You have no more rights if I say so
The Military Tribunals Act strips us of the fundamental right to
challenge why we are being held by the government. Too bad they dropped
Latin from our schools. There are nearly no protests and far too few
objections. No one seems to know what Habeas Corpus means, even though
it has been with us since our country was founded and dating back 700 years.
If you use your computer for more then entertainment, the meaning of
"Habeas Corpus" becomes obvious, just Google it, (before it's censored
out?).
From Wikipedia:
Latin for "you [should] have the body", is the name of a
legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release
from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order
addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee
be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person
is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be released from
custody. The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important
instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state
action.
Keith Olbermann nails it. His comments are well worth viewing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tme2mWjFMsw
Countdown Special Comment: Death of Habeas Corpus: “Your words are lies,
Sir.”
Olbermann: And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the
signing of the Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.
We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived… as people in fear.
And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to
learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.
Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American
legacy. For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is
in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of
exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:
And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment tonight on the signing of the
Military Commissions Act and the loss of Habeas Corpus.
We have lived as if in a trance.
We have lived… as people in fear.
And now — our rights and our freedoms in peril — we slowly awake to
learn that we have been afraid… of the wrong thing.
Therefore, tonight, have we truly become, the inheritors of our American
legacy.
For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in
force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of
exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:
A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims
to protect us from.
We have been here before — and we have been here before led here — by
men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.
We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and
Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives — only to watch him
use those Acts to jail newspaper editors.
American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote,
about America.
We have been here, when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the
Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives — only to watch him
use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he
disparaged as "Hyphenated Americans," most of whom were guilty only of
advocating peace in a time of war.
American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said, about
America.
And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that
Executive Order 9-0-6-6 was necessary to save American lives — only to
watch him use that Order to imprison and pauperize 110-thousand
Americans…
While his man-in-charge…
General DeWitt, told Congress: "It makes no difference whether he is an
American citizen — he is still a Japanese."
American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote
nor said nor did — but for the choices they or their ancestors had made,
about coming to America.
Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most
urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And each, was a betrayal of that for which the President who advocated
them, claimed to be fighting.
Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition
Acts erased.
Many of the very people Wilson silenced, survived him, and…
…one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900-thousand votes… though
his Presidential campaign was conducted entirely… from his jail cell.
And Roosevelt's internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst
blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the
government of the United States, to the citizens of the United States,
whose lives it ruined.
The most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.
In times of fright, we have been, only human.
We have let Roosevelt's "fear of fear itself" overtake us.
We have listened to the little voice inside that has said "the wolf is
at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too
shall pass."
We have accepted, that the only way to stop the terrorists, is to let
the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.
Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets, was
to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.
Or substitute… the Japanese.
Or the Germans.
Or the Socialists.
Or the Anarchists.
Or the Immigrants.
Or the British.
Or the Aliens.
The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And, always, always… wrong.
"With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few:
Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we
do what it takes to defeat that threat?"
Wise words.
And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.
Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.
You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.
Sadly — of course — the distance of history will recognize that the
threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously… was you.
We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed
to Benjamin Franklin that "those who would give up essential liberty to
purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
But even within this history, we have not before codified, the poisoning
of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential
liberties flow.
You, sir, have now befouled that spring.
You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.
You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.
For the most vital… the most urgent… the most inescapable of reasons.
And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has
said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done,
to anything the terrorists have ever done.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has
insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against
our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a
straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories
of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.
We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may
now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens
"Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may
now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and
ship you somewhere - anywhere.
And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteria… ask the newspaper editors
when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was
President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was
President.
And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for
American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you
are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an
undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how
are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you
are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?
This President now has his blank check.
He lied to get it.
He lied as he received it.
Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends
to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?
"These military commissions will provide a fair trial," you told us
yesterday, Mr. Bush. "In which the accused are presumed innocent, have
access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them."
'Presumed innocent,' Mr. Bush?
The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the
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 may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in
their own defense.
'Access to an attorney,' Mr. Bush?
Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and 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,' Mr. Bush?
The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of
classified evidence not made available to the defense.
Your words are lies, Sir.
They are lies, that imperil us all.
"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," …you
told us yesterday… "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of
the end of America."
That terrorist, sir, could only hope.
Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real
or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.
Habeas Corpus? Gone.
The Geneva Conventions? Optional.
The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon,
and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.
These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of
the end of America."
And did it even occur to you once sir — somewhere in amidst those eight
separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors
of 9/11 — that with only a little further shift in this world we now
know — just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our
patriots died —
Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days from
now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President and a
"competent tribunal" of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of
your own hand, to declare the status of "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" for…
and convene a Military Commission to try… not John Walker Lindh, but
George Walker Bush?
For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And doubtless, sir, all of them — as always — wrong.
Joe Scarborough is next.
Good night, and good luck.
posted by ClearlyConfused at 7:47 PM
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