How did things get this bad? The "Military Commissions Act" which passed the Republican-led Congress yesterday is a bigger blow to the Constitution and our core values than any piece of legislation in our 200 year history. It is 100 times worse than Bin Laden's crimes on 9-11.
In a 253 to 168 "party-line" vote, the congress repealed habeas corpus and approved the torturing of prisoners in American custody. It is breathtaking assault on human rights and personal liberty and puts the United States well-outside the community of civilized nations. It will ultimately be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to strike down this "affront to democracy" or let the law stand as is.
If the bill passes the Senate, the administration will be able to arrest whomever it chooses and lock them up indefinitely without due process. Suspects in Bush's war on terror will no longer have the right to challenge the terms of their detention or to even know why they have been incarcerated.
The congressmen who supported this mockery have put their contempt for freedom on full display. They have rescinded the oldest and most treasured principle in American jurisprudence dating back 800 years to the Magna Carta. Habeas corpus is the fundamental protection that the one has from the tyrannical and erratic actions of the state.
The proposed legislation allows the president to apply the moniker of "enemy combatant" to any terror "suspect" taken into US custody and strip him of all his human rights. The president is under no obligation to file charges or provide evidence of guilt. The arrest is completely arbitrary and depends entirely on the discretion (whims?) of the executive. It is a flat rejection of the basic belief that "men are innocent until proven guilty".
Here's what Winston Churchill said about habeas corpus, "The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."
The bill is another example of Bush's lawyerly "hairsplitting" which is aimed at gutting the clearly articulated provisions of the Geneva Conventions so that he can carry out his torture-regime with impunity. There is nothing "vague" about "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment. It is a standard that has never been challenged in its 57 year history. Until now.
According to the Washington Post the bill "would give the executive branch substantial leeway in deciding how to comply with treaty obligations that fall short of 'grave breaches' of the conventions."
Geneva was designed to protect prisoners from physical or psychological harm. It is intentionally broad to prevent any punishment that involves the inflicting of pain on detainees. Bush has turned Geneva on its head in an effort to maximize detainee suffering while complying with the letter of the law. To that end, the administration has said that "the term 'cruel and inhuman' should only apply to techniques resulting in 'severe' physical or mental pain....The abused detainee's symptoms would have to include 'serious and non-transitory mental harm."' (Wa Post)
There's no reason for Bush to pursue this particular track except to expand his personal power and put himself above the law. Injustice only fuels radicalism and undermines the stated goals in the war on terror.
The congress fully understands the implications of their support. They're giving Bush a free pass to torment and abuse as he sees fit while providing him with the legal cover he needs for his "alternative techniques" ("outrages to human dignity") Their vote makes them equally complicit in the inevitable hooding, sense deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, isolation and water-boarding of countless victims of Bush's deplorable war of terror.
Like Lady Macbeth the Congress' avers:
"I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er." (Macbeth 3. 4)
The country is in the advanced stages of moral decay. The Military Commissions Act is not a law at all; it is an expression of Congress' intention to carry out war crimes against defenseless victims in their charge. The men who supported this bill should be held accountable for its inevitable and appalling consequences.
Mike is a freelance writer living in Washington state.
The thing I find most reprehensible about this "law" is that not one single Democratic Senator even considered a filibuster against it. Not one! Not Hillary Clinton, not Ted Kennedy, not Harry Reid, none of them even put up a token bit of resistance to it!
Why not? Were they afraid that the Republicans would paint them as traitors (pots calling kettles black), or say they were being soft on terrorists? Were they afraid they'd lose their comfy chairs in the Senate?
This is such bullshit! Just when I think that our government can sink no lower, they prove me wrong again. This "law" is so wrong, I can't believe that the idea would have received anything more than a laugh, or a pat on DUBYA's head. Now, it's set to become the new law of the land.
The only hope for this one dying is for the Supreme Court to kill it because it is so clearly unconstitutional. However, I am not even going to get my hopes up on that one. Adolf Hitler himself is smiling in the depths of hell tonight.
Blessed be!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments)
on Friday, September 29, 2006 at 2:56:14 AM
Brandeis helped Woodrow Wilson kill our Democracy.
Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court in 1916. He was the most prominent American Zionist of his time. He headed the first Provisional Executive Committee for Zionist Affairs in New York. In this position from 1914 to 1918, Brandeis was the leader of American Zionism working with other Zionist groups to create a new Israel in Palestine. Brandeis brought his influence in the Woodrow Wilson administration in the negotiations leading up to the Balfour Declaration.
Wilson and Truman sold their soul to get re-elected. Wilson promised to privatize the nation's banking system, led the US into WW I after promising not to, and guaranteed WW II after the Versailles treaty.
Truman stayed true to his promise to acknowledge Israel, turned the US into a National Security State with the National Security Act which made congress and the senate irrelevant as the NSA has a line to the President only, and brought in NAZIs through Operation Paperclip to create and perpetuate the Red Scare.
Zionism is not Judaism. It is a militant Rabbinical Talmudic re-interperitation of the Torah that started in the 19th century. The same is similarly true for fundamentalist Christians who are a militant movement and is not based on Christian New Testament theology or it's values. The Islamic Mujahideen of "holy warriors" is an anathema to the primary tenets of the Qur'an.
by
Jim Reinhart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments)
on Friday, September 29, 2006 at 12:46:24 PM
Rabbi Arthur Waskow - on the mark. Why no filibuster?
Comment by Rabbi Arthur Waskow from newsdissector blog
"The vote to strip out the anti-Habeas provision lost 48-51. It would have taken only 41 Senators to filibuster the bill to death - and what bill in the entire history of the Senate more deserved a filibuster?
Years from now, after more people have been tortured, the Supreme Court may follow the clear statement of the Constitution that Habeas Corpus may be suspended only during invasion or insurrection - but judging from previous votes of the present Justices, they may uphold this law by a 5-4 vote.
This law is second in despicability only to the protection explicitly given slavery in the original Constitution of the United States. I am ashamed that to my grandchildren I am bequeathing an America so defiled.
This coming Monday, Jews who are observing Yom Kippur in traditional form will read the stories of ten great rabbis who were tortured to death by the Roman Empire. It is a cautionary tale about all Empires.
by
Jim Reinhart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments)
on Friday, September 29, 2006 at 1:36:11 PM
To me, this question is one that I would really like to have answered. Why is it that Senators such as Kennedy, Clinton, or Reid couldn't find it within themselves to stand on principle? Further, when it appeared as if McCain, and a few other Republicans were taking a dissident stand against the bill, why did none of the affore listed Senators step in to back the only people even trying to show a bit of conscience on the issue? Even further, why is it the ONLY Senators who openly opposed this bill were Republicans in the first place? Where were the voices of Kennedy, Clinton, or Reid?
I'll tell you where they were, they were in hiding. They were SOOOOO afraid they would be painted as weak on terrorists if they made a stand. Ironically, they are definitely weak on terrorists, only the terrorists they were weak on were DUBYA and the rest of his evil empire. Where they could have gained the respect of the America that knows that torture is wrong, no matter what the circumstance, they now have only the revulsion of the portion of America that supported them.
I hope they can sleep at night! I hope they can look themselves in the mirror and not feel waves of nausea. I know I will never look at any of those chicken-shit conformists the same way again.
Blessed be!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments)
on Saturday, September 30, 2006 at 4:08:11 AM
6 comments
How would you rate this?
You must be logged in (if signed up) to do ratings.
It's free to signup! And easy. And takes just a minute or two....
Must Read (
Well Said (
News (
Touching (
Funny (
Supported (
Interesting (
Inspiring (
Valuable (
