Rushing Off a Cliff
If Bush is successful in getting his wishes on the “detainee” bill, America will, in many ways, cease to be America.
“Habeas Corpus:
Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to
challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor
coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance
to prove their innocence.”
** Update: Please watch Barack Obama’s speech on the Senate floor to this issue. I personally disagree with his proposal to limit exercise of habeas corpus to only one time, but his overall logic is intact. A loss of the proper procedure in handling those convicted of crimes is one of the worst insults to the Constitution and to the founding ideals of this country. It makes me ashamed to think that there are citizens of this country who agree to such a proposal.
** Update 2: The Columbia Journalism Review discusses why it took so long for the press to begin exposing the wrongful imprisonment and torture that our Administration has been responsible for.
** Update 3: The bill was passed by the Senate with no need to provide for habeas corpus to those accused of terrorism. This essentially lets the government imprison anyone they want without allowing the accused any means to appeal or question their imprisonment.
I don’t see how any American could ever support this. Only a pathetic coward would not give someone accused of a serious crime a fair trial in an open court with a chance to question the lawfulness of their capture and arrest.
September 28th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
It’s bad, man.
September 28th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
interestingly, I was writing about this very thing when i saw your post. so, i don’t mean to poach, but… http://uscrewtape.wordpress.com/2006/09/28/speak-of-the-devil/
September 28th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Why should we give a damn about America anyway? I thought we had gone away from nationalistic identification. Who hardly even cares about the people that live next door anymore? I get their truck when they die though.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
America represented at one point a set of ideals that arose directly from the Enlightenment.
That set of ideals was one of the best products of the human race.
I care nothing for statehood or nations if they assault those ideals.
This isn’t nationalism. It’s the very opposite.
It’s humanism as it was pleaded for by the founders of this country - men and women who put no stock in a state that did not honor those ideals.
September 29th, 2006 at 5:13 am
Obvious Nate was being sarcastic, but I do wonder how much people care about their neighbors. And if they can’t care about the people that live in the same neighborhood with them, and presumably share some of the same demographic categories and maybe even the same ideologies, then I’m not sure they can be compassionate enough to care about what happens to some “bad” people (even if they are “bad” simply because their young and brown-skinned) in another country.
The constant line I hear from my conservative friends and family is, “Why worry about it? If you’re not doing anything wrong, they won’t arrest you or send you to Gitmo.” My principled arguments about freedoms don’t persuade them because (a) they don’t see/choose not to see the slow erosion of civil liberties and (b) they heartily believe in a bright line between “us” and “them” and assume that they will not be counted as a “them” ever. They are very pragmatic.
And why wouldn’t they be? Despite our religious rhetoric, aren’t most Americans pragmatists to the core? Isn’t that why third party candidates in just about any political race get a tiny fraction of votes despite persuasive ideological committments?
In that sense, the damaging turn in American political propaganda was the pragmatic one taken by politicians/judges/lawyers/John Dewey at the beginning of the twentieth century. Then, pragmatism fought conservative ideologies to make way for progressive legislation; now, pragmatism fights progressive ideologies to make way for more conservative legislation.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:08 am
All this ignores the difference between an act of war during wartime and it’s required response, versus a criminal act requiring a police action. Acts of war are not judicial issues, and should not be confused.
The preamble to the constitution specifically states “We the people of the United States”, there’s no hidden little superscript that adds “…and foreign terrorists”.
The US bill of rights specifically applies to the people who recognize certain unalienable rights, it does not wholly apply to those who blatantly reject such ideas, hence why we have prison systems that strip our citizens of their freedoms and why we have the right to wage war in defense of our country and constitution. The constitution is NOT a suicide pact.
Even the Geneva Convention protections only applies to those who recognize and obey it. We have chosen of our own will to extend some of its protections to people who are not protected by the language of the contract, just as we have done in the past (See Japan during WWII and comparative treatment of POWs).
