We touched on this issue this morning, but former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and current National Review Institute senior fellow Andrew McCarthy has in depth article at National Review Online on the Constitutional crisis President Barack Obama is creating by failing to press comprehensive war on terror detainee legislation through Congress. McCarthy writes:
The Constitution gives the political branches plenary responsibility for the conduct of war. The conduct of war includes the detention, trial, or release of enemy combatants. The federal courts have no role except the one they have usurped. This brazen power grab flouts the bedrock constitutional separation of powers, and the political branches do not have to abide it. Indeed, as national defense is their chief responsibility, it is their duty not to abide it.
…
This experiment in allowing judges to preside over a central aspect of warfare has been a failure. The Constitution gives the political branches the power to put a stop to it, and they should act. It’s plainly in the Obama administration’s interest to rein the judges in, or to ignore them. If the president abdicates, Congress must assert itself. Regardless of what is in the administration’s interest, the national interest demands nothing less.
For more facts, also see Heritage’s Detention of the Enemy During Wartime
Other posts:
The Judiciary is No Place to Make National Security Decisions