When Hillary
Clinton said that her husband Bill was the target of �a vast right-wing
conspiracy,� her critics just laughed at her. No one is laughing now.
This week,
President Bush will sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law. The new
legislation will repeal the central tenets of the U.S. Constitution which
require the state to charge a man with a crime before putting him in jail, as
well as the 8th amendment�s prohibition of �cruel and unusual� punishment. The
law will allow Bush to imprison anyone he chooses and abuse them as he sees
fit. It places Bush above the law, our first American monarch.
The march toward
tyranny has been calculated and relentless. Hillary was right; it is a
conspiracy. Prominent right-wing organizations have worked tirelessly to push
the country toward authoritarian government and they are very close to
succeeding. The alphabet soup of conservative think tanks and foundations have
strategically aligned themselves with the major players in the corporate, media
and banking establishments and removed most of the obstacles to absolute power.
The Military Commissions Act just adds the final touches by eliminating habeas
corpus.
The new law is
designed to deprive terror suspects of internationally recognized human rights.
It tiptoes around the Geneva Conventions and permits Bush to use his
own judgment as to the precise meaning of �cruel, inhuman and
degrading� treatment. It reinforces Bush�s interpretation of �enemy combatant,�
which now includes anyone who �has purposely and materially supported
hostilities against the United States.� By this definition, Bush is free to
imprison American citizens who may merely disagree with his analysis of the war
on terror. For example, Bush recently attacked his critics for reiterating the
findings of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that states that the war
in Iraq is creating more terrorists. The document draws the obvious conclusion
that Iraq has become a �recruiting sergeant� for violent jihad. Bush lashed out
at his detractors saying that they had �selectively quoted� the NIE and were
�buying into the enemy�s propaganda.� The question is: Can a citizen be
arrested for �materially supporting hostilities against the United States� by
professing belief in the conclusions of the NIE if the president says that it
is �propaganda�?
Can that be
construed as �aiding the enemy�?
Bruce Ackerman
clarifies this point in an article
in last week�s LA Times. He says the new legislation �authorizes the
president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have
never left the United States. And, once thrown into military prison, they
cannot expect a trial by their peers or any of the other normal protections of
the Bill of Rights.�
Bush�s sweeping new
powers have been carefully withheld from public scrutiny. In fact, in the
nearly 800 articles which appeared on Google News, not one of them indicated in
their headline that the new law repeals habeas corpus (although many articles
on liberal web sites refer to habeas corpus in to the title) The vast
majority of mainstream articles appear under the rubric of �Detainee Treatment
Laws,� which is deliberately misleading and intended to minimize the grave
effect the law will have on our constitutional form of government. Again, the
media have shown themselves to be steadfast allies to their friends in power
and enemies to basic principles of democracy.
The new bill also
allows secret or coerced evidence to be used in military tribunals against
terror suspects and provides legal immunity for military and CIA agents who
engaged in torture before the end of 2005. (Despite the fact that retroactive
law has no legal foundation)
The Military
Commissions Act is the culmination of six years of vigorous attacks on the Bill
of Rights. From the very beginning, administration attorneys have set about to
dismantle the basic protections which limit presidential power. This has
resulted in a long list of systematic violations to international law,
including secret detentions, disappearances, torture, humiliating treatment,
indefinite detention without charge, and criminal rendition. All of
these activities are transparently illegal and beyond any
conventional sense of human decency.
The pattern is
unmistakable; the administration is contemptuous of our laws and will not
respect any restrictions on the power of the executive. All of this is
preparation for the New World Order and the end of American
democracy.
The far-right
fanatics in the administration correctly focussed on habeas corpus as
the cornerstone of the American judicial system. If the president has the
statutory authority to incarcerate citizens or non-citizens without filing
charges the rest of the Bill of Rights is irrelevant. This is the primary lever
of tyrannical rule and it explains why Bush has tried to undo habeas
corpus since the arrest of Jose Padilla (American citizen) in May 2002. The
government kept Padilla in a military brig for three and a half years without
charging him with a crime in an obvious attempt to savage habeas corpus and allow
the president to decide who is entitled to �inalienable rights� and who is not.
Under the new legislation, �inalienable rights� will be reduced to
"provisional gifts" from the president that can be arbitrarily
rescinded by executive edict.
When Bush signs The
Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law, America, as we know it, will cease
to exist. The fundamental safeguards of due process, judicial review and
the presumption of innocence will no longer be guaranteed. The heart and soul
of the constitution will be eviscerated, leaving us exposed to the erratic and
aggressive behavior of the state. Traditionally, the state has always been the
greatest threat to personal liberty. We expect that same rule will apply here
as well.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.