Terrorists are bad. If you don't believe it, just ask George
W. Bush.
They are so bad, in fact, that just by bringing one of them
before a real judge would put national security at grave risk. The very idea of
giving them the chance to challenge the reason for their imprisonment gives the
administration nightmares and goose bumps. After all, Bush has told us at least
a bazillion times that his greatest responsibility as Supreme Decider is to
"protect the American people from attacks by terrorists".
Never mind that Bush�s rhetoric is dead wrong. The
Constitution itself makes that assertion a lie. According to the document that
George W. Bush was reported to have called "just
a goddamn piece of paper," the president's highest responsibility is
to protect and defend the Constitution. Since he has failed miserably at this,
he has decided to unilaterally change what the Constitution denotes
as his utmost responsibility. Personally, I'd rather be free than to be so
safe that the Constitution no longer applies.
Never mind that the Great Writ has long been considered by
the greatest legal minds as the very foundation upon which our entire system of
law is based. It is widely believed to be the cornerstone of all American
jurisprudence.
Never mind that the Declaration of Independence points out
that every person is endowed with inalienable rights by their Creator.
When pondering on just what national security concerns could
be endangered by a half-hour habeas proceeding before a federal judge, it is
difficult to come up with many. It's not like this is a full-fledged trial of a
specific crime in which operational details of a classified nature would
possibly be disclosed. It is simply a determination of whether or not the
government has enough of a case of wrongdoing to justify the continued
detention of a person until a trial is conducted.
What is the government afraid of? What awesome power is
possessed by these prisoners that they can jeopardize the security of a
superpower by their mere presence in a courtroom?
Is the detainee going to suddenly blurt out the components
necessary to make a suicide bomb? Is he going to disclose the technique of
growing anthrax in your basement? Will he reveal U.S. troop movements to �al-Qaeda�
through secret body language, recorded by a spy with his cell phone?
There is just nothing that fits, nothing that makes sense . .
. except the possible revelation of government sponsored torture and
cruelty suffered by detainees in U.S. custody.
The lame excuse set forth by the administration that
the revelation of torture and specific "enhanced" interrogation
techniques would damage national security by allowing the enemy to train to
resist those techniques is utterly ridiculous. Absurd on its face, this is
nothing but the most juvenile contention Bush and his fellow torture
enthusiasts could come up with to suppress the truth.
In any event, that contention is now moot because detailed
documents describing those techniques have already been released and widely
disseminated. What's more is that the few military commission hearings of
detainee cases in which the detainees revealed details of their torture have
already been widely reported, as reporters and lawyers attending those
proceedings publicized the content of the testimony presented. Therefore, habeas
proceedings do not present any more of a security risk than do military
commissions.
The purported security concerns decried by Bush are
nothing but an anemically thin smokescreen designed entirely to prevent
the disclosure of the widespread use of torture sanctioned at the highest
levels of the government. The only things habeas proceedings
endanger are the continued use of torture on detainees, and the continued
freedom of many administration officials, including George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Don Rumsfeld.
So who's afraid of habeas corpus?
The
depraved administration officials at the highest levels of the American government
who may very well soon find themselves on trial for war crimes. And they damn
well ought to be afraid.