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Hamdan; First reactions

By Jed Babbin on 6.29.06 @ 12:33PM

Dave: I don't read the Hamdan decison quite that way. First impressions (wading through the damned 185 pages) are that the Supremes:

1. specifically do not rule on the issue of Hamdan being a POW with rights under the Geneva Convention;

2. say that the urgency requirement justifying military tribunals in the field aren't present here, so the president lacks legislative authority to convene these tribunals; and

3. and most bizarrely, they say that the "non-signatory" provisions of the Geneva Conventions apply to al-Qaeda. That they do this, Stevens's opinion brushing by the point that al-Qaeda fails to comply with the terms of Geneva in any respect, is simply bizarre.

topics:
Military, NATO