Brad P. Luebbert

Bio: Brad P. Luebbert is an academic researcher from University of Louisville. The author has contributed to research in topics: History of the United States & World War II. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 11 citations.

The laws will fall silent : Ex Parte Quirin, a troubling precedent for military commissions.

Abstract: THE LAWS WILL FALL SILENT: EX PARTE QUIRIN, A TROUBLING PRECEDENT FOR MILITARY COMMISSIONS" BRAD P. LUEBBERT APRIL 13 2010 For over two hundred years a major issue in the history of the United States is the contentious issue of military commissions. Military commissions are not new or specific to the United States, but the United States traces its first military commission to the trial of a British officer, Major John Andre in September 1780. This thesis is about the trial of Nazi saboteurs before a military commission and their battle before the United States Supreme Court. A fight pitting civil liberties and due process versus national security during the time of war and crisis in the United States during World War II that resulted in the Supreme Court's Ex Parte Quirin decision in 1942 which established a dangerous and troubling precedence. The Nazi saboteur case of July 1942 was not a snapshot in time but a precedent that the United States is dealing with at the present time. This thesis demonstrates that a pattern exists concerning civil liberties and national security in the United States. The federal government in times of war and crisis, restrict civil liberties in the name of national security, and only after the crisis passed, do policy makers acknowledge error. Ex parte Quirin is a reminder about the need for balance between rights and liberties in the context of war-time.

The Military Commissions Act, Habeas Corpus, and the Geneva Conventions

Abstract: This essay considers the constitutionality of both the habeas corpus and Geneva Convention provisions in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA). The MCA purports to preclude federal court jurisdiction over habeas corpus applications filed by detainees in the war on terrorism, providing them instead with D.C. Circuit review of their status determinations and military commission judgments. The MCA also has a number of provisions that either restrict judicial application of the Geneva Conventions or purport to interpret those Conventions. With respect to the habeas restriction, the essay concludes that the Supreme Court is likely to find that the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base have a constitutional right of habeas corpus review, and that this right has not been validly suspended by the MCA. Nevertheless, depending on how they are interpreted, the provisions allowing for D.C. Circuit review could suffice to preserve the constitutional right. With respect to the MCA's Geneva Convention provisions, the essay concludes that Congress has the authority to decide that the United States will implement the Conventions through military regulations, congressional oversight of the military, criminal law, and diplomatic relations rather than through private judicial enforcement, and that a fair reading of its intent in enacting the MCA is that it has exercised this authority. In addition, while the provisions in the MCA that set forth particular interpretations of the Geneva Conventions are unlikely to be treated by courts as dispositive, the essay concludes that courts should give substantial deference to Congress's and the Executive's shared interpretation of the Conventions.

Military Tribunals and Presidential Power: American Revolution to the War on Terrorism: Fisher,: Louis Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 279 pp., Publication Date: February 2005

Abstract: mation from liberal to neocon ideologue (George H. Nash); and Commentary’s third generation of neocon thinkers and policy makers (John Ehrman). Ultimately, the underlying burden of the book is to explain two astounding ironies in Commentary’s history: First, how did a magazine, initiated by a cluster of alienated liberal intellectuals on the Left become, decades later, the voice of a neoconservative movement and set of ideas on the intellectual and political Right? Second, how did a supposedly independent Jewish magazine, led essentially by Jewishly illiterate and anti-establishment Jewish intellectuals divorced from Jewish interests and institutions, become launched and sustained by the American Jewish Committee, a pillar of the Jewish communal establishment? And how did this magazine come to represent and vigorously defend core Jewish interests such as Israel, American Jewish rights and opportunities, and the repudiation of anti-Semitism? On these questions, Nathan Abrams’ essay on the beginnings of Commentary and its relationship to the American Jewish Committee, Glazer’s critical participantlobserver memoir on the early years, Wisse’s offering on how Commentary’s defense of Jewish interests in the 1960s adumbrated its subsequent neocon transformation in the 1970s, and Nash’s article rooting Podhoretz’s neoconservative transformation in his reaction to the extreme anti-Americanism of the Left are absolutely pivotal and compelling. In sum, the growing scholarly and memoir literature on American conservatism and neoconservatism has been significantly enhanced by this collection, whose focused attention to Commentary magazine, its public policy impact and intellectual legacy, has resulted in a book accessible to scholars and laypeople alike.

Doing Justice During Wartime: Why Military Tribunals Make Sense

Abstract: In November 13, 2001, President Bush issued a Military Order authorizing the Department of Defense to create military commissions to try non-citizens who are members of al Qaeda or who have attempted or carried out acts of international terrorism. The promulgation of the order was met with overwhelming public support, but with a stream of criticism from civil libertarians and others concerned with the possible dilution of due process standards. The Military Order has also sparked a lively debate among lawyers and pundits in the op-ed columns of America’s newspapers focusing on the legality of the commissions under international law and their actual utility in fighting terrorism. What has unfortunately been missing from this debate is its proper political context. The question is not whether a military commission is a good or bad thing, but whether any adequate mechanism currently exists for prosecuting prisoners who end up in U.S. custody during the new terror war facing America and its allies. The narrow legalistic debate has failed so far to do justice to the magnitude and nature of the threat of terror war and the policy context for the decision to use military commissions. In this broader context, it becomes clear that current domestic and international mechanisms cannot respond effectively to the needs encountered in the current terror war, but that military commissions, properly used, can do so at least for now. In the longer run, the existing Yugoslav tribunal offers substantial promise as an international terrorism court for particular types of cases. But in the meantime, the need for an effective mechanism is acute, and the military commissions provide one.