The following is the text of an email I just sent to a bunch of family and friends.
It's almost a week on from Thanksgiving, but let us all give thanks again, because we live in a country which loves freedom, liberty, and justice for all.
....well, not so fast: take a few moments to read these articles about a little place called Guantanamo Bay. (With all our beloved 1st Amendment rights, there's no way in hell this would have appeared in a mainstream US newspaper. The editors would have been accused of treason, of giving aid and comfort to the enemy: "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.") I came across these (lengthy) articles in the Guardian, a British newspaper.
Part One
Part Two
Part one deals with the physical conditions and talks with some of the very few inmates who have been released. Part two deals with international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the Constitution, and is much, much, much scarier. A sample:
The commissions have the power to impose the heaviest sentences, up to and including death. Unlike the rapists, child abductors and serial killers on capital charges in the US, unlike the Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, cold war Soviet spies or Nazi war criminals, unlike even the shoe bomber Richard Reid, the confessed terrorist and al-Qaida supporter, the hundreds of people locked up in Guantanamo have neither been told why they have been deprived of their liberty for two years, nor when or how they might be released, charged or tried, nor given any opportunity to challenge their status before a tribunal.
It gets worse. The second part of the article also has some choice quotes from Mr. John Ashcroft. (These are long articles, so if you only read one, read the second one.)
Another excerpt:
The first thing that strikes the lay student of military commissions is the enormous power vested in the US deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, who is the commissions' 'appointing authority'. The judges - seven in a capital case - are appointed by Wolfowitz. Any judge can be substituted up to the moment of verdict, by Wolfowitz. The military prosecutors are chosen by Wolfowitz. The suspects they charge, and the charges they make, are determined by Wolfowitz. All defendants are entitled to a military defence lawyer, from a pool chosen by Wolfowitz. The defendants are entitled to hire a civilian lawyer, but they have to pay out of their own funds, and by revealing where the funds are, they risk having them seized on suspicion of their being used for terrorist purposes, on the order of Wolfowitz. Defendants need not lose heart completely if convicted. They can appeal, to a panel of three people, appointed by Wolfowitz. When it has made its recommendation, the panel sends it for a final decision to Wolfowitz.
We have built a prison for over 600 people on a military base in Cuba, meaning it is OUTSIDE THE JURISDICTION OF UNITED STATES COURTS--NO ONE THERE IS COVERED BY THE CONSTITUTION. The President skirted the Geneva Conventions by inventing a designation called "enemy combatants," which has no precedent in international law. The prisoners therefore HAVE NO RIGHTS WHATSOEVER AND ARE THERE ONLY ON THE SAY-SO OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a word for this. It's called a CONCENTRATION CAMP and it's happening RIGHT NOW.
If this hasn't made your blood boil yet, try this link:
(DKos readers have probably already seen this, from TalkLeft.)
There are apparently roughly 140 prisoners being released in the near future. They will never have been charged with anything. At the same time they are going to set up tribunals for the others. These tribunals will have the ability to impose capital punishment.
Now we know how Japanese-Americans were locked up en masse during WWII. Now we know how six million Jews got shipped off. Our leaders have decided that they are above the laws and will do whatever they damn well please, while we slumber. They will destroy freedom in the name of protecting it.
Picture President McCain opening a concentration camp. Picture President Gore doing this. I feel confident in declaring that this is not an American thing to do. I am going to write to several Senators after I finish this email, and I encourage you, if this chills you as much as it chills me, to do the same. I for one simply cannot ignore this and allow this to happen.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.--Benjamin Franklin