Gaming the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Rejects Jose Padilla Case

Congrats to the Bush administration. It has succeeded in gaming the US judicial system at the highest level.

I am no neophyte to the appellate process and the Anglo-Saxon judicial principle that prevents hypothetical questions being asked of the court. However, as the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted, following one path for 4 years and then dropping it just as it was about to be reviewed, possibly unfavorably, and yet not conceding that the original course of action was faulty, is just plain wrong. IMHO, the government is gaming the lag in the appellate system of checks and balances to buy itself a 4-yr grace period where it can do what it wants.

The Supreme Court has now ducked the issue of suspension of Bill of Rights twice. They may have at least issued a non-binding opinion that would indicate to the Bush administration, the American people, and the rest of the world where it stood on this issue. This is just very, very disappointing. Not the brightest moment in the history of the American Constitution's system of checks and balances.

When democracy fails the US

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4861320.stm

I belong to a country with a chequered past when it comes to democracy. For many, many years, we heard successive American governments telling us how democracy was an absolute goal. It didn't matter whether elected governments robbed us blind. They were still elected, and hence inherently legal.

Starting with Hamas's clean and fair election to power, the Europeans are learning what the US should have learnt earlier from democracy in Latin America: the democratic process is no guarantee of a government "friendly" to Western interests. The US should have learnt that even earlier, with Chavez's rise to power, and as this BBC article points out, left-liberal, anti-US governments are being elected freely and fairly to power all over Latin America. How will the West deal with this outcome of democracy in action?

Oh, and could Iraq be the next place where an elected government is not overthrown ala Iran 1979 but turns away from its American friends because of perceived ethnic+security policies? Far-fetched? Read some of the reaction of the Shi'ites to American military response to ethnic strife there...