NY Times Editorial-My comments in red!
Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless (?????) politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe (A disproved assertion because American troops and our diplomatic corps have yet to be accorded Geneva protections in any war or military action since the Geneva Convention was adopted) and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws (Dishonest hyperbole because America has always considered those warring with America to be out of the reach of domestic courts, rather they are subjected to military courts) — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists (Another misrepresentation because the CIA has supported the Newsweek examination of the intelligence gathered from the now famous 14 high level prisoners that gave up critical intelligence through coercive interrogation. In fact, the CIA says and Newsweek's Pulitzer reporter say that 8 attacks in final planning were thwarted). Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser (Democracy is the BIG winner because the people support aggressive interrogation).
Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention (Dishonest representation), had them questioned in ways that will make real trials (Again a lie because real trials for enemy combatants, legal or not are in military courts) very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts (Their less than professional and very bigoted opinion) to convict them.
It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling (It was called by even Democrat experts an overreach for applying Geneva rules to terrorists) striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism. (Democrats are soft on terrorists because they feel that respecting them will change their ways. The lie is that Democrats refuse to say it because they know the people don't support that position)
Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies (Duh!). Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone (Flat out lie) he wants for as long as he wants (Flat out lie) without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions (Flat out lie), to authorize what normal people consider torture (they say less then 8 hours of sleep is torture and so on), and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error (We are back to the excuse that a person in the wrong place at the wrong time that just happens to live with terrorists and murderers are just misguided).
These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:
Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal (Dishonest, there are several avenues of appeal to define illegal combatant). The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted (Lie, because the combatant can appeal his or her definition of illegal combatant to US courts).
The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate (Absolute lie) a half-century of international precedent (Precedent has be fair but now US lawyers say that even female interrogation of a Moslem is torture) by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.
Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment (They can challenge their definition which then puts them into the right court of jurisdiction). These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists (Again an dishonest assertion). They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.
Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals (As America does. Nobody reviews anything but the verdict and if it was fairly asserted). The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly (This is the anti-US-lawyer full employment opportunity by suing under Geneva day and night). All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant (Which is then reviewed by US federal courts) and not have a trial (Also dishonest because illegal combatants don't get trial anywhere until the war is over, or they are executed by past standards).
Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms (Again the myth that Newsweek and the CIA and even my previous article have dispelled. Coercive evidence is often reliable when supported by subsequent evidence. Democrats want any additional evidence to be quashed even though it proves the guilt of the terrorist) — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses (That's American law).
Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence (The New York Times forgets that illegal combatants aren't regular US criminals. They can't get their bigoted terrorist coddling brain around that distinction) .
Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture (Absolute lie because rape is not sexual coercion like stripping a guy).
•There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.
We don’t blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they’ll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler (Which they appear to be anyway). But Americans of the future won’t remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.
They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical (The tyranny is with far left wing bigots) law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.
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