In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Guantanamo: A monstrous failure of justice
George Bush promised the world that the terrorists would see American justice. Well now that he has kids in jail in Guantanamo with no scheduled court date, heck maybe there won't ever even be a trial.
This isn't American justice. No where close. The President doesn't understand what America means or what America stands for. America is more then a stock purchase plan.
The most powerful democracy is detaining hundreds of suspected foot soldiers of the Taliban in a legal black hole at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where they await trial on capital charges by military tribunals.
Democracies must defend themselves. Democracies are entitled to try officers and soldiers of enemy forces for war crimes. But in times of war, armed conflict or perceived national danger, even liberal democracies adopt measures infringing human rights in ways that are wholly disproportionate to the crisis. One tool at hand is detention without charge or trial. Ill-conceived, rushed legislation is passed granting excessive powers to executive governments which compromise the rights and liberties of individuals beyond the exigencies of the situation. Often the loss of liberty is permanent.
Even in modern times terrible injustices have been perpetrated in the name of security on thousands who had no effective recourse to law. Too often courts of law have denied the writ of the rule of law with only the most perfunctory examination.
In the context of a war on terrorism without any end in prospect, this is a somber scene for human rights. But there is the caution that unchecked abuse of power begets ever greater abuse of power. And judges do have the duty, even in times of crisis, to guard against an unprincipled and exorbitant executive response.
After the horror of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress rushed through the Patriot Act which gave to the executive vast powers to override civil liberties. Congress promptly authorized President George W. Bush to use all necessary force against, inter alia, those responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 to prevent further attacks. On Oct. 7, 2001, the air campaign against Afghanistan began.
On Nov. 13, 2001, the president issued an order providing for the trial by military commissions of persons accused of violations of the laws of war. That order has been repeatedly amended. Since January 2002, about 660 prisoners have been transferred at first to Camp X-Ray and then Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay. The number included children between the ages of 13 and 16 as well as the very elderly. Virtually all the prisoners are foot soldiers of the Taliban. By a blanket presidential decree, all the prisoners have been denied prisoner-of-war status.
How prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been treated we do not know. But what we do know is not reassuring. At Camp Delta the minute cells measure 1.8 meters by 2.4 meters (6 feet by 8 feet). Detainees are held in these cells for up to 24 hours a day. Photographs of prisoners being returned to their cells on stretchers after interrogation have been published. The Red Cross described the camp as principally a center of interrogation rather than detention.
The purpose of holding the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay was and is to put them beyond the rule of law, beyond the protection of any courts, and at the mercy of the victors. The procedural rules do not prohibit the use of force to coerce prisoners to confess. On the contrary, the rules expressly provide that statements made by a prisoner under physical and mental duress are admissible "if the evidence would have value to a reasonable person," i.e. military officers trying enemy soldiers.
Here's what Clark says about Guantanamo (a mp3 file).
Thanks to the folks for the article and bartcop for the Clark quote.
- rob 3:17 PM - [PermaLink] -
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