Posted on 11/23/2001 11:25:18 AM PST by Alouette
Is America turning into a banana republic? Mohamed Hakki sees the signs
Shortly after the terrorist attack against the New York Twin Towers on 11 September, many people said nothing would be the same again. But nobody ever thought that Americans' civil liberties and human rights would be subject to interpretation by their own government. On 13 November, US President George W Bush signed an order allowing people accused of terrorism to be tried by a special military commission instead of civilian courts.
White House counsel Albert Gonzales said a military commission could have several advantages over a civilian court. The main argument that the government has used to frighten people into accepting this shrinking of civil rights is that "this is a global war" -- presumably meaning that extreme methods are in order. It is easier to protect the sources and methods of investigators in military proceedings.
Some people, myself included, think that the events of 11 September were a tremendous failure of intelligence, as well as a monumental embarrassment for US law enforcement. That is why US Attorney General John Ashcroft is coming down with a series of unprecedented acts that are eating away at several laws that are supposed to enshrine American citizens civil liberties. The sad thing is that many Americans are suddenly willing to embrace racial profiling; detention without charges; searches without warrants; and even torture and covert assassinations.
First, there was the USA Patriot Act, which in the words of Patricia Williams in The Nation "brought into being an unprecedented merger between the functions of intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Law enforcement agents can now spy on everybody, destabilizing citizens as well as non-citizens."
Williams added: "In recent weeks, student demonstrators, global justice workers, civil libertarians, animals rights and peace activists have been characterized as terrorists sympathizers." What is more frightening is that more than 1,100 people, mostly Arab- Americans -- some of whom may have left their countries because of similar police practices -- have now been arrested and held mostly without disclosure of their identities, their locations or the charges against them.
Civil rights activists say these practices are frighteningly close to the notorious practice of "disappearing" people in Latin America. The Arabic expression "the visitors at dawn without appointment," which refers to similar practices, is obviously not well known in the West. To people who left countries familiar with the pain of the "disappeared," it seems that more evil visitors have crossed oceans and lands to haunt them here and turn America into a Banana Republic, courtesy of Ashcroft and his team.
What is more frightening is the fact that there are very few voices of dissent. Only two prominent organisations are objecting, but their voices are buried on page 17 or 23 in the mainstream media. Amnesty International has denounced the sweeping presidential order on military trials, which bypasses the fundamental principles of international law -- specifically, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by the US in 1992 -- which enshrines the right to a fair trial. Amnesty also points out that Bush's military order is discriminatory, affording foreign nationals a lower standard of justice than US citizens and giving unfettered and unchallenged discretionary power to the executive to decide who will be prosecuted and under what rules.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is worried about even more draconian measures proposed in these right- wing acts. The group is especially concerned about technologies that may be employed to enforce new security measures, which include face-recognition technology, linked to stored photographs of criminals. Such technologies, the UCLA says, could, even if initially targeted at known terrorists, ultimately result in detentions of non- violent offenders such as tax evaders or dead-beat dads. Bus terminals, seaports and train stations could adopt the same technology, "which would turn America into a virtual police state."
The legal community had already made some noises about Ashcroft's authorisation monitoring mail or communications between detainees and their lawyers. This flouts the right -- guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment -- of the privacy allowed lawyer-client relations. None of those 1,100 or more detainees have been convicted of anything and in many cases, they have not even been indicted. Can these mostly foreign-born detainees, who are in dire need of legal representation, talk candidly to a lawyer if they know that the government is listening in?
I was not surprised that writers at the conservative Wall Street Journal have behaved like hypocritical columnists of the Arab world and defended these dubious measures. "Past experience with trying terrorist acts within regular criminal justice system has been unsatisfactory," one article reads, "largely because standards of proof and rules of evidence appropriate to peacetime are ill-suited to effective punishment and deterrence of terrorism." The paper throws the presumption of innocence, the requirement of proof-based reasonable doubt, Miranda rights and privileges against self- incrimination all out the window on the basis of the government's all-encompassing motto: "The country is at war."
But I must confess I was truly surprised at how some of my least favourite columnists -- people with whom I could never agree about anything, especially with regard to the Middle East -- are some of the most vehement critics of these acts. New York Times columnist William Safire called the new acts "dictatorial powers" and warned that the president was "misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney general."
"In his infamous emergency order Bush admits to dismissing the principles of law and the rules of evidence" that form the foundation of America's justice system, Safire notes. He calls the military courts, "kangaroo courts," which can conceal evidence by citing national security, make up their own rules, find a defendant guilty even if a third of the officers disagree and execute an alien with no review by a civilian court.
Not surprisingly, Safire's solution is no more humane. He advocates turning the caves of Bin Laden and his Al-Qa'eda terrorist group into rubble as soon as their whereabouts are revealed: "Our bombers should promptly bid him [Bin Laden] farewell with 15,000-pound daisy-cutters and 5,000-pound rock-penetrates."
Another vocal critic of the new measures in Village Voice writer Nat Hentoff, who describes Ashcroft's latest acts as "another attack on the Bill of Rights" and asks: has Ashcroft read the Constitution? Hentoff says that in Bush's impressive address to the United Nations on 10 November, he said that the law unites people "across cultures and continents." But if international law does not hold in this country, what is the Bush administration's fundamental responsibility to uphold the Constitution?
