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Unlawful Enemy Combatant in the White House
By John Perry (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: John Perry - Writer
Let's take a look at the definition, as prescribed by the twenty-first century Hitler-in-Chief squatting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:
Military Commissions Act of 2006
Section 948a Definitions
(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT (A) The term 'unlawful enemy combatant' means:
(i) A person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who is part of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or associated forces); or:
(ii) A person who, before, on or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or Secretary of Defense.
Notice that this definition does not specifically exclude American citizens. Of course, Bushies will argue that there are certainly people who hold American citizenship that seek to do us harm. What they're forgetting, however, is that we already have a system of law enforcement and justice to deal with these people.
But George is not concerned with that. His ultimate goal is to label any and all dissenters people who actually recognize that perhaps the most sacred responsibility of American citizenship is to publicly challenge government, especially when it is not acting in our best interests as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers and send us all to Gitmo, or one of the U.S. detention camps being built by a Halliburton subsidiary.
That's right, folks. Dare to speak out in support of liberty and justice for all, dare to remind this government that they derive their power from the consent of the governed (you and me) and that THEY work for US, dare to demand that your government adhere to the Constitution and the rule of law, and George W. Bush could label you as an "enemy combatant" and lock you up forever, or even have you killed at his whim without ever charging you with a crime.
Even if you have never left the country, never associated with or supported the cause of any terrorists in any way whatsoever, and never uttered so much as a single physically threatening word, this pathetic excuse for a president could say you are an enemy of your own country.
He could give you a "trial" with one of his kangaroo military tribunals, with hearsay "evidence" derived from torture, that he could keep you from confronting and disproving simply by labeling it "secret", but he doesn't have to. It's up to him, you see, because he's the "Decider". Sure, the new law "prohibits" torture, but it also grants the president the authority to interpret the Geneva Conventions and determine for himself what constitutes torture and what doesn't.
Interestingly, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 also grants retroactive immunity from prosecution for anyone responsible for the use torture and other war crimes (up to and including this president), the penalty for some of which is no less than death.
It would be more accurate to call it the Retroactive Torture Immunity Act of 2006.
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the main Bush cabal motivation for this not even close to constitutional legislation. They wanted it rammed through Congress with virtually no debate whatsoever, before a midterm election in which they face the very real threat of losing majority control of both the House and Senate, just to keep their own asses off death row.
They probably also figured they could intimidate us with a purposely vague definition of "unlawful enemy combatant" so we would keep our mouths shut, for fear that we might be sent away for speaking out. But one need not fear speaking out in support of our great American values. Real patriots cannot be intimidated. 
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www.johnperryonline.com
John Perry is a morning radio personality in his home state of Connecticut. He started paying closer attention to life inside the Beltway (more...)
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