Bush's power to detain US enemy combatant upheld

[El_Jibaro]

Bush's power to detain US enemy combatant upheld

September 9, 2005



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has the power to detain Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen who has been held in a South Carolina military brig for more than three years as a suspected enemy combatant without any charges, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday.

"The exceedingly important question before us is whether the president of the United States possesses the authority to detain militarily a citizen of this country who is closely associated with al Qaeda," wrote appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig for the three-judge panel.

"We conclude that the president does possess such authority," wrote Luttig, a conservative whom the Bush administration has been considering for a possible Supreme Court nomination.

The ruling by the court based in Richmond, Virginia, was a major victory for the Bush administration, but the decision can be appealed to the full appeals court or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and convert to Islam, initially was suspected by U.S. officials of plotting with al Qaeda to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.

On May 8, 2002, Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport after returning from Pakistan. Bush then declared him an enemy combatant, and Padilla was placed in solitary confinement at a Navy brig in South Carolina -- where he remains.

The appeals court reversed a decision by a federal judge in South Carolina who ruled in February that Bush had no authority to have Padilla held as an enemy combatant. The judge said Padilla must be released if he is not charged with a crime.

Luttig said that Bush had the power to detain Padilla, based on the joint resolution authorizing military force that Congress approved after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

He also cited a Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 in a similar case involving American-born and Saudi-raised Yaser Hamdi, who also was held by the military in this country as an enemy combatant.

Luttig said the resolution applied even more clearly and unmistakably to Padilla than to Hamdi.

"Padilla, after all, in addition to supporting hostile forces in Afghanistan and taking up arms against our troops on a battlefield in that country like Hamdi, also came to the United States in order to commit future acts of terrorism against American citizens and targets," Luttig wrote.

"Because, like Hamdi, Padilla is an enemy combatant, and because his detention is no less necessary than was Hamdi's in order to prevent his return to the battlefield, the president is authorized by the (resolution) to detain Padilla as a fundamental incident to the conduct of war," he said.

U.S. officials last year backed off their claim that Padilla was plotting to set off a dirty bomb. They said Padilla had plotted with al Qaeda leaders to blow up apartment buildings by using natural gas. None of the plots was carried out.

Richard Samp, general counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group that had supported the Bush administration in the case, hailed the ruling.

"The courts are ill-equipped to second-guess the president when, acting in his capacity as commander in chief, he makes decisions implicating sensitive matters of foreign policy, national security, or military affairs," Samp said.

[El_Jibaro]

Is 'Jabba the Hut' next ?

[Eddier1]

"Padilla, after all, in addition to supporting hostile forces in Afghanistan and taking up arms against our troops on a battlefield in that country like Hamdi, also came to the United States in order to commit future acts of terrorism against American citizens and targets," Luttig wrote

This is a miscarriage of justice pronounced by Luttig. There is absolutely
no material evidence, (attested to by at least three witnesses to make
evidence admissible in a court of law) that Padilla participated in the
war against the Mujahideen versus the Taliban in the country where Padilla
was studying to be a Muslim. Since all Muslims of age are given the
crescent and the sword training of the ages, because Islam is a
militant religion that wants to protect itself defensively as much as
spread the religion offensively as it did for centuries since the 7th
century, all able-bodied Muslims must be trained militarily. This is a
far cry from saying that Padilla participated in the Taliban versus
Mujahideen war, with one side supported by the Russians and the
other side supported by the U.S.. The U.S. had no armed personnel
in that country at the time, no U.S. soldiers where there, all the
U.S. did was give logistical and ordnance support by supplying
food and weapons to the side they supported. And btw, at that
time Bin Laden was fighting on the side that the U.S. supported.
Al Qaeda was not yet established by him.