I don’t think most people understand what happened yesterday. Our country changed. In many ways, it changed more yesterday than it did on 9/11/06.
On that day 5 years ago, many people lost their lives. But our country’s principle’s were unscathed. Yesterday, Congress passed a bill which sacrificed much of what this country stands for, effectually doing what our enemies (who hate our freedoms, remember?) could never do to us.
I suspect that many in Congress who voted for the Torture Bill (including the 12 Democrats) didn’t know what they were doing and/or were so afraid of being perceived as "soft on terrorism" in an election year that they didn’t care. It’s like 2002 all over again, where voting against the Iraq War would have been perceived as weak (in an election year).
WaPo sums up some of the more disturbing features of the new law:
The bill rejects the right to a speedy trial and limits the traditional right to self-representation by requiring that defendants accept military defense attorneys. Panels of military officers need not reach unanimous agreement to win convictions, except in death penalty cases, and appeals must go through a second military panel before reaching a federal civilian court.
By writing into law for the first time the definition of an "unlawful enemy combatant," the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities. Only foreign nationals among those detainees can be tried by the military commissions, as they are known, and sentenced to decades in jail or put to death.
At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees who the military and the CIA captured before the end of last year. It gives the president a dominant but not exclusive role in setting the rules for future interrogations of terrorism suspects.
Georgetown University law professor Neal Katyal summed it up nicely:
"If you’re an American citizen, you get the Cadillac system of justice. If you’re a foreigner or a green-card holder, you get this beat-up-Chevy version," he said.
Now comes the inevitable question: Why should we care how terrorist detainees are treated?
Well, for one thing, we detain people who are not terrorists. We know this to be true. According to a Defense Department data on the Gitmo detainees:
1. Fifty-five percent (55%) of the detainees are not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies.
2. Only 8% of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40% have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18% are have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban.
3. The Government has detained numerous persons based on mere affiliations with a large number of groups that in fact, are not on the Department of Homeland Security terrorist watchlist. Moreover, the nexus between such a detainee and such organizations varies considerably. Eight percent are detained because they are deemed "fighters for;" 30% considered "members of;" a large majority – 60% — are detained merely because they are "associated with" a group or groups the Government asserts are terrorist organizations. For 2% of the prisoners their nexus to any terrorist group is unidentified.
4. Only 5% of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86% of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody. This 86% of the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.
5. Finally, the population of persons deemed not to be enemy combatants – mostly Uighers – are in fact accused of more serious allegations than a great many persons still deemed to be enemy combatants.
So when people argue "Why should we give rights to terrorists", they need to understand that we’re not necessarily talking about "terrorists". We’re not talking about people have been found guilty of committing acts of terrorism, or even been accused of committing terrorism. Or even accused of anything. That’s why as much as a third of them have been released (after sitting there for years without indictments or trials of any sort).
In fact, many of these detainees are probably innocent. How do they end up in our custody? It’s a scam:
Pakistan’s routine practice of offering rewards running to thousands of dollars for unidentified terror suspects has led to illegal detentions of innocent people, said Claudio Cordone, senior director of research at Amnesty International.
“Bounty hunters – including police officers and local people – have captured individuals of different nationