Why US History IS so Important

After hearing about the Supreme Court ruling giving unlawful enemy combatants Habeas Corpus rights I started to think back to my US History teacher in High School.  Why do you ask, well because he was an excellent teacher who actually taught US History to include this:

 

Operation Pastorius was a failed plan for sabotage in series of attacks by Nazi German agents inside the United States. The operation was staged in June 1942 and was to be directed against strategic U.S. economic targets. The operation was named by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the German Abwehr, for Francis Daniel Pastorius, the leader of the first organized settlement of Germans in America.

 

Why is this so important you ask, well here is what the Supreme Court decided in 1942 regarding trials by Military Commisions (or Tribunals) and the writ of Habeas Corpus to unlawful combatants:

 

The Court holds:

(1)   That the charges preferred against petitioners on which they are being tried by military commission appointed by the order of the President of July 2, 1942, allege an offense or offenses which the President is authorized to order tried before a military commission. (2) That the military commission was lawfully constituted. (3) That petitioners are held in lawful custody, for trial before the military commission, and have not shown cause for being discharged by writ of habeas corpus. The motions for leave to file petitions for writs of habeas corpus are denied….

 

So why is it that the Supreme Court found that Trial by Military Commisions was lawful in 1942; yet now they are not?  And why did the Supreme Court rule that unlawful combatants that were caught on US soil did not have the same rights as US citizens in a time of war in 1942; yet now unlawful combatants caught on foreign soil and held outside the US do?

This is an obvious case of judicial activism by five justices of the Supreme Court that further erodes the meaning and content of the US Constitution.

So where do the two Presidential Candidates stand on this decision:

Obama:

“This is an important step,” he said of the ruling, “toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeascorpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy.”

It seems to me that Obama must not have ever heard of Operation Pasterous and the Supreme Court ruling that said what Congress and the Bush Administration had done was legal.

McCain:

“These are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they are not and never have been given the rights that the citizens of this country have,” he said. “Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation and the men and women who defend it.”

Now if only we could get McCain to support the last sentence of that statement when it comes to immigration.

National Review had a look at what each Presidential Candidate had to say about what kind of judges they would appoint (a special thanks to Steve Beren 7th CD Candidate for sending me this information):

McCain assailed activist judges, saying that his judicial appointees would interpret the law rather than make it. McCain said he would be looking for nominees with a record of restraint; he would not just trust his instincts about them. In other words: no more Souters; no more Mierses. Liberals said that McCain was battling strawmen, since judicial activism is a myth.  Have they met Barack Obama? His announced criteria for judges are rather different from McCain’s. “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old.” Empathy for gun owners, or property holders, or corporations, or the unborn does not appear to be something Obamais looking for. If you want judges whose sympathies are with those who have the law on their side, McCain’s the better bet.