Andy McCarthy writes at National Review Online:
Courts ought to butt out of how the administration disposes of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. They are not defendants; they are held "as enemies under the laws of war." And besides, as the Supreme Court held after World War II, it "is inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation." What about the Geneva Conventions, you say? Forget it: They don't create any enforceable rights for these detainees, and federal judges have no business entertaining claims based on them - including claims rooted in the Conventions' Common Article 3, which has no bearing on this situation. And don't tell us about how U.S. statutory law might help the detainees. Gitmo is part of Cuba; it's not sovereign U.S. territory. The judicial power to enforce U.S. law "does not have extraterritorial application and therefore does not apply to petitioners at Guantanamo Bay." There is, moreover, nothing in the U.S. Constitution that entitles these aliens to relief - on that, a conservative-leaning panel of the D.C. Circuit had it just right when it reversed that bleeding-heart, Clinton-appointed district judge. Sound familiar? You must figure I've dusted off a copy of Dick Cheney Does the Imperial Presidency - or maybe that I'm reading from some relic those Constitution-shredders in the Bush Justice Department left behind. I am actually reading from the brief submitted to the Supreme Court last week by Pres. Barack Obama's Justice Department.