EDITORIAL
Cuba detainees must have some due process
More than two years after the 9/11 attacks and subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. courts have still not determined whether the 600 foreign-born detainees at Guant‡namo Bay are prisoners of war, terrorists or simply suspects.
Which is what makes the consolidated cases, Rasul v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States — argued last week before the U.S. Supreme Court — so very critical.
The detainees have been in limbo for way too long.
While the high court isn't being asked to determine their status per se, it is being asked whether non-citizen enemy combatants can have their day in court in the United States. In other words, what rights do these detainees have?
In this case, the plaintiffs are the family members of 16 detainees, who are citizens of Australia, Britain and Kuwait, which are not presently at war with the United States.
Two lower courts have not answered their question, maintaining that they lacked jurisdiction.
We can understand that the courts might be reluctant to make a ruling that spurs every captured enemy soldier to demand a lawyer.
But we are loath to accept U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson's contention that the federal courts have no jurisdiction whatsoever over Guant‡namo Bay, which the United States leases from Cuba.
Because then, as John Gibbons, a former federal judge who is representing the families of detainees, points out, Guant‡namo becomes a lawless enclave immune from judicial scrutiny, anywhere. Olson essentially argues that we are at war and that means anything goes in Guant‡namo, possibly forever.
Sounds like hell to us.
There needs to be a process, such as a trial or tribunal to determine the status of detainees. This would be a compromise between perpetual detention without oversight and sweeping rights for every enemy soldier.
We cannot be — or seem to be— a nation that thinks it's OK to lock 'em up and throw away the key without allowing a detainee due process, whether it's within the U.S. borders or on a rented island in the Caribbean.
