Dirty Dozen

Thanks to the U.S. Senate the President now has the ability to classify anyone as an enemy combatant then detain them without charges for an indefinite period of time, block any judicial review of this process, disallow any challenges by prisoners to their incarceration while subjecting them to torture to obtain coerced evidence which can then be used against them along with other secret evidence to which these prisoners nor their attorneys would ever have access. Sounds as “Fair and Balanced” as Fox News.

Section 9, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

"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."

What is at all difficult to understand about this clause in the U.S. Constitution? There is neither a rebellion nor an invasion threatening the public safety. America has engaged in war before without the need to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus with two infamous exceptions. On both occasions the government was subsequently found to have violated the constitutional rights of the individuals involved.

President Bush has been attempting to secure unrestricted power for the executive since taking office, but this is a scarier proposition than most. According the Michael Ratner, President for the Center for Constitutional Rights, in an article posted at the Nation:

Twice in the past five years the Supreme Court has insisted that habeas
corpus applies to these prisoners and ruled that the Bush Administration
must apply the law. Yet last week Congress buckled in the face of
election-year rhetoric about "terrorism" from the White House and passed
new legislation denying our clients the right to challenge their detentions,
or even to see the evidence against them. While I'm convinced that this
law will not stand in court, we are still facing at least a year of
challenges before it is declared unconstitutional

[snip]…

The Administration has been attempting to use military commissions
for five years and has not yet been able to set up one that complies
with the laws of war or the Constitution. Bush's most recent effort
was struck down by the Supreme Court in June. This legislation is no
better: Coerced evidence is still permitted; a detainee does not get to
see all the evidence against him, and a wide variety of hearsay
evidence can be used.

The President has wanted such sweeping authority since 9/11. He has
been getting it piece by piece. First, with the Authorization to Use Military
Force, he obtained from Congress the right to go after those involved
with 9/11. Then he issued an "executive order" in November 2001 granting
him the authority to detain indefinitely without charges any non-citizen
allegedly involved in terrorism--not just those supposedly connected to 9/11.

Subsequently, he claimed the power as commander in chief to detain anyone,
citizen or not, allegedly involved in terrorism or who might be giving support
to those who attack the United States. The Administration argued that those
so detained could be held forever, never charged and, except for US citizens,
denied habeas corpus. Now Congress has placed its imprimatur on these
fantasies of executive omnipotence--what can only be called the legal
structure of a police state.

The remainder of the legislation passed the Senate by a much greater
margin, 65 to 34, with twelve Democrats backing the entire bill. I was
shocked: It did not need to be this way. The Democrats could have
filibustered the legislation; with only a few days left before recess,
they could have succeeded. Despite their strong vocal arguments against
this legislation, in the end the Democrats caved. It was not a moment to
be proud of.

This is the stuff of Soviet spy novels and the communist oppressions that Reagan and the Republicans claim to have eliminated along with ending the cold war. Even worse is that the Senate has given these powers to a man who is without doubt, the most sadistic person to ever lead this nation. As Governor of Texas, George Bush oversaw the executions of 155 individuals, more than any other elected official in recorded American history! He executed the innocent, the mentally disabled, juveniles, and he violated international law by denying foreign citizens the right to contact their government before they were sentenced to death. As President he re-started federal executions, the first since the 1960's and 2 of 3 were Gulf war veterans.

An example of Bush's compassionate conservatism can be found in an interview with Talk magazine and their one time reporter, Tucker Carlson:

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca
Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand
clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them,"
he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question
ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for
it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real
difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

To the 155 souls executed at his order, we can now add almost 3000 American service men and women and over 20,000 wounded or injured, plus as many as 655,000 Iraqi citizens. In fact, George Bush has managed to kill more Americans and innocent Iraqi citizens than the total number of people killed by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein combined.

What reason can be offered by the U.S. Senators who voted for the Military Commission Act which effectively abolished the writ of habeas corpus? What mitigating factors will they offer for having destroyed the very cornerstone of our democracy and the rule of law? Whose agenda were they enabling by emasculating the legal principle that has prevented the use of unwarranted arrests to eliminate opponents and silence critics?

There are no acceptable reasons for any Senator to have voted for this bill while claiming to support democracy. Of course, Republicans no longer support either a republic or a democracy as they have all cast their lot with Bush’s Neoconservative administration which has been instituting Fascism in place of our representative form of government since 2001.

The Democratic Senators (listed below) who voted for this bill are reprehensible and not deserving of our future support. Although it is imperative for Democrats to take back the House and Senate if the country is to survive as a democracy, these Senators must be held accountable for their disloyalty to the Nation’s principles and their Party’s tenets. Their re-elections should be challenged from within the Party by honorable candidates who understand the damage these Senators have committed to the U.S. Constitution. They are:


Carper (Del.)

Johnson (S.D.)

Landrieu (La.)

Lautenberg (N.J.)

Lieberman (Conn.)

Menendez (N.J)

Nelson (Fla.)

Nelson (Neb.)

Pryor (Ark.)

Rockefeller (W. Va.)

Salazar (Co.)

Stabenow (Mich.)