The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Richmond, VA, ruled that Bush’s whole “enemy combatants” illogic is unconstitutional. That’s obvious to anyone with a lick of wit, but it needed to be said officially, since our current administration seems to have no respect for the rule of law. The court’s decision was clear: “Put simply, the Constitution does not allow the President to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and then detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them ‘enemy combatants,'”
Even Colin Powell gets it: “If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo. Not tomorrow, but this afternoon And I would not let any of those people go. I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system. The concern was, well then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system is all about?”
Indeed. That is exactly what our system is “all about.” It’s all about the rule of law, not rule by fiat. It’s all about representative democracy, not representative fascism. We are a republic, not a monarchy. And long may it be so. A network of religious extremists blew up a very beautiful modernist building in NYC, and, as a result, most of the country went into a state of amnesia, forgetting what we (at least on paper) stand for, giving over unprecidented powers to a charismatic leader, and demonizing anyone who wasn’t along for the ride. Finally, one hopes that perhaps the you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us, ends-justifies-the-means thinking, so popular in the last several years, is finally moving once again toward nuance–toward a state where we might both reasonably protect ourselves and also seek to preserve the things that allow us to think of ourselves as civilized.
In other news, Mike Huckabee is still a jackass: “It’s [Guantanamo] more symbolic than it is a substantive issue because people perceive of mistreatment when in fact there are extraordinary means being taken to make sure these detainees are being given really every consideration.”
Right. Except for the “consideration” of being charged with crimes and given a speedy trial by jury, having access to legal defense, or pretty much anything else you’d expect outside of a gulag. There are no words to describe how stupid this man is.