Our rights are precious and hard fought for by generations of patriots. Why on earth would we grant those rights to non-citizens? What's the point of becomming a citizen if you get all the benefits of citizenship without any kind of committment? These people have consistantly used our laws and our rights in order to obtain the freedom to wipe us out. Are we so stupid that we can't see the difference between those who would become Americans and those who would destroy America?
One can't help but think that the alien terrorists believed that they could commit acts of terrorism against the U.S. forever and they would have "civil rights" to protect them as they brought the country down. Can't you just hear them, "O.J. Simpson murdered his wife and nothing happened to him." "Clintoon sold military secrets to China and nothing happened to him." And on and on and on.
So, ergo, "Nothing will happen to us. If we are caught, we will have a trial and get off. We can kill all the jurors who try to convict us, and nothing will happen to us. If we go to jail, we can plan more attacks through our attorneys. We have civil rights. We can attack the soft, fat underbelly of Western civilization and the civil rights lawyers will defend our right to do so."
Followed by much laughing in the terrorist cells about all the possible attacks with no down side for them.
Because of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. Without it, Constitution colapses, like collateral damage of 911.
Terrorists have been trialed in Federal Courts already (WTC 1993 bombers)
Just look at the timing of the WTC attacks. They struck on Setember 11 one day before the embassy bombers were to be sentenced in court. The federal court where the trial was held is about a block from the WTC. Don't you think that this was also an attempt to intimidate the jury?
How do you expect these guys to be stopped. You don't want to allow law enforcement to use wire taps, you don't want them monitoring the e-mail of suspects, you want the taxpayers to pay for their defense but you don't want those same taxpayers to find out what the defense they are paying for is saying to the criminals they are defending. It's just stupid to do that. They want confidentiality, let them pay for their own defense in the country of their origin.
Good grief, you'd think we are just picking people up off the streets just because we want to. There is a reason these people have been taken in and there's a reason they are being held. There are millions of Muslims and Arab-Americans in this country and they are NOT all being held.
B.S. The Fourteenth Amendment is not part of the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution did quite well before it was enacted.
It has been the basis of all sorts of pernicious mischief, and should be repealed--yesterday.
Among other outrages, it makes anyone born on U.S. soil an instant citizen, enabling the phenomenon of "anchor babies" deposited here by hordes of illegal aliens.
I have long argued that an amendment is needed which replaces the word "person" with "citizen" everywhere in the Constitution, and another that spells out the correct definition of a "native born" citizen--namely that one of your parents must be a citizen in order for you to be considered a citizen. If neither parent is a citizen, you should NOT be a citizen--regardless of where your mother happened to drop you.
--Boris
Why on earth would we grant those rights to non-citizens? Because of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. Without it, Constitution colapses, like collateral damage of 911. Terrorists have been trialed in Federal Courts already (WTC 1993 bombers)WHY????? Well, to quote my good friend Michelle Malkin:
More than $7 million in U.S. taxpayer funds went to lawyers who defended Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Mohamed Sadeek Odeh and Wadih El-Hage. Translation services alone totaled $1.4 million, according to a New York Times report earlier this summer. The paper found that our money even went to reimburse El-Hage's lawyers for the cost of dry cleaning his "thobe, a traditional Arab garment that their client wore in court, and other clothes. The bill ran to $108."
Who are these people our money defended? They are the four murderous thugs who helped orchestrate and carry out the terrorist attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. They killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. They had been obeying Osama bin Laden's "fatwa" to slaughter American soldiers and civilians around the world...
It's sickening to know that these four terrorist killers -- aided in their publicly-funded defense by blame-America-firsters and race-card opportunists -- are alive and well on our soil. It's an outrage to imagine them enjoying three square meals a day. Reading. Relaxing. Praying. Rejoicing for their conspirators around the world. Cursing our country with every unencumbered breath they draw.
It doesn't have to be this way. Nearly six decades ago, America discovered terrorist schemers in the nation's midst and swiftly paid them in kind. In June 1942, two teams of Nazi German terrorists (analogous to bin Laden's "cells") hopped aboard submarines and landed on the shores of Amagansett Beach, Long Island, N.Y., and Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla...One of the eight plotters got cold feet and exposed the Nazi plans. President Roosevelt refused to grant civilian jury trials to the belligerent saboteurs. Instead, he immediately appointed a secret military commission to try the cases. All eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Six were executed on Aug. 8, 1942, in Washington, D.C... Read the full column HERE.
Yes, I have. Had been harrassed and terrorized for it. By the CLINTON INJUSTICE DEPARTMENT. And I STILL say, that Islam is a disguise and a charade and the American Public is being spoonfed the *poor* Muslim routine until it makes me gag even thinking about it. I have nightmares about it. This action is NOT against American Citizens. It is NOT against anyone who doesn't or hasn't had ties to terrorists or terrorist governments who want to destroy us. I can fight for justice for myself. I cannot fight anything if my country is gone.
There is justice and maybe it isn't on this earth in any way we recognize it, but surely there is justice somewhere. We will all have it one day. In the meantime, there is no INJUSTICE that I can feel is unjustified against these people that is worth allowing one evildoer who might murder one, one dozen, one hundred, or one million of us if they got ONE chance. I prefer they NEVER get that chance.
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