SUPREME COURT BACKS NAVY OVER PACIFIC OCEAN ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Yesterday, in a five-to-four split decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Navy over its use of sonar in the Pacific off California. A number of groups had tried to hold the Navy to compliance with the National Environmental Impact Act because of their fear that the Navy's anti-submarine exercises would harm marine life with its high powered sonar signals.

In a decision reminiscent of the shameful Korematsu case - the WWII case where the Supremes weakly went along with Roosevelt's plan to lock up all Japanese Americans in camps for the duration of the war on the basis that the Court had no business second guessing the arguments of military military officers, - Chief Justice Roberts based his decision on and gave extreme deference to testimony of Navy officers who claimed that sonar testing was necessary for the training and ability of Navy personnel to find, detect and destroy "enemy" submarines. Marine mammals might be harmed but the Navy's arguments, based on fear that a more serious harm would occur to national security unless it could resume its sonar exercises, won the day, at least with five of the nine justices.

The case is WINTER, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, v NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, INC., ET AL. Here is a link to the text of the case.

Roberts writes:

"The public interest in conducting training exercises with active sonar under realistic conditions plainly outweighs the interests advanced by the plaintiffs. Of course, military interests do not always trump other considerations,and we have not held that they do. In this case, however, the proper determination of where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question. . . .

"President Theodore Roosevelt explained that "the only way in which a navy can ever be made efficient is by practice at sea, under all the conditions which would have to be met if war existed." President’s Annual Message, 42 Cong. Rec. 67, 81 (1907). We do not discount the importance of plaintiffs’ ecological, scientific, and recreational interests in marine mammals. Those interests, however, are plainly outweighed by the Navy’s need to conduct realistic training exercises to ensure that it is able to neutralize the threat posed by enemy submarines."

I disagree with Roberts. Why should preparation for war outweigh preserving whales and other sea life? Even though Roberts says, "military interests do not always trump other considerations, and we have not held that they do," I suspect that he and the other members of the Court who sided with him (Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy) would nearly always find the interests of the military outweigh and trump non-military interests. These justices are surely Republicans (other than Kennedy about whom I am not sure) and in my mind Republicans tend to be militaristic and try to solve problems with ships and tanks.

Roberts talks about "enemy submarines." The Navy has convinced him that there are forces of evil lurking and hiding in the deep seas ready to strike America. This is fanciful imagination at work in the halls of the Court. Bush-speak has invaded judicial chambers. America represents the good, the rest of the world forces of evil.

We don't need a Navy carrying out anti-submarine exercises off the coast of California. In the same way, we don't need an air force dropping bombs on villagers in some remote agrarian part of Pakistan.

DEMOCRATS REJOICE - GUN ISSUE NEUTRALIZED BY TODAY'S DECISION

The decision today by Justice Scalia striking down the gun laws in the District of Colombia (District of Colombia v. Heller) should not be taken too sourly by Democrats. Even though the Scalia argument is somewhat shallow and specious, the overall Scalia result prevents the right from being able to claim that a liberal Supreme Court is the issue. Let Wayne La Pierre and the other gun nuts salivate over this "victory." Their argument about being persecuted for their constitutional "rights" has just be neutralized for the 2008 elections.

SCALIA DOESN'T CARE HOW MANY IN GUANTANAMO ARE INNOCENT - NO HABEAS HEARINGS SHOULD BE ALLOWED

Justice Scalia in his dissent in Boumedienne v. Bush granting habeas corpus relief to the 270 inmates at Guantanamo claims that:

"[t]he Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today."

I would like to ask, how does affording inmates at Guantanamo cause regret to the United States? Does Justice Scalia think that a hearing in front of a judge at the district federal court will cause mayhem and chaos? Or is it that Scalia thinks all 270 inmates are the most dangerous and already convicted in front of an impartial tribunal?

It is like what you would expect some pope of churchman to say during the darkest days of the Inquisition. "We know she is a witch, so burn her at the stake." Scalia gives the impression he like the priest of old already knows each and every one of the 270 is a terrorist.

But what if that were not so? What if there were one innocent person caught up in the rush to give the Americans what they wanted in Afghanistan, people with swarthy complexions and beards who were Islamists? What if of the 270 there were 10 innocents or 100 or 200? Scalia seems to care not a whit for the non-terrorist arrested in the massive dragnet after 2001. And he is not ready to grant them a habeas hearing to find out.

Writes Scalia:

"[This opinion] will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. "

What is Scalia trying to say here? That Boumedienne v. Bush will cause more Americans to be killed? Or that the opinion probably will cause more Americans to be killed? Or that it is not certain that more Americans will be killed? Note the sieve through which those words "almost certainly" flow. Surprising imprecise words from a jurist noted for stressing words' plain meaning.

BUSH SEEKS CONFESSIONS OF THOSE WATERBOARDED - BUT OF WHAT VALUE?

What is the matter with the mind set of Bush's political appointees and supporters? Justice Antonin Scalia says it is no simple question whether waterboarding is torture. Bush's Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he does not have enough information to tell whether waterboarding is indeed torture, but he will not hold an investigation into its legality. Republicans in Congress say they support "harsh interrogation methods," meaning waterboarding and torture.

Have these guys ever heard of the Inquisition that terrorized Europe between the 14th and 18th Centuries? How the Church suspected someone of being in consort with the devil, therefore church authorities put him on the rack and turned the screws until he confessed. Or how witches were given the "water treatment" until they admitted they were indeed witches commissioned by the forces of evil.

All these suspects did confess their allegiance to Satan, their diabolical powers, their conspiracy against God and his Church. Surely it must be the same with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others. Waterboard them and they will surely confess.