Today is Thanksgiving, the American holiday, and when we bow our heads over the turkey, many of us will take an extra moment to contemplate our civic good fortune and count the blessings of our American values. There’s been a good deal of talk about American values in the past few months – American values have been defended, American values keep us strong.
American values are under attack, the virulence of which has seldom been seen in our nation’s history. The latest attack was launched by two men on Pennsylvania Avenue, George Bush and John Ashcroft. Military tribunals, secret evidence, eavesdropping on attorney-client conversations, unknown numbers of people hidden in jails – it’s starting to look very banana republic out there, and I don’t mean there’s a sale on black turtlenecks.
Since September 11th, over 1,000 people have been jailed, because they are suspected of being terrorists, or of knowing about terrorists or because their immigration papers are not in order. When the Justice Department is asked exactly how many people are being held and why, or even what their names are, there’s a long explanation about overlapping jurisdictions and lack of a central database. It’s actually a verbatim quote from pages 64 and 65 of the paperback edition of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”
Once in jail, the government may be monitoring conversations between the accused and their attorneys. Papa Doc Ashcroft instituted this policy without bothering to consult Congress or the courts. Abroad, we’re trying to hold together a diverse coalition of nations, at home Mr. Ashcroft can’t be bothered to speak to the U.S. Senate, a body he belonged to less than a year ago. Maybe it’s sour grapes.
Listening to prisoners speak to their lawyers is a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment, and yet Ashcroft goes ahead and does it without any statutory authority or judicial review. It’s as if two-thirds of the government didn’t exist.
Mr. Ashcroft excuses his tyranny by claiming a prisoner might tell his or her lawyer about an upcoming act of terror. I’m neither a terrorist nor a lawyer, but that doesn’t make much sense to me. How am I going to prepare to defend myself against a current charge by telling my lawyer about a whole new crime?
Bad as all that is, it’s trumped by Baby Doc Bush’s announcement that Al Qaeda members captured in the U.S. or elsewhere will be tried by military tribunals, with secret evidence, closed-door proceedings and no chance of appeal. Why stop there? Why not bring in Alberto Fujimori to run the program? He’s looking for work.
In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Bush, this is why everyone hates us. We have one system for us, the Americans – and the whiter and richer you are the better the system works – and another system for everyone else. The system everyone else gets is a kangaroo court, so anyone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan may as well fight to the death, rather than surrender.
What does this mean for American citizens or soldiers who find themselves incarcerated and on trial in a foreign land? Will they have to accept whatever arbitrary justice the host nation chooses to hand out? Remember, what goes around, comes around.
Is our Constitution so weak, does the president have so little faith in it, that he and Mr. Ashcroft feel they must cast it aside in times of crisis? These are the days for which the Constitution was written; this is when we need it most.
Mr. Bush, keeper-in-chief of American values, defended his military tribunals by saying terrorists don’t deserve the protections of the Constitution. That’s the worst thing an American president can say. If there is one central idea to America, it is that everyone, everywhere, deserves the rights embodied in the Constitution. The ideals in the Constitution have to supercede all our crises, all our administrations, all our agendas.
If we want to be thankful for something today, we should be thankful for that document, them tomorrow we should go out and live up to it.
Justice for Just Us
Today is Thanksgiving, the American holiday, and when we bow our heads over the turkey, many of us will take an extra moment to contemplate our civic good fortune and count the blessings of our American values. There’s been a good deal of talk about American values in the past few months – American values have been defended, American values keep us strong.
American values are under attack, the virulence of which has seldom been seen in our nation’s history. The latest attack was launched by two men on Pennsylvania Avenue, George Bush and John Ashcroft. Military tribunals, secret evidence, eavesdropping on attorney-client conversations, unknown numbers of people hidden in jails – it’s starting to look very banana republic out there, and I don’t mean there’s a sale on black turtlenecks.
Since September 11th, over 1,000 people have been jailed, because they are suspected of being terrorists, or of knowing about terrorists or because their immigration papers are not in order. When the Justice Department is asked exactly how many people are being held and why, or even what their names are, there’s a long explanation about overlapping jurisdictions and lack of a central database. It’s actually a verbatim quote from pages 64 and 65 of the paperback edition of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”
Once in jail, the government may be monitoring conversations between the accused and their attorneys. Papa Doc Ashcroft instituted this policy without bothering to consult Congress or the courts. Abroad, we’re trying to hold together a diverse coalition of nations, at home Mr. Ashcroft can’t be bothered to speak to the U.S. Senate, a body he belonged to less than a year ago. Maybe it’s sour grapes.
Listening to prisoners speak to their lawyers is a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment, and yet Ashcroft goes ahead and does it without any statutory authority or judicial review. It’s as if two-thirds of the government didn’t exist.
Mr. Ashcroft excuses his tyranny by claiming a prisoner might tell his or her lawyer about an upcoming act of terror. I’m neither a terrorist nor a lawyer, but that doesn’t make much sense to me. How am I going to prepare to defend myself against a current charge by telling my lawyer about a whole new crime?
Bad as all that is, it’s trumped by Baby Doc Bush’s announcement that Al Qaeda members captured in the U.S. or elsewhere will be tried by military tribunals, with secret evidence, closed-door proceedings and no chance of appeal. Why stop there? Why not bring in Alberto Fujimori to run the program? He’s looking for work.
In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Bush, this is why everyone hates us. We have one system for us, the Americans – and the whiter and richer you are the better the system works – and another system for everyone else. The system everyone else gets is a kangaroo court, so anyone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan may as well fight to the death, rather than surrender.
What does this mean for American citizens or soldiers who find themselves incarcerated and on trial in a foreign land? Will they have to accept whatever arbitrary justice the host nation chooses to hand out? Remember, what goes around, comes around.
Is our Constitution so weak, does the president have so little faith in it, that he and Mr. Ashcroft feel they must cast it aside in times of crisis? These are the days for which the Constitution was written; this is when we need it most.
Mr. Bush, keeper-in-chief of American values, defended his military tribunals by saying terrorists don’t deserve the protections of the Constitution. That’s the worst thing an American president can say. If there is one central idea to America, it is that everyone, everywhere, deserves the rights embodied in the Constitution. The ideals in the Constitution have to supercede all our crises, all our administrations, all our agendas.
If we want to be thankful for something today, we should be thankful for that document, them tomorrow we should go out and live up to it.