Pre-empting the Bill of Rights

[drfemoe]

May 18, 2004

Pre-empting the Bill of Rights
The Other War, One Year Later
By ELAINE CASSEL
...
The reports of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison should come as no surprise to one who has kept up with the shenanigans of the government whose motto could be, "no law but our own." Indeed, mandates (not mere approval or benign ignorance) for torture in order to gain information (about what has not been made clear) are the direct result of an administration that, quite literally, will trample over any law, no matter how sacred. Geneva Conventions, Bill of Rights, what's the difference? The shocking attempts to minimize such horrors in a country the Bush cronies are supposedly liberating should bring to mind Nazi occupations. Oh, I realize that what Bush is doing in Iraq is a far cry from loading Jews in train cars, but hey, the occupation is in its early stages.

Speaking of loading people in train cars, the Washington Post last week finally reported on imprisonment abroad of thousands of people, American citizens and others, who are being held by the CIA in what is politely known as a "rendition." These "detainees" are in no way protected by any law whatsoever. I have been in touch with one family whose son is imprisoned in Saudi Arabia. He is American citizen, a resident of Virginia, and a student at a Saudi university. Last June, he was seized by Saudi law enforcement as he prepared to come home for the summer. Though the U.S. government denies publicly even knowing that he is there, sources tell me that he was held initially because he "knew" some of the men charged as the Alexandria 11, those notorious Muslim men about to be sentenced for 50 to 100 years for playing paintball, supposedly in preparation for "jihad." The Saudis deny that they have the man. Contacts from him to his family confirm that he is indeed imprisoned there. American lawyers are helpless to do anything for him, and no Saudi lawyer dare even attempt to visit him (so I am told by a Saudi lawyer).
...
What looked like a slam-dunk win for the government's prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui turned sour last week when the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond that handed Alexandria, Virginia prosecutors such a big win (the appellate court overruled U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema who said Moussaoui should either be allowed to question al-Qaeda witnesses or he could not face the death penalty) has called the chief federal prosecutors to a special hearing in Richmond. Seems the prosecutors in the Moussaoui case told the court that they were not involved in interrogating these al-Qaeda witnesses that Moussaoui and his lawyers wanted access to-that's why the court said it was alright that Moussaoui's lawyers could not examine them. Supposedly, the witnesses' "testimony" was gathered by "impartial sources" (as impartial as CIA interrogators who torture people for information can be). But when Moussaoui's lawyers produced evidence that the prosecutors were boasting that they were involved with the witnesses in developing other cases, the 4th Circuit, surely the most faithful handmaidens of Bush, were upset. Ashcroft says that his lawyers "look forward" to clarifying the issue with the judges. Maybe, just maybe, these prosecutors have been court lying one time too many.
...
Looking ahead to the immediate future, the Supreme Court will be handing down opinions within the next month that will determine the future of our liberty-up to a point. For if the Court rules against the administration in the cases dealing with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the American prisoners held without due-process, Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, do you really expect Bush and Rumsfeld to obey a Supreme Court order? I certainly don't. People suggest that a constitutional crisis will result. I don't buy that either. A crisis means people care, people revolt. Did we object when the justices took over the Florida 2000 presidential election and thus put its man in the Oval Office? Oh, there was some ranting and raving but it all died down. If Bush disobeys the Supreme Court, that would be an impeachable offense. But would this Congress impeach? Not hardly.

<snipped>
http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel05182004.html

[teryang]

1. Good essay!

I hope for all our sakes that she is wrong. But odds are that she isn't.

The only place that I differ on her background concerning the lack of meaningful opposition has to do with the Nov. 2000 debacle. I believe that it hadn't died down. It was still a serious problem of legitimacy plaguing a weak regime whose right to rule was questioned. The Supreme Court decision itself was regarded as an implausible veneer for a political coup. The issue was fulminating when it was blown out of existence by 911. Indeed the creation of a new world with a new threat was just the remedy that Machiavelli would have ordered for a Prince who's rule and legitimacy was seriously in question.

The Supreme Court could actually retrieve it's stained reputation, which I considered sullied almost beyond redemption, by rejecting the attempt to strip citizens of civil identity and human rights by attaching the stigma of "illegal combatant suspect" to their name. Placing persons in legal limbo where anything goes is the entree to a government of domination and rule by coercion and terror rather than law. Hannah Arendt noted the pivotal role of civil identity to the foundation of Republics and human rights. A penalty of removal of human rights and civil identity is the undoing of civilization.

I'm hoping that the Supreme Court will see not only the threat to the republic and the world in ratifying the far right's uncivilized and barbaric position, but will also see the opportunity to restore its own credentials as a co-equal branch in a Republic rather than a police state teetering on the edge of fascist rule.

[drfemoe]

3. That's what it comes down to ..

A penalty of removal of human rights and civil identity is the undoing of civilization.

Are we brave enough to be civilized?

Out of Iraq...By Any Means Necessary
If Malcolm Were Alive
By KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY
(A speech delivered at the 14th Annual Malcolm X Day Festival in Greenville SC on May 16th and in Columbia SC on Malcolm X Day, May 19th)

Like Malcolm, I want to speak to you in a straightforward, down to earth way that you can clearly understand.
...
Polls say that 70 percent or so of African Americans oppose the Iraq war. That's the good news.

Black people would have to be out of their minds to accept the government's attempt to define a class of people--terrorists--with absolutely no rights. That is the essence of slavery.
...
Brothers and sisters, there is something that is far, far bigger than the prison scandal. And that is the ugliness and violence at the core of the culture.
...
http://www.counterpunch.org/gray05192004.html

[Catfight]

2. So true...Americans want their MTV, they don't care about Freedom.