An Administration of War Criminals

Well, it looks like killing the newspapers won't be enough - the Administration needs to get rid of at least one more Supreme Court Justice, as well, to cement its deathgrip on superconstitutional power.

The Hamdan decision today (NYT coverage) is notable for several reasons, but I will focus here on one in particular. A majority of the Supremes ruled that the Geneva Conventions (in particular, its "Common Article 3" provisions for the treatment of prisoners), is binding on the government generally, even in the "war on terrorism" and the ongoing conflict with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

This represents a direct overruling of the twisted arguments of our Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, our Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and their bosses the President and Vice President, that US law allows for torture of foreign noncombatants and even the occasional US citizen. Over at SCOTUSblog, Marty Lederman argues that CIA and military personnel who have relied on those arguments to justify their acts of torture since 9/11 may have legal recourse, but any who torture even a single prisoner going forward will be guilty of war crimes (and subject to the death penalty if convicted).

From a somewhat broader perspective, since these policies were promulgated from the top of the Administration, without much (if any) regard for whether they were consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States, and are now shown to be in violation of them, I would argue, the Supreme Court has judged this to be an Administration of war criminals.