American Government's Betrayal

The George W. Bush Administration's dismal record on human rights, often as enabled by Congress, has caused inestimable damage to America's prestige around the world these last seven-plus years. And given the needless squandering of America's previously-held hard-won reputation for fairness, due process, and human rights, one can't help but feel infuriated by the massive betrayal of those principles by the American government. What would have seemed impossible just seven years ago - waterboarding, rendition, secret CIA torture camps, indefinite imprisonment without adequate process, warrantless spying on citizens, etc. etc. - is now reality.

As The Sun Editor and Publisher Sy Safransky comments in a 2008 reflection on the nature of the American government’s betrayal, “I wonder: Do I feel betrayed? Not like a groom whose bride backs out of the wedding at the last minute. Not that kind of betrayed. Maybe more like a groom whose bride shows up an hour late because she was entertaining the CEO of Halliburton in her motel room. The room with the waterbed. That kind of betrayed.”

Note the distinction. The first leads to feelings of betrayal, sure - but as the groom, one can rationalize that the bride is acting on principle in making the excruciatingly difficult decision in electing not to go through with the marriage if she is not ready, and if so maybe it's for the best after all. The second, on the other hand, with its callous, cynical disregard and outright mocking of a solemn trust - on a day of high hope and promise, no less – is of a different, more insidious sort altogether. It's just slimy - and that's about how things have gone these last seven years both abroad and at home.

Al Qaeda Plans Worrisome

This business about al Qaeda reinforcing and gaining strength in Pakistan and Afghanistan and planning nuclear attacks in the United States sure is worrisome.... and further reason to be furious with Bush/Cheney & the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight for diverting attention to Iraq in the months following 9/11 to settle Poppy's old scores.

Insisting all the while with their campaign of fear that the War on Terror justifies unprecedented abridgements on human rights and the rule of law, it's now apparent the Gang has been asleep at the switch when it comes to addressing the true threats. By stretching America's military resources so thin and immeasurably damaging its credibility around the world in its vendetta against Saddam, it is supremely ironic that the Gang has in fact made the nation more susceptible to attack.

As I've said before, we wouldn't have believed all of this if we'd made it up seven years ago.... but sadly the Constitution lacks a realistic mechanism in impeachment to mercifully end what has to go down in history as one of the most damaging presidencies in American history.

By: Michael Anthony Lawrence

Canadian Supreme Court Gets it Right in Detainee Case

The Canadian Supreme Court got it right yesterday in its impressive unanimous vote to strike down a security law allowing the Canadian government to indefinitely detain foreign-born terrorism suspects without the opportunity for review or to view evidence, stating “The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process.”

The disappointing truth is that it is impossible to imagine a similarly overwhelming majority of the U.S. Supreme Court today agreeing on such a bedrock principle of basic justice. The scary thing is we may no longer even have a simple majority - we'll have to wait and see how the Court handles the appeal from the Boumediene v. Bush and Odah v. United States cases, where the DC Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week upheld the Military Commissions Act of 2006 stripping the federal courts of authority to hear habeas corpus petitions from prisoners being held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay. The Court's decision last summer in the pre-Military Commission Act Hamdan case, ruling in favor of the Gitmo prisoners on statutory grounds, was only 5-3 (really 5-4 because the opinion reversed the Ct. of Appeals decision that had been written by Roberts when he was on the lower court). Who knows what the Court will do now that it must confront statutory support for what was formerly just an executive interpretation....

There was a time when America took the lead among nations in arguing in favor of human rights and individual liberties. But no more. Today all three branches of American government now concur in denying prisoners basic fundamental rights of habeas corpus and the right to see the evidence against them. Hard to believe.

By: Michael Anthony Lawrence