I don't see where they say the detention is unconstitutional. They don't even rule out these tribunals, they just say that at present he hasn't been granted the authority by Congress. Justice Breyer said:

"Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary."

I'm not seeing this as the loss you are portraying it as. Actually, in my opinion, it is a loss for the people detained there, because it makes the chance of them getting their day in court even further away.

Actually it is you who is not correct. The Geneva Convention apparently does apply, at least in part.

Actually it is you who is not correct.  The SCOTUS has no jurisdiction over the Geneva Convention.

You are making a career of being wrong.

I'll write my own article about what I think of the decision itself, but I do want to respond to your article and what you stated here.

None of our rights or laws should be enforced so strictly that they become our enemies greatest weapon against us. Already our Freedom of the Press has been used in direct fire against us; Privacy rights are quickly becoming the sidearm of terrorists and now SCOTUS tells us that once a person is pulled from the fight, merely holding them fills the enemy batteries with more ammunition than they could buy in all the arms markets in all the world.

If our press, our elected officials and our SCOTUS are willing to roll over the barrel the bacteria had provided, we might as well bring the troops home becuase (like Vietnam) the troops have been betrayed. That being said, we have never put people on trial for their alleged role in a current war. It's pretty much new territory in a lot of ways, so it will be interesting to see what precedences are set for how we fight terrorism in the future.

I understand what you guys are saying, but did you actually read the opinion of the court that I posted?

(d) The procedures adopted to try Hamdan also violate the Geneva Conventions. The D. C. Circuit dismissed Hamdan’s challenge in this regard on the grounds, inter alia, that the Conventions are not judicially enforceable and that, in any event, Hamdan is not entitled to their protections. Neither of these grounds is persuasive. Pp. 62-68.
(i) The appeals court relied on a statement in Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U. S. 763, 789, n. 14, suggesting that this Court lacked power even to consider the merits of a Convention argument because the political and military authorities had sole responsibility for observing and enforcing prisoners’ rights under the Convention. However, Eisentrager does not control here because, regardless of the nature of the rights conferred on Hamdan, cf. United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407, they are indisputably part of the law of war, see Hamdi, 542 U. S., at 520-521, compliance with which is the condition upon which UCMJ Art. 21 authority is granted. Pp. 63-65.
(ii) Alternatively, the appeals court agreed with the Government that the Conventions do not apply because Hamdan was captured during the war with al Qaeda, which is not a Convention signatory, and that conflict is distinct from the war with signatory Afghanistan. The Court need not decide the merits of this argument because there is at least one provision of the Geneva Conventions that applies here even if the relevant conflict is not between signatories. Common Article 3, which appears in all four Conventions, provides that, in a “conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties [ i.e., signatories], each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum,” certain provisions protecting “[p]ersons … placed hors de combat by … detention,” including a prohibition on “the passing of sentences … without previous judgment … by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees … recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.” The D. C. Circuit ruled Common Article 3 inapplicable to Hamdan because the conflict with al Qaeda is international in scope and thus not a “conflict not of an international character. ” That reasoning is erroneous. That the quoted phrase bears its literal meaning and is used here in contradistinction to a conflict between nations is demonstrated by Common Article 2, which limits its own application to any armed conflict between signatories and provides that signatories must abide by all terms of the Conventions even if another party to the conflict is a nonsignatory, so long as the nonsignatory “accepts and applies” those terms. Common Article 3, by contrast, affords some minimal protection, falling short of full protection under the Conventions, to individuals associated with neither a signatory nor even a nonsignatory who are involved in a conflict “in the territory of” a signatory. The latter kind of conflict does not involve a clash between nations (whether signatories or not). Pp. 65-68.

You can disagree with the decision all you want, but it's clearly the opinion of the court that the geneva Convention applies, in part...just as I said.

This almost certainly means that the CIA's interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administation has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes).

You have hit the nail on the head. The extraordinaray redition when contested in Court will be tried on the bais of this judgement and you have quite rightly said that the whole program will be declared illegal, on the bais of this judgement. Hence this verdict has far reaching consequences.

Nothing will satisfy these anti-america-at-any-cost cretins other than the complete dismantlement of Gitmo and first class tickets home for all the detainees, preferably with a couple of million in their bank accounts for 'damages'

I do think the issue is a LIBERAL vs CONSERVATIVE one at all. What is at stake here is the legality of a certain course of action taken by the President invoking his powers as C in C, presumably because USA is at war. The SC of the US has not declared the Bush Admin actions as illegal and unconstitutional: it has said that the USA must conform to both domestic legal requirements and the Geneva convention to which USA is a signatory. In fact liberals seem to think that the court verdict is a defeat for the President: that is most certainly not the case. And conservatives believe that the verdict provides an easy way out by legislating a hybrid criminal and military system. Politically this will not be easy. So really there is nothing for both to crow about.

You're right, it's not lib. v conservative for me, either

No, but nancy Pelosi is trying to make it one.