September 29th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Ron, You are no doubt correct in regards to the Geneva Conventions: a country needs to ratify these to have any impact. Terrorists, almost by definition, ignore pacts such as these.
But you are misreading the Constitution if you believe that the Bill of Rights applies only to U.S. citizens. Read in the larger context of the Declaration of Independence and other broad legal manifestoes of the time (a fair context, given that the Framers of the Constitution were by and large the same people who authored the DoI and other political docs of the time), these unalienable rights are granted by God and, therefore, are irrespective of nationality, creed, custom, etc. The language in both these foundational documents makes it clear that they are not positing some temporally-bound political statement. They believed they were making an anthropological claim: It is self-evident that humans deserve to be treated like X. Where ‘X’ equals the ability to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness/property. And in this respect, ‘X’ also equals the right to due process, free speech, etc.
The argument I have heard employed by supporters of the current military-political-industrial complex justifying the current Antiterrorism Bill boils down to a very simple claim. In order to protect the life, liberty, and happiness/property of our citizens, we are willing to sacrifice the liberty, property/happiness, and even the lives of these “others.”
The Constitutional Framers recognized that arguments like this would be made from time to time–we must take from one group to protect/help/enrich another–so they set up the judicial branch to balance the legislative and executive branches to help ensure that the boundaries on “otherness” weren’t so rewritten that they would apply to just about anyone at anytime. Due process by very definition means that we recognize individuals are flawed and might incriminate the innocent. Therefore, we put as many checks to false incrimination as possible (hence habeas corpus).
The important point here is that these guarantees are established upon self-evident statements drawn from a philosophical anthropology that declares that all individual lives have worth. Not just those who are citizens of any given country.
This doesn’t mean that we should just free everyone who is currently held without charge, but we sure ought to submit them to the courts. We are not at war with anyone at present, given that Congress has not declared war on any given country or people group, executive branch comments to the contrary notwithstanding (since the executive branch does not have the Constitutional authority to issue declarations of war). Therefore prisoners are subject to due process under law. Any denial of due process can only be based by a reclassification of their anthropological status, since the Constitution makes it clear that any other reasoning denying an individual due process–i.e., one not based on self-evident arguments–is immaterial.
So if you, and our federal government, are willing to reclassify “enemy combatants” as “not fully human,” then I can buy your argument for suspending habeas corpus.
But if you, or any government, wants to do this, then I suspect not only their reasoning but their status as practitioners and adherents of any given faith wherein the individual must stand before an infinite-personal God (Christianity, Islam, Judaism). The three monotheistic traditions are as clear as our Constitution in according human life a very high value. So a denial of their status as humans would be a denial of our status as Christian, etc.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:27 am
What, exactly, gets that moniker?
September 29th, 2006 at 9:31 am
To this:
“All this ignores the difference between an act of war during wartime and it’s required response, versus a criminal act requiring a police action. Acts of war are not judicial issues, and should not be confused.
The preamble to the constitution specifically states “We the people of the United States”, there’s no hidden little superscript that adds “…and foreign terrorists”.
The US bill of rights specifically applies to the people who recognize certain unalienable rights, it does not wholly apply to those who blatantly reject such ideas, hence why we have prison systems that strip our citizens of their freedoms and why we have the right to wage war in defense of our country and constitution. The constitution is NOT a suicide pact.”
and any other argument that attempts to destroy the legal protections of those accused of a crime.
It looks like we posted at the same time.
Freedom is better than safety.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:38 am
e, I believe we are mostly in agreement here. What I meant, and didn’t want to delve too deeply here, is that those who reject certain unalienable rights (Life, liberty, etc..) either for themselves or others, do not receive such and neither do they deserve them. We do punish criminals in this country within the limits of the law, we take away their liberty, and sometimes their lives. As to the limits of the laws of war, the geneva convention is what covers this. Outside of that, as the saying goes, what’s fair in love and war? Because we uphold the bill of rights, we are willing to extend some rights to illegal POWs (outside the conventions), however because the geneva convention is vague in some definitions, we now enter that zone of which so much debate has been happening recently.
