I have been avoiding writing this post for a couple of days. I haven’t been this depressed since the last U.S. Presidential election, and I had to get away for a few days and not think about it.
I’m still too angry and upset to write about this clearly, but I can quote a whole bunch of other people whose anger hasn’t suppressed their clarity.
Let’s start by establishing what’s upsetting me. You could read the piece at CNN, or this summary, quoting from the Washington Post:
It just keeps getting worse. This morning, esteemed Yale Law professor Bruce Ackerman published this fine essay in the Los Angeles Times. His lead? “Buried in the complex Senate compromise on detainee treatment is a real shocker, reaching far beyond the legal struggles about foreign terrorist suspects in the Guantanamo Bay fortress. The compromise legislation, which is racing toward the White House, authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights.
“This dangerous compromise,” Professor Ackerman continued, “not only authorizes the president to seize and hold terrorists who have fought against our troops ‘during an armed conflict,’ it also allows him to seize anybody who has ‘purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.’ This grants the president enormous power over citizens and legal residents. They can be designated as enemy combatants if they have contributed money to a Middle Eastern charity, and they can be held indefinitely in a military prison.”
I direct you first to the oped page of the New York Times:
Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.
Go read the whole thing. It’s very clear.
If you don’t think this law is a big deal… well, then I think you’re an idiot. But that leads into my whole screed on the apathy of the citizenry, the Orwellian doublespeak of the Roveians, the large percentage of Americans who are ignorant of this law or its importance, and the scary possibility that a large percentage of Americans don’t have a problem with ending habeas corpus, the rule of law, and the idea of checks and balances. And that’s the whole thing I’m still too angry to write about.
Instead, let’s look at what this law could mean:
Imagine that you are a law-abiding, lawful permanent resident. In your spare time, you do charitable fundraising for international relief agencies that lend a hand in disasters. You send money abroad to those in need. You are selective in the charities you support, but you do not discriminate on grounds of religion. Then one day there is a knock on your door. The Government thinks that the Muslim charity you sent money to may be funneling money to terrorists, and it thinks you may be involved. And perhaps an overzealous neighbor who saw a group of Muslims come to your house has reported “suspicious behavior.” You are brought in for questioning.
Initially, you are not too worried. This is America, you are innocent, and you have faith in American justice. You know your rights, and you ask for a lawyer. But no lawyer comes. Once again, since you know your rights, you refuse to answer further questions. Then the interrogators get angry. Then comes solitary confinement, then fierce dogs, then freezing cold that induces hypothermia, then waterboarding, then threats of being sent to a country famous for its torture techniques, then Guantanamo. And then nothing, for years, for decades, for the rest of your life.
That’s Senator Leahy, and he has a lot more to say:
The bill before us would not merely suspend the writ of habeas corpus; it would eliminate it permanently. It would cut off all habeas petitions – not just those founded on relatively technical claims, but also those founded on claims of complete innocence. It would not be limited to enemy combatants in the traditional sense of foreign fighters captured on the battlefield; it would apply to any alien picked up anywhere in the world and suspected of possibly supporting enemies of the United States. We do not need this bill for those truly captured on the battlefield who had taken up arms against the United States. That is why the definition of “enemy combatant” has been so expansively redefined in the dark of night. This bill is designed instead to sweep others into the net and it would not require even an administrative determination that the Government’s suspicions have a reasonable basis. By its plain language, it would deny all access to the courts of any alien “awaiting” a Government determination as to whether the alien is an enemy combatant, a determination that the Government would be free to delay as long as it liked—for years, for decades, for the length of the conflict which is so undefined and may last for decades or more.
That is not speculation. It is not a critic’s characterization of the bill. It is what the bill plainly says, on its face. It is what the Bush-Cheney Administration is demanding.
Go read the rest.
This next quote is going to be a long extract, but you need it all to get the impact. Senator Barack Obama:
I may have only been in this body for a short while, but I am not naive to the political considerations that go along with many of the decisions we make here. I realize that soon, we will adjourn for the fall, and the campaigning will begin in earnest. And there will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be criticized as caring more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans. And I know that the vote before us was specifically designed and timed to add more fuel to that fire.
And yet, while I know all of this, I’m still disappointed. Because what we’re doing here today – a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused – should be bigger than politics. This is serious.
If this was a debate with obvious ideological differences – heartfelt convictions that couldn’t be settled by compromise – I would understand. But it’s not.
All of us – Democrats and Republicans – want to do whatever it takes to track down terrorists and bring them to justice as swiftly as possible. All of us want to give our President every tool necessary to do this. And all of us were willing to do that in this bill. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to the American people.
In the five years that the President’s system of military tribunals has existed, not one terrorist has been tried. Not one has been convicted. And in the end, the Supreme Court of the United found the whole thing unconstitutional, which is why we’re here today.
We could have fixed all of this in a way that allows us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question.
Instead of allowing this President – or any President – to decide what does and does not constitute torture, we could have left the definition up to our own laws and to the Geneva Conventions, as we would have if we passed the bill that the Armed Services committee originally offered.