Have "you" actually been paying attention? The US court has ABSOLUTELY NO JURISDICTION over the geneva conventions!

Who said they "had jurisdiction over the Geneva Conventions"? And what exactly do you mean by that?

It means that the "courts opinion" that you quoted carries no real weight because they can NOT rule on "international" law. Their "opinion" means nothing when they voice it on the geneva conventions (which are international).

First of all, this case was not entirely about the Geneva Conventions. It also dealt with the UCMJ and the Detainee Treatment Act.

If this opinion truly held no weight, as you claim, then why is the administration and several GOP Senators preparing to introduce legislation in Congress to obtain authorization to conduct the tribunals?

The legislation is on the Military tribunals and the ability of the POTUS to arbitrarily decide to hold them.

Apparently you need to look more thoroughly into what the ramifications of the Hamdan decision are.

Mere authorization from Congress to conduct the tribunals is not enough to comply with the ruling. The court's opinion is that these tribunals need to comply with Geneva Conventions article 3;Link

From the ruling;

Common Article 3, then, is applicable here and, as indicated above, requires that Hamdan be tried by a “regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
…
The commentary accompanying a provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention, for example, defines “‘regularly constituted’” tribunals to include “ordinary military courts” and “definitely exclud[e] all special tribunals.
…
Common Article 3 obviously tolerates a great degree of flexibility in trying individuals captured during armed conflict; its requirements are general ones, crafted to accommodate a wide variety of legal systems. But requirements they are nonetheless. The commission that the President has convened to try Hamdan does not meet those requirements.

Link

Is that on-topic enough for you?

Do you see how this works? Your opinion in and of itself does not win you an argument, you must show some sort of information that shows that you are correct.

I started posting in this thread in response to your statement that "The Geneva Convention does not apply as they are not uniformed soldiers from a sovereign nation." You are wrong. The GC does not only apply to uniformed soldiers of a sovereign nation, as you stated. I showed you why you are wrong, you are just too embarassed to admit it, or too dense to realize it.

Which is it?

Just one problem here davad.....no where have you quoted the actual geneva conventions that cover what dr guy was talking about. All you quoted was the SC's opinion. If you want to quote information to back-up your position that's fine. But at least try to quote the correct info.

Actually, if you bothered to read before posting you would see that the relevant portions of the GC were posted twice, within the opinion, in posts 4 and 10. To make the reading easier for you, I will underline the part that is taken from the GC.

(d) The procedures adopted to try Hamdan also violate the Geneva Conventions. The D. C. Circuit dismissed Hamdan’s challenge in this regard on the grounds, inter alia, that the Conventions are not judicially enforceable and that, in any event, Hamdan is not entitled to their protections. Neither of these grounds is persuasive. Pp. 62-68.
(i) The appeals court relied on a statement in Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U. S. 763, 789, n. 14, suggesting that this Court lacked power even to consider the merits of a Convention argument because the political and military authorities had sole responsibility for observing and enforcing prisoners’ rights under the Convention. However, Eisentrager does not control here because, regardless of the nature of the rights conferred on Hamdan, cf. United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407, they are indisputably part of the law of war, see Hamdi, 542 U. S., at 520-521, compliance with which is the condition upon which UCMJ Art. 21 authority is granted. Pp. 63-65.
(ii) Alternatively, the appeals court agreed with the Government that the Conventions do not apply because Hamdan was captured during the war with al Qaeda, which is not a Convention signatory, and that conflict is distinct from the war with signatory Afghanistan. The Court need not decide the merits of this argument because there is at least one provision of the Geneva Conventions that applies here even if the relevant conflict is not between signatories. Common Article 3, which appears in all four Conventions, provides that, in a “conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties [ i.e., signatories], each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum,” certain provisions protecting “[p]ersons … placed hors de combat by … detention,” including a prohibition on “the passing of sentences … without previous judgment … by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees … recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.” The D. C. Circuit ruled Common Article 3 inapplicable to Hamdan because the conflict with al Qaeda is international in scope and thus not a “conflict not of an international character. ” That reasoning is erroneous. That the quoted phrase bears its literal meaning and is used here in contradistinction to a conflict between nations is demonstrated by Common Article 2, which limits its own application to any armed conflict between signatories and provides that signatories must abide by all terms of the Conventions even if another party to the conflict is a nonsignatory, so long as the nonsignatory “accepts and applies” those terms. Common Article 3, by contrast, affords some minimal protection, falling short of full protection under the Conventions, to individuals associated with neither a signatory nor even a nonsignatory who are involved in a conflict “in the territory of” a signatory. The latter kind of conflict does not involve a clash between nations (whether signatories or not). Pp. 65-68.

I was going to respond to your "points", but then realized how silly that would be. You either won't read or won't comprehend it anyways, just as I showed you above. The court has ruled in opposition to your arguments. The GC does apply to Hamdan, as found by SCOTUS. They have the authoritative word in this matter, not you.