j.modjeska

The Guantanamo detainee case Kiyemba v. Obama is a potentially landmark separation-of-powers case headed for the US Supreme Court in March 2010, with major policy issues and the futures of 13 detainees at stake. In this multi-part story, I will try to dig into the background and questions raised by the case. This is a follow-up to Part I: Jamal Kiyemba’s long journey home.

Part II: New borders

Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the majority:

Seventeen Chinese citizens currently held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, brought petitions for writs of habeas corpus. … The question is whether [they] are entitled to an order requiring the [US] government to bring them to the United States and release them here.

This opening paragraph of the decision by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in February of 2009 introduced a document that dramatically altered the fate of those seventeen men. The men had previously been ordered by a lower court to be freed inside the United States, but the Executive branch appealed, saying the lower court had no such authority. Subsequently, the question that Judge Randolph introduced above was answered: no. No, the seventeen men will not be released into the United States, and unlike Jamal Kiyemba, they can not go home because they fear persecution by the Chinese government. There are thirteen of them now; four were released to Bermuda in June. They wait, still at Guantanamo Bay, for the slow wheels of American justice to make one final revolution as their case heads to the Supreme Court.

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The Guantanamo detainee case Kiyemba v. Obama is a potentially landmark separation-of-powers case headed for the US Supreme Court in March 2010, with major policy issues and the futures of 13 detainees at stake. In this multi-part story, I will try to dig into the background and questions raised by the case.

PART I: Jamal Kiyemba’s long journey home

Jamal Kiyemba doesn’t have anything to do with the case coming before the Supreme Court in 2010. He is a free man; he lives in Uganda, and as well as anyone might expect after what he went though, he is apparently leading a normal life there. But his full-circle journey, one that spanned four continents, is necessary prologue to the legal battle that wages on today under his name.

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The anti-gay marriage amendment passed in California last November is heart-breaking, morally repugnant, and insulting. But it’s less bad than you think, and it is constitutional.

The California Supreme Court, on its website this morning, quietly issued its final opinion on Prop 8 (note: all page numbers cited in this post refer to the linked PDF). Despite the moral injustice that was perpetrated against same-sex couples by the people of California when they passed the initiative last November, the state Supreme Court is not bound to instill reason or wisdom to the land, but to uphold the law and the constitution. Today they did that. The ruling is unfortunate in that it’s another let-down for supporters of marriage equality in California, but an honest review of the entire process leading up to today reveals the Court’s decision as possibly the only thing that wasn’t terribly flawed.

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If you get your news from a major newspaper, you may have heard about “tens of thousands” of people marching on Washington last week in protest against the Bush administration’s failed Iraq war, the proposed troop surge, and their troubling new Iran policy. If you get your news from TV, you probably heard something about Tom Cruise or Britney Spears and weren’t aware of a protest at all. In fact, last week’s protest looked to be well over 150,000 and deserved some real, unbiased attention from the media. Corporate-owned media may or may not intend to undermine the growing voice of dissent in this country, but they surely do us a disservice when they misunderestimate the magnitude of mass demonstrations like this. On the other hand, it may not matter anymore; the winds of change may be too massive for the filter to hold back.
The protest I speak of took place on January 27 – last Saturday – when, by happy coincidence, my international delegation of UberSpods had gathered near DC for the usual debauchery. While protesting was not our original intent, we quickly became caught up in the demonstration – almost literally so, as when we stepped off the Metro we were swept into the river of people moving toward the Mall. As a good tree-hugging pinko communist from Seattle, I attend my fair share of war protests, but out here they lack a certain shock value, as if we’re just putting on a show of local culture for visiting Republicans. When it happens in DC, there is an extra level of inspiration. Maybe even more than usual this time.

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Update 03.03.06: Article published on Kuro5hin.

A pending $5.8 billion port operation deal with Dubai Ports World has sparked acrimonious response from both sides of the aisle. Politicians are seizing on an opportunity to be tougher than the president on national security without much trepidation about ostricizing Arabs. Rhetoric abounds about the dangers to our borders, the security of our ports, the collapse of America as we outsource our labor to the UAE (and who the hell are they anyway?).

But it isn’t the Arabs you should fear. There is only one thing that politicians like more than scaring you and that’s money. The deep and sinister links between the Bush family, Carlyle Group and Dubai Ports World aren’t making the ten o’clock news, but don’t be fooled – this is just the latest way for Bush & Company to profit off of the “War on Terror”. Congress’ maligning of Arabs might suffice to derail the deal, but we still deserve to know what’s really going on.

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