It seems that Bush is going to do it the hard way:
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The Bush administration has proposed draft legislation that largely recreates the deeply flawed military commissions that the Supreme Court struck down last month in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Human Rights Watch said today.
Worse, the administration’s proposed legislation asks Congress to authorize its discredited policy of holding people indefinitely without charge. The draft legislation would authorize detaining people picked up anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, and holding them indefinitely without charge if the administration unilaterally deems them to be “associated with” or “part of” al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
“The White House seems tone-deaf to the concerns expressed by the Supreme Court, Congress, and its closest European allies,” said Jennifer Daskal, advocacy director of the U.S. program at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of devising fair tribunals based on the court-martial rules, the administration wants Congress to belatedly adopt the whole Guantanamo package.”
The draft legislation would also effectively rewrite the minimum, humane-treatment standards of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, undercutting key protections for soldiers and civilians worldwide, including Americans. *
The Iraq and Gunatanamo fiascos have cost the US dear in terms of its claim to be a proponent of freedom in the real world.
This latest attempt to justify the Bush Administration’s immoral and probably illegal previous behavior can only further damage the reputation of the USA.
Is this attempt to circumvent the recent SCOTUS decisions an act of statesmanship or an act of politics?
I would hope that this is merely an internal ploy to blame the problem on the next Congress which may well be more democratic than the present one. Then Bush can say that he tried his best to sort out the detainee problem and blame the subsequent releases on his political enemies.
Or is his position legally and morally justified, and are the further risks he is taking with the reputation of the USA acceptable?