Instead of detainees arriving at Guantanamo and facing a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that allows them no real chance to prove their innocence with evidence or a lawyer, we could have developed a real military system of justice that would sort out the suspected terrorists from the accidentally accused.
And instead of not just suspending, but eliminating, the right of habeas corpus – the seven century-old right of individuals to challenge the terms of their own detention, we could have given the accused one chance – one single chance – to ask the government why they are being held and what they are being charged with.
But politics won today. Politics won. The Administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.
Again, I encourage you to go read the rest.
Of course, it isn’t only Bush that’s to blame. As Scalzi puts it in his scathing piece:
I simply cannot understand the sort of rank and pervasive incompetence Democrats have to have in order to allow themselves to be politically flummoxed time and again by the least popular and least competent president in modern political history. The Democrats ought to have stepped on this bill’s head and killed it, not only because they could have, but because they should have. Someone should have stood up for the Constitution and for the moral standing of the United States and its practices. Someone should be up there calling Bush what he is: A tiny man so frightened of the terrorist boogyman that he’s willing to shred our moral standing to keep him away, and so dead-eyed hateful of what it means to be American that he can’t find a way to protect this country without urinating on what it is that makes us great. Merely pounding on a podium for C-SPAN is not sufficient to do this. This bill should have been stopped. It wasn’t.
I’m proud to be an American, but I’m tired of being ashamed of my government.
If you’re an American, you should be ashamed of your government. And you should be tired of it. And you should be doing something about it. Something more than complaining in your blog. (Incidentally, if you’re Canadian, and think this sort of thing could never happen here, you aren’t listening to what’s coming out of Harper’s right wing echo chamber.)
That’s a visual created by my pal Alex based on a quote from High Clearing.
The post goes on to talk about why this was the turning point:
My personal domestic politics analyst insisted to me tonight that the Democrats are still going to win one or both houses of Congress this year. I disbelieve her, but even if she is right, all it means is that a Democratic Party that has already ceded the principle that “our security depends on hiding people away and torturing them” will take power. That party will not have the self-confidence or ambition to spend political capital undoing what it allowed this week to be done. That party will be able to provide a nice living for its officials, do a tidy business in fundraising and maybe push marginal tax rates up a point or raise the gas mileage requirements on new cars – in a country whose official policy is that “our security depends on hiding people away and torturing them.” It will not be a party that opposes anything worth opposing. It will not be a party that can sustain majority support for an alternate philosophy of governance. In important ways it will hardly even count as a second party. And that’s the pleasant scenario.
That quote was brought to my attention when it was linked on the Making Light page about this. There are many other cogent commentaries linked from there, not to mention the good stuff that show up in the comments there. One of those comments points to What Waterboarding Looks Like. Remember when the U.S. were the good guys, and torture was reserved for the evil dictators?
In Jeff Ford’s post on this (which also, incidentally has links to even more good commentary) he suggests posting this symbol “if you agree that the passage of the new Torture & Detention Without Trial BILL has seriously undermined American principles”. Well, I agree. I’ll be putting that image in my sidebar, at least until habeas corpus is returned. Futile gesture, but at least I’m not going to let the issue disappear.
In the midst of these discussions and reactions, there’s a scary chilling effect already kicking in:
Consider that language a moment. “Purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States” is in the eye of the beholder, and this administration has proven itself to be astonishingly impatient with criticism of any kind. The broad powers given to Bush by this legislation allow him to capture, indefinitely detain, and refuse a hearing to any American citizen who speaks out against Iraq or any other part of the so-called “War on Terror.”
If you write a letter to the editor attacking Bush, you could be deemed as purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against the United States. If you organize or join a public demonstration against Iraq, or against the administration, the same designation could befall you. One dark-comedy aspect of the legislation is that senators or House members who publicly disagree with Bush, criticize him, or organize investigations into his dealings could be placed under the same designation. In effect, Congress just gave Bush the power to lock them up.
By writing this essay, I could be deemed an “enemy combatant.” It’s that simple, and very soon, it will be the law. I always laughed when people told me to be careful. I’m not laughing anymore.
In case I disappear, remember this. America is an idea, a dream, and that is all.
“In case I disappear.” Did you ever imagine anyone would say that, or even think it, in America? Read the rest of the essay.
Over at A Blog Around The Clock is the closest thing to what I’ve been thinking about public apathy, this time seen through the eyes of someone who’s seen it happen before.
Many of my friends and neighbors believe that “it cannot happen here”. They do not understand that evangelical-chosen candidates will, by whatever means neccessary, win all the primaries and elections in the future. They have no intention of losing ever. If, by some fluke, they lose an election, they have no intention of conceding. They have tasted the power and they are not letting go. Elections are just kabuki now.
Hell, now that they’ve whipped the legislative branch, they’re making sure they neuter the judicial as well. I love the way they keep swinging around the “wartime” term–an endless war that justifies whatever they want. Arggh.
When the time comes to decide who to blame for this, you can point to the representatives who passed it in Congress, but you know they’re doing what they think will get them reelected. And you know who that makes really to blame, right?
3 comments for “Mission Accomplished”