Congress, may not have declared war in the traditional sense, but they have given the executive branch powers to pursue the enemy with full monetary backing and many legal tools in which to pursue this enemy. The reason official declaration isn’t possible is because the enemy we face is not a nation, but an organization and a religious/political movement outside of any nation state.
Ray, I would appreciate some respect in regards to your answers. Poking holes, or basically saying “your wrong” will only get you so far. Please, if you don’t agree with me, explain your position.
Thanks
September 29th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Sorry Ron -
I do have to say that I’m shocked so let me clarify… do you actually agree with the Senate’s decision yesterday?
September 29th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Or let me put it this way:
Ronald Merritt, you are under arrest for associating with terrorists. You have information that we need. Because this is a national security issue, you do not have a right to a civilian attorney. Military counsel will be assigned to you. You will have access to a summary of the evidence against you, provided it is unclassified. However, if such a summary can not be provided, the government may choose to drop the charges. This does not mean you will be released. The President can have you held indefinitely. You do not have a right to trial as outlined in the Constitution because this falls under code xxx.xx. Tell your family goodbye - we don’t know when you will return home. Because of the sensitive nature of this case, we will be required to take you outside the borders of the United States for questioning. We advise you confess to your crimes quickly.
Please, get in the car.
October 1st, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Ron said: “What I meant, and didn’t want to delve too deeply here, is that those who reject certain unalienable rights (Life, liberty, etc..) either for themselves or others, do not receive such and neither do they deserve them. We do punish criminals in this country within the limits of the law, we take away their liberty, and sometimes their lives.”
And this is precisely where we’re not in agreement.
Criminals. Mass murderers. Charlie Manson. Timothy McVeigh, for crying out loud. These people get trials. These people get the opportunity to challenge their charges. These people can have a certain number of appeals and, if the evidence against them is strong enough, they do indeed lose liberty and perhaps life.
David Hicks may be a terrorist. He definitely was caught trying to “defend the Taliban” in 2001. He has been held without trial in Cuba since then. Evidence of torture aside, David Hicks should not still be awaiting a trial in 2006, especially after pleading ‘not guilty.’ He should have been tried and either found guilty or released. Five years becomes a violation of a sickeningly large number of laws. But more than this, it is a violation of the entire spirit of the American Constitution. We fought England in order to prevent things like this from happening to people. Why in the world are we practicing these things? These people were not arrested on board an aircraft carrying bombs. These people were not even a part of the Michigan Militia or the KKK, armed groups that fancy themselves masters of their own domain even if that means standing against the entirety of US policy, law, social convention, etc.
If nothing else, the double standards employed by the government should shock you into reconsidering your position.
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:41 pm
e,
It may be a surprise that I agree with you to an extent that individuals who have been detained should be held on basis of formal allegation that a crime has been committed. Additionally we agree that upon being charged, the individual should be offered a speedy trial. These are the rich benefits that have been historically afforded to civilians and citizens within the domain of the United States.
This is true of the Manson’s, Kazinsky’s, KKK members, Black Panther Party members, Weathermen, OJ Simpson’s etc in our past. This has been true for foreigners on American soil as well. Some of the aforementioned are individuals, some members of militant organizations, and some are not even citizens. I include these groups because some are nearly aligned with the grouping that the terrorists have been assigned to, namely, ‘members of waring military’.
One of the biggest challenges in this ‘war on terror’ is the blurry line between individuals and members of an opposing army. A detainee from military conflict cannot (usually) be released until combat operations have ceased and some form of agreement has been reached between forces. Obviously we don’t want to have to fight the same guy again (like the released German in the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’). But if someone can be determined to be a civilian or a member of a group not deemed an opposing army, then a speedy process applies. Along similar lines, a detainee from war is kept from trial to prevent the public release of information that could be utilized by the opposing army during the combat conflict. An individual/citizen not aligned with a waring army is not as much of an obvious threat while an open source of information in public trial.
I know you know these things. The reason I bring them up is because I feel that many Americans find themselves in disagreement on the handling of detainees as a result of diferent opinions as to the grouping that these detainees belong within. I personally have a hard time making up my mind on this (certainly a good thing). Part of me thinks that we should consider each case based upon its own merits and initially treat each of these as individuals and not as a member of an army. If only terrorists would carry an ID card that designates them as members of “the axis of evil” army… On the other side, I am concerned that if we make these cases open source information that much will be learned by militant organizations dedicated to deliver harm to Americans and peace-loving people worldwide.
I am weary of being exposed to the ‘my side versus your side’ debate approach seen here so often (which I have admitedly been a part of) so I will attempt to make a positive change by asking questions in hope of discovering constructive progress forward (I don’t care to defend either view).
How do we determine which group detainees belong to? What is a practical solution? Is there validity to being at war against an ideology instead of a group defined by geographical bounds? What are the criteria for defining an organized army?
PS. I love the mental capacity of most people on this blog. We are all great complainers (the American way) and should also excersize our talents in constructive problem solving / solution development. I know, I know… it sounds preachy.
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Nate,
Good stuff. I definitely applaud your attempt to make this a constructive rather than merely critical conversation. And I want to emphasize that, especially given my upbringing, I’m almost always going to argue the opposing position. That I come off sounding “liberal” here is likely because some of the voices that comment here are dramatically conservative, sometimes close-mindedly so. But if those voices were close-mindedly liberal, I’d be arguing the other way.
That said, I think you’re right that there is a grand question on the table concerning the nature of the fight we’re in and the status of the individuals who fight it. But I do want to point out that war is always/has always been about ideology, power, status. The addition of “nation” or “ethnic group” or “organized army” to the list of things to fight about and against is really the newcomer to this whole war thing. If you read the speeches made by the Romans, for instance, before conquering new territory, the rhetoric is often (if not always) about the open, civilized society versus the barbaric one. Crusader lingo was the same—on both sides. So none of what is going on right now, at least on the political-social level, is new. The guns might be new, the techniques and groups of terrorists might be new and different, but the questions are essentially not.
Alright, so what? Since the beginning, America has had one aspect that, while not unique, has been especially emphasized in our legal-political system. Namely, we more fear the overaccumulation of power in the hands of a few “untouchables” then we do the unruliness of the masses. It’s how we got France to give us the Statue of Liberty: we took out Europe’s human “garbage” for generations. We did this because we have always stood upon the crazy, left-wing, bleeding heart ideology that people are valuable; and the equally crazy, right-wing idea that government is best when it’s not obviously intruding into every area of a person’s life. Granted there was no dreamy melting pot; life here was very tough for every group of immigrants until they got a foothold and then turned to persecute the newcomers. A stronger central government might have helped matters some. Or maybe not.
I think practically speaking, we’re not that different as a people from how we used to be, but we’ve allowed the central government to garner too much power—simply by our voting practices, or lack thereof. A very American approach, and a very practical one, would be to treat every foreign prisoner the way that we would want our own citizens to be treated: tried carefully and thoroughly and ultimately either punished fairly or allowed to come home freely. This would put the emphasis on the importance of the individual on some par with the interests of a centralized government, which is a very traditionally American thing to do. Yes, a few individuals might be unjustly freed; but historically we as a people have decided that unjust imprisonment, torture, and death is a bigger evil than unjust freedom. In part, this is due to the recognition that the powerful (like the government is powerful) can always change the rules to benefit themselves and hurt the powerless individual whereas the lone individual rarely can do anything to bring down the government.
We love the underdog in this country (that’s why I fear for OSU this season). I think that’s one reason why the legal system was set up the way that it was originally—because we perceived ourselves as a nation of underdogs. I just want to see that same American spirit applied to young Islamic men as it has always been to wealthy WASPs. That’s true whether or not they’re part of any violent organization, army, or otherwise.