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جمعہ 19 ستمبر 2003Friday, September 19, 2003
Abraham's Claim to Mesopotamia
An interesting (funny is probably more like it) case in the DC district court:
Plaintiff “Great Prince Michael” (a.k.a. Michael Craig Clark) brings this action along with a group referred to as the “Inhabitants of the Land” against the United States, President George W. Bush, “Americans currently in the land,” Great Britain, and “British citizens currently in the land,” seeking injunctive relief from American and British occupation of certain lands located in the Middle East. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the defendants are trespassing over lands located west of the Euphrates River and Persian Gulf and east of the Mediterranean Sea and Nile River, thereby violating the plaintiffs’ rights under the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The plaintiffs allege that these lands are entrusted to the care of the plaintiff Great Prince Michael, who claims to be the sole representative of the descendants of Abraham and who allegedly has the responsibility to enforce the biblical covenant given to Abraham to protect lands in question.
The case was obviously dismissed by the court.
Via Begging to Differ.
Posted by Zack at September 19, 2003 7:42 PM in International Affairs
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Comments
Posted by: the talking dog (9 comments) at September 19, 2003 9:09 PM
TD: I say that because the guy is a kook. About the Iraq occupation though, I think I agree with you mostly.
About political questions being decided by courts, the US has sort of a tradition of separation of powers. This usually means they leave political and policy questions to Congress and the executive branch. A number of countries coming from the British tradition don’t have such an explicit separation. Hence, courts do interject themselves into stuff that would be outside the purview here. That is not necessarily bad and can actually help in, for example, PATRIOT Act related stuff. I think there was a discussion about this in the comments on some post of mine by the Head Heeb and others.
Posted by: Zack (1784 comments) at September 21, 2003 4:51 AM
i got lost somewhere after line 2.
Posted by: Bushra (7 comments) at September 21, 2003 4:50 PM
came across your blog. nice work.
Posted by: jalal (11 comments) at September 22, 2003 3:53 AM
jalal: Thanks.
Posted by: Zack (1784 comments) at September 22, 2003 8:15 PM
If you get this please e-mail me infoon Abraham in the bible
Posted by: Jenna (1 comments) at September 24, 2003 9:34 AM
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Why do you say the case was “obviously” dismissed by the District Court? Many seemingly silly cases make their way to Court. In this case, there is an intimation that the American occupation of Iraq is “illegal”; the particular facts of the case sound silly, but the overall concept is not.
Guess what? The occpation pretty much IS illegal! George W, Bush did not seek and did not get a formal declaration of war. Further, with his statement that Saddam didn’t have any 9-11 links, he has admitted that he lied to Congress in order to get the military authorization he had. Strictly speaking, then, the war and continued occupation are… illegal.
Not to say a district court would touch it– its still fundamentally a “political question” for another branch of government, i.e., Congress… but after Bush v. Gore, is ANYTHING strictly speaking beyond the realm of judicial interference?