WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that U.S. President George W. Bush has the power to detain Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who has been held for more than three years as a suspected enemy combatant without any charges being brought against him. [my italics]Padilla continues to be held in solitary confinement on a military base. For the first two years of his confinement he had no access to a lawyer, not that it could possibly change his situation anyway.
Remember the Constitution? Remember Habeus Corpus? Remember enduring freedom?
Guilt by suspicion of association, solitary confinement, no charges, no trial - forever. Sounds to me like a recruiting poster for revolution!
The terror has come home, and it's us. We've become expert at manufacturing enemies where there never were any before, both at home and abroad. It's clear we really have lost the "war" we called by the name of a tactic we ascribed to the other.
According to the same Reuters account J. Michael Luttig, the judge who wrote the decision for the three-judge panel, is "a conservative who has been under consideration by the Bush administration for a possible Supreme Court nomination."
Remember separation of powers? Remember real conservatives? Remember justice?
[image, titled "Solitary Confinement," from wolispace]