Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)

By Molly Ivins


With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.


09/29/06 "TruthDig" -- -- AUSTIN, Texas—Oh dear. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. In Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to “cut and run” on Iraq.

Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. “I just could not believe he would say that to me,” said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?

The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of “technical fixes” that were the point of the putative “compromise.” It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.

This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.

Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The “heart attack” came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had “basically been pulpified,” according to the coroner.

The story of why and how it took the Times so long to print this information is in the current edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. The press in general has been late and slow in reporting torture, so very few Americans have any idea how far it has spread. As is often true in hierarchical, top-down institutions, the orders get passed on in what I call the downward communications exaggeration spiral.

For example, on a newspaper, a top editor may remark casually, “Let’s give the new mayor a chance to see what he can do before we start attacking him.”

This gets passed on as “Don’t touch the mayor unless he really screws up.”

And it ultimately arrives at the reporter level as “We can’t say anything negative about the mayor.”

The version of the detainee bill now in the Senate not only undoes much of the McCain-Warner-Graham work, but it is actually much worse than the administration’s first proposal. In one change, the original compromise language said a suspect had the right to “examine and respond to” all evidence used against him. The three senators said the clause was necessary to avoid secret trials. The bill has now dropped the word “examine” and left only “respond to.”

In another change, a clause said that evidence obtained outside the United States could be admitted in court even if it had been gathered without a search warrant. But the bill now drops the words “outside the United States,” which means prosecutors can ignore American legal standards on warrants.

The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Quick, define “purposefully and materially.” One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.

The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.

As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon “degenerates into a playground for sadists.” But not unbridled sadism—you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving “severe pain” and substituted “serious pain,” which is defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain.”

In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: “The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.”

Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary—these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law.

I’d like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis.


http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15163.htm

__________________
"Never argue with an idiot, they'll just bring you
down to their level and beat you with experience." (c)TB

How did we sink so low in just 6 years?

By Mike Whitney


09/28/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- 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.


http://www.informationclearinghouse...rticle15143.htm

__________________
"Never argue with an idiot, they'll just bring you
down to their level and beat you with experience." (c)TB

HELP!

Saw a tv-coverage of the Patrick-Henry College in the US, just one day after the brusque cancelling of the 'Habeas Corpus' act, indeed 'history' in American legislation...

Combining those two, the 'Light of the Earth' has decided to turn on to a fascist approach to the rest of the world, i.e.: basic human rights are no longer guaranteed to US-detainees, and solely the word of the Lord-President is sufficient to burry human rights as a whole...

From now on, the right to be 'innocent until proven guilty' is past tense in the US and torturing seems a legitimate pratice on behalf of onely one man: 'God's Double On Earth': G.W. Bush... banners and stripes included, Geneva-Convention excluded!

Ergo: US R.I.P...as a far as we knew it: the 'Land of the Free' unfortunately can be considered as from now as a potential follow-up for Nazi-Germany in the late '30's... The refusal of recognition of the Hague-tribune is hereby ultimately confirmed, and it is no more no less the end of the American Constititution... as well as its ally-status with the rest of the 'civilized world'

Could very well be that the famous 'Wir haben es nicht gewusst' after WWII has already found its equal in the beginning of the third millennium: 'We didn't realize...' When torturing is admitted purely under the legitimacy of the flag, then the world is in great pain, if only because of the number of flags in the world...

Just for that reason, it is an outrage that the political staff of God ruling this country seeks to morally 'ground' itself on 'christian premisses'; but the message of Jesus proclaiming a message of love throughout the Gospel has got nothing to do with these new crusaders... Instead, we get blatant blasphemy, not to say: pure stupidity accepted in total uncriticism towards the 'essentials', both in christian as well as in human(itarian) perspective!

Remembering the days in 2000 when the world was confronted with the elections of George - Texas Ranger - Bush as well as Ariel - Sabra & Shatilla - Sharon at almost the same time, my first thoughts back then prooved very right: "Oh no, this means misery for the next ten years!"... and indeed, that's what it was and still is!! Both started claiming being 'the light of the earth', and at the same time, darkness never appeared so dark and most of all: on a global scale...

Hence the wake-up call: in spite of any Patrick-Henry adept ('Christianity is one of the oldest religions' - what a joke!), the truth is not in dogmatics but in veracity! Otherwise said: it is not in 'truth-seeking' bible reading, but more in 'truth-searching' biblical interpretation! We have Marc, Matthew, Luke & John to interpret 'the real thing' in a fourfold way, Al-Qaeda keeps on claiming that Gabriel kept Muhammed's hand in righting the Qo'ran... any further interpretation excluded!

Of course: "The earth is to the Lord, and hence any taxes to the state are to be excluded", is an interpretion as well... only: it obviously stinks because of the smell of greedy self-interest, a case Jesus himself would have made with reference to the Scriptures, starting probably with the 'Golden Calf Episode'...

Until recently, the 'other side of the ocean' seemed very nearby... By now, this very same ocean shows a tremendous gap... although I'm not inclined to proclame that Europe is free of all the forementioned crap, on the contrary! But at least the perversity of a religious-based founding of torturing is presently inconceivable in 'the old countries', although artificially and unnecessary invoked feelings of fear could ultimately produce the very same effect in here!

Conclusion: torturing in the name of freedom is the last thing we need: if we are to 'convince' other nations that democratic principles in combination with historically-gained freedom-rights are really worthwile, then we ought to RESPECT these values ourselves in order to preserve their AND our very own credibility... This is what the biblical story with 'the stave(?) and the splinter' is all about!

This truly sad story will ultimately have the Gospel itself as its main victim! In spite and maybe even because of all zelious 'new' evangelisation-attempts by Patrick-Henry followers!

__________________
"Never argue with an idiot, they'll just bring you
down to their level and beat you with experience." (c)TB