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

[Barst]

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In a 253 to 168 “party-line” vote, the congress repealed habeas corpus and approved the torturing of prisoners in American custody.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 They have rescinded the oldest and most treasured principle in American jurisprudence dating back 800 years to the Magna Carta.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....ticle15143.htm

[Barst]

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!