April 20, 2006, Cuba Un-Hooding (Junior)
The Pentagon released another list of names of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While the Pentagon insists that of the 558 names, only around 490 or so are still detained there, this list is, evidently, the most comprehensive to date.
The Government's rationale for not releasing the names of those detained by a supposedly free and law-abiding society before (before it was compelled to do so in legal action brought by the Associated Press) was that "we would be giving al Qaeda a heads up" somehow by even revealing the names. That somehow the organization that we are all supposed to be deathly afraid of because of its ruthless competence can't figure out who among its members have missed the last few meetings and should be presumed to be dead or have been captured.
Indeed-- we might be giving A.Q. a heads up that we were actually still a free country that abided by its own laws-- that its efforts to have us destroy ourselves by abandoning the rule of law have not gone nearly as well as they actually have. The purpose of our government's policies in the war on terror have little or nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and everything to do with making the law simply an outcome-driven word game to enable any government to scrap constitutional protections for us all in the name of any "emergency" of its own conjuring.
I learned in high school (and then again in college and law school) that our Constitution, unlike that of most countries, does not have an executive "suspension clause." Even in the direst of emergencies, due process of law (as measured by habeas corpus if nothing else) must go on, and can only be scrapped by Congress in the event of rebellion or invasion if our courts are not open and functioning. At least, we don't have a written suspension clause, anyway.
Until recently, apparently. When a one-off terrorist attack under gravely suspicious circumstances (indicating the grossest of negligence or worse by our own government) somehow justifies that same government taking autocratic powers upon itself. And yet, many, probably most, Americans, are foolish enough to take the words of the President ("these are really bad guys") on their face, permitting the President to hold men (and he holds that this right includes legal residents and citizens) without rights, forever, without subjecting these words to the tests of proof that we would otherwise require to sustain parking tickets.
Our Constitution's protections, like the protections of the Geneva Conventions and every other treaty we have ratified and foolishly thought were the law of our land... are now evidently... quaint... The Constitution became the suicide pact of our republic... when we abandoned it out of misguided fear or political expediency.
Let's just hope that all this isn't irreversible, and that we will be permitted to look back on these events as the national shame that they deserve to be.
Comments
Trouble is, as I'm sure you know (being a lawyer and all), once law enforcement gets powers it has wanted for a long time, it's very loathe to give them up.
Posted by Linkmeister at April 21, 2006 2:57 AM