There will be a Newshog news briefs collection later today, but in the meantime this one is too important.
The Washington Times today reports that:
Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. (Emphasis is mine)
And they have the incredible nerve to call this looking for "long-term solutions"!
Solutions that would include:
plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.
Prison, nothing. Call it a concentration camp or a gulag, for that is what it is. That is what you call it when you lock up people for the rest of thier lives without any due process of law whatsoever.
Is it possible to overstress how important this matter is? One of the fundementals of any civilised democracy is that someone is innocent until proven guilty. Now, here we have BushCo planning, and proudly crowing about planning, to take this right away from people (who may well be bad people) that they cannot prove are bad people even in a military tribunal set up so that they could try these people without the worrisome constraints of civil law!
If this goes through, then for as long as it exists, America will be unable to say word one about infringement of human rights by other nations, and the American people will have to hang their heads in shame. When Bush said he would export democracy, he didn't tell us he would be exporting it all, leaving none at home.
I know the lefties out there are going to be disgusted by this, but are the right truly such sheep as to let this go by? I challenge the right to speak out in condemnation of this terrible "solution" in full and clear realisation that the only solution more awful would be the final one.
1 comment:
I wouldn't say sheep, NH, more like a different point of view.
Remember, these are the people who read Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity religiously. The source of all of our problems are the evil brown people, and we would all be safer if we just locked them away.
On second thought, I like sheep.
It's kind of like that "hard-liner" phrase you hear conservatives toss around, particularly when they talk about Gonzo. The problem is that the hard-liner approach not only screws over your internation leverage ideologically, it really does start to stir up that kind of atmosphere that makes terrorism so easy to breed. (We had that converstation already).
Politically, neo-cons love this. It's the same kind of sentiment that Hitler stirred up with his anti-semitism back during WWII. You rally the citizens around the falg. GeeDub calls this "political capital." Also, since you're drawing such a hard line on terrorism, Security Mom USA gets to feel safe.
We have to remember one thing, though. I don't think that most of these cats are seriously against human rights. I think both sides of the fence are pretty serious about wanting to combat terrorism (though there is a case to be made for the political benefit of having a constant threat, eh George?), it's just a matter of how to fight it, and this instance is just another step in making sure that the neo-cons get to keep fighting terrorism the way they have been... which is fucked up.
Oh, and by the way, I'm back. If you still want me to guest write for ya, send me an invite, and I'll get started.
Mr. M
lofc.blogspot.com
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