The bottom line is, I think, not a good sign for America. The Court ruled that people can be held indefinitely without charge, but that they have a right to contest their detention.Chris Floyd does it better.
Many articles are calling this a major blow to the Bush Administration. Personally, I think we have gone a very long way down the road to the destruction of our democracy if we call this a victory.
This week, the justices ruled that the unelected strongman they appointed president in December 2000 does not have the unqualified right to arrest people without charges and put them in a dungeon forever -- at least not without allowing his victims to float up briefly in some conveniently undefined judicial "process." Not necessarily "a regular civilian court," mind you -- maybe a military tribunal, the justices suggested helpfully. And the defendants will be presumed guilty unless they can somehow prove themselves innocent -- with only limited, government-monitored contact with their attorneys. But at least the Bushists will have to produce a scrap of paper now and then to justify their body-snatching operations.
Except, of course, for the countless people now being "disappeared" in secret CIA prisons around the world or "rendered" to the rape rooms and torture pits of Bush's foreign tyrant pals. These wretched souls fall entirely outside the scope of the Court's rulings, which apply only to those areas where the United States holds "territorial jurisdiction," such as Guantanamo Bay...
...This runaway murder racket is no secret; Bush himself openly boasted about it in his 2003 State of the Union address. After detailing the number of terrorists he had arrested, he laughingly told Congress that an unspecified number of other "terrorist suspects" -- just suspects -- "were no longer a problem." The assembled statesmen roared their approval. No public official, in Congress or the courts, has ever challenged Bush's breathtaking assertion of life-and-death sway over the entire world.
...And so it's come to this. The American people -- proud heirs of a bold revolutionary spirit now marking the 228th anniversary of its fiery eruption into the world -- have been reduced to thanking the robed Olympians on the U.S. Supreme Court for preserving a few crumbs of the nation's once-vast ancient liberties.
Except, of course, for the countless people now being "disappeared" in secret CIA prisons around the world or "rendered" to the rape rooms and torture pits of Bush's foreign tyrant pals. These wretched souls fall entirely outside the scope of the Court's rulings, which apply only to those areas where the United States holds "territorial jurisdiction," such as Guantanamo Bay...
...This runaway murder racket is no secret; Bush himself openly boasted about it in his 2003 State of the Union address. After detailing the number of terrorists he had arrested, he laughingly told Congress that an unspecified number of other "terrorist suspects" -- just suspects -- "were no longer a problem." The assembled statesmen roared their approval. No public official, in Congress or the courts, has ever challenged Bush's breathtaking assertion of life-and-death sway over the entire world.
...And so it's come to this. The American people -- proud heirs of a bold revolutionary spirit now marking the 228th anniversary of its fiery eruption into the world -- have been reduced to thanking the robed Olympians on the U.S. Supreme Court for preserving a few crumbs of the nation's once-vast ancient liberties.
The rest.
And South Knox Bubba caught the news headlines being switched immediately after coming out with the much more appropriate: Bush Wins Narrow Ruling on Combatants.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated. There may be some delay before your comment is published. It all depends on how much time M has in the day. But please comment!