The right-wing version of “morality” never fails to boggle the mind — and it’s thoroughly depressing when the highest court in our country continues to capitulate to their blatant violations of international law and basic human rights norms (not to mention their stomping all over the Constitution).
Onward Bush’s soldiers, torture as ye may, but do it in Guantanamo, and not in the USA.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the habeas corpus plea of a Canadian national, captured in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old, because the possible deprivation of his human rights was not conducted on “U.S. soil.” The court, with three judges dissenting, cited a law passed by the Republican-controlled Congress last year that the fate of Guantanamo prisoners will be determined by secret military tribunals outside the purview of U.S. courts.
There are about 380 prisoners at Guantanamo. A grand total of 10 have been charged with a crime.
Guantanamo is obviously problematic for the international standards it sets, and because Bush officials use it as an excuse to forgo basic U.S. law and deny prisoners their Due Process and general Constitutional rights. But Guantanamo is also embarrassing because it demonstrates a profound lack of faith in our own criminal justice system and our intelligence agencies. If the prisoners being held at Guantanamo are as thoroughly guilty and dangerous as the Bush administration asserts, shouldn’t they be tried for their crimes by a jury of American citizens? Shouldn’t they at least be charged with something? What, exactly, is the problem with our justice system that makes the Bush administration refuse to use it in dealing with supposed terrorists?
Despite all the right-wing flag-humping, Guantanamo strikes me as pretty unpatriotic.