I feel that the public does not understand this whole debate on the new Bush anti-terrorism law.
Considering that 43% of the US public cannot even identify the 3 branches of US government (for those who do not know, they are the Executive [President, staff and Departments], Legislative [Congress], and Judicial [Courts]), it seems preposterous to believe that these folks have the slightest understanding of this highly legalese debate over the new anti-terrorist law.
Bush says we need to try these folks using secret evidence because allowing the evidence into court would compromise national security. Come on! Let's have a debate over this. Would it really compromise national security? What have other nations - in particular, Israel - done in similar situations?
Would it be possible to have closed courts, where the evidence was revealed to the defense team in order to plot their defense but not revealed to the general public?
Do we really need to beat confessions out of these guys? Instead of lying and saying that we are not torturing, mistreating and beating detainees when we are, let's have a debate about this.
Do the American sheeple feel that we should be beating, mistreating and torturing detainees, either to get them to confess or to get information out of them? If so, fine, we will become a nation of torturers, but our conscience will be clear. If not, at least the people will have spoken.
But instead of having this perfectly rational debate, as usual, the Administration is lying and saying not only will we not be beating, mistreating and torturing prisoners, but that we have never done so since Bush has been in office.
Do we need to deprive these suspects of lawyers? Let us note the recent appalling case of Lynn Stewart (superbly written up, as usual, by the fine Stephen Lendman), who, no matter what she may have done, certainly is not a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer and did not work to help terrorists. Stewart represented the Blind Egyptian Sheik Abdul Rahman, who was involved in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1994.
She reportedly passed notes from him to his followers, which she claims she never even looked at, that told his followers (The Egyptian Islamic Jihad) to carry out attacks against their enemies. They never acted on his call. It is important to note that imprisoned guerrilla leaders and terrorists typically call on their followers to keep on fighting when they are interviewed. This occurs all over the world.
And it had always been legal for attorneys to release any statements at all from their imprisoned clients, including calls to carry out attacks. Apparently, the Patriot Act suddenly made this illegal. Stewart claimed that she was not really aware of how the law had changed, that is, she was not deliberately defying the law.
Furthermore, Stewart, a radical leftwinger, despises the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Islamic fundamentalists in general. Surely she is not a supporter of this terrorist group, or even a sympathizer of their cause. So the government, in sentencing this poor 67-yr-old woman with breast cancer to 28 months in prison for this nonexistent crime, has committed an outrage.
The despicable government prosecutor dogs tried to sentence her to 30 years in prison for her nonexistent crimes and ranted and raved during the trial about how Stewart was a "terrorist".
What is really going on here is frighteningly obvious. The Bush Administration, in line with all rightwing authoritarian and fascist governments everywhere, is attacking the defense attorneys of those who have taken up arms against the state. This is typical behavior in any dictatorship.
In Peru, under the US-supported dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori, the defense attorneys for the Shining Path suspects were arrested, tortured, beaten and even killed in prison for the mere crime of representing Shining Path guerrillas. No evidence was ever presented proving that these attorneys were actually members of the Shining Path or helped them to carry out attacks in any way.
This usually happens in most states under the conditions of an insurgency, or merely under the auspices of an authoritarian state of the Right or Left.
Along the same lines, several Pentagon defense attorneys who "were too vigorous" in defense of their Guantanamo clients have been refused promotion. In line with the Pentagon's "up or out", policy, this means that they will be forced out of the service. One of these attorneys was voted one of the top attorneys in the US last year.
These defense attorneys were merely following US military policy, which allows those accused under military law the right to a defense attorney who will vigorously work to defend their rights.
What is obviously going on here in both the Stewart and the Pentagon cases is that the US government is persecuting defense attorneys for representing accused terrorists. The purpose is to make it less likely that anyone will want to represent these accused terrorists. As I have noted, this is a classic tactic used by dictatorships.
Once again, let us have a debate about this with the American people. Should those who represent accused terrorists be arrested themselves on phony charges and thrown in prison merely for representing the accused enemies? Should US military lawyers be thrown out of the service merely for representing terrorism suspects?
If the American people say yes, ok, then fine, we have a public that supports dictatorship or at least the tactics of dictatorship. If not, once again, the people will have spoken, and democracy will be given a new lease on life. But we are not having such a debate. Instead, dictatorship is creeping right along and both the vile, despicable US media and the Bush Administration are denying that it is even occurring.
Now, onto Andy's article:
President Bush has signed a new law into power that gives him the right to jail "enemy combatants" without affording them the right to a trial by jury or access to a lawyer.
It might sound like a solid plan at first but when you dig deeper into the motives of this President, it is just plain scary.
The president has recently pushed for journalists who "expose national security" secrets (such as the illegal CIA detention centers, the Abu-Ghraib scandal, torture at Guantanamo, illegal NSA wiretapping of phone calls made outside the U.S. and later records of any phone call made to any person by any American) to be prosecuted.
Among his recent wild cards, he called for a New York Times journalist who won the Peabody award for journalism excellence to be prosecuted.
If you don't believe there is anything to fear, than just wait until you are arrested and not granted right to an attorney and held without bail just for speaking your mind regarding your opinion against the President or the Congress. Wait until the government skews the laws and charges you with treason and put you before a military tribunal without your own attorney with the prosecution using false evidence against you.
If you think the Attorney General is gonna waste his time to stick up for you or your civil rights, think again.
Habeas Corpus
Habeas Corpus is the very foundation of what many American scholars call the "Constitution."But this so-called "Constitution" is frustratingly vague about the right to trial. In fact, there's only one reference to habeas corpus at all, quoting: "The privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
As far as I can tell, there is no rebellion (unless you count the latest poll numbers) and there is no threat of invasion (unless the Democrats are the enemy). And last I checked, neither journalists or Democrats attacked us on September 11th. Al-Qaida did, and they did so in part to change our way of life.
The President said on that evening and in the evenings to follow that changing our way of life would give the terrorists a victory. Well, it seems they have won. And it was not us who did this, it was not the Democrats. It was the President.
This Habeas Corpus is not just pre-September 11th thinking, it is pre- Independence Day. This 13th century document states laws of trial-by-jury, rights to an attorney and the right to a quick and speedy trial.
In fact, an 18th century colonial "declaration" - The Declaration of Independence - states that depriving us of trial by jury was actually considered sufficient cause to start a war of independence based on the then-fashionable idea that "liberty" was an inalienable right.
Habeas Corpus also plays a large part in a rarely-seen document called the "Bill of Rights."
Once more, if you don't think this applies to you, consider who the President deems the enemy.
President Bush stated in his famous "Axis of Evil" speech during the State of the Union that if you are not with us, you're with the enemy, and later declared that if you are against the Iraq war, you are with the enemy.
The President does appear to deem Democrats and those who oppose this war as being hand-in-hand with al-Qaida.
The President has tried to re-assure Americans this bill does not infringe on Habeas Corpus and Congress is quick to point out that this Military Commissions Act does not suspend Habeas Corpus. They are right - it doesn't suspend it - it permanently erases it from U.S. law.
The government has also tried to ease our fears by stating that "These military commissions will provide a fair trial in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them."
Presumed Innocent?
Bush's new law allows for detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain "serious mental and physical trauma" in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and the accused may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.
Access to an attorney?
Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said to the Supreme Court that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.Hearing all the evidence
The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.These words by the President are all lies. All this is just his typical obtuse shorthand of bullying and bullshit.
The only freedom we have left as Americans at this point is to vote for the donkey on November 7th and remove the Republican leadership from office, and in that way, the President will meet opposition in Congress.
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Andy Marquis
International News Connection
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