”

Al-Marri’s lawyers plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the case underscores one of the biggest issues at stake in the November elections: whether Republican John McCain will get to fulfill his promise to appoint more Supreme Court judges like Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who have embraced Bush’s vision of an all-powerful President.

Here's the rest of the entire story, which I suggest you please read. It is from the Consortium News - which claims Independent Investigative Journalism. So, I'm a bit troubled by this... a bit more than 'troubled' actually.

As you know, I've been a champion of Gitmo - mostly because the alternative throughout human history has been to just kill your enemies. Gitmo is an evolution of war - where instead of battlefield deaths, and left for the flies, the United States has taken the people who have shot at them to a beautiful communist tropical island paradise. Yes, to torture them like Kiefer Sutherland on a bender, but they're ALIVE... I guess we can't agree that this is a step forward? Okay. And seeing as how the due process that was granted to the folks being held in Gitmo have been granted by the SCOTUS - there's a real doubt that this situation will move forward.

But there's real doubt there.

Also, what the hell was this guy doing in Peoria IL?

Al-Marri entered the United States on a legal student visa, along with his wife and children, only a day before the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested amid the panic and fear that followed the attacks, and was charged criminally in a credit-card scheme.

But the Bush administration then asserted that al-Marri was an al-Qaeda “sleeper cell” agent planning follow-up attacks, declared him an “enemy combatant,” and locked him up at a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he was held incommunicado.

Eventually, al-Marri challenged his indefinite detention through a federal court suit. Bush’s lawyers countered by citing the Military Commissions Act in seeking to deny him access to civilian courts.

In an affidavit submitted to a District Court, a U.S. counter-terrorism official alleged that al-Marri had received al-Qaeda training, was prepared to engage in a suicide attack, and had met personally with Osama bin Laden and other senior terrorist leaders.

He was going to suicide bomb Peoria? Who the hell would have noticed that?
Either that, or that was the best attempt to hide I've ever heard of. In light of this new information perhaps, maybe just perhaps we shouldn't underestimate these terrorist sh*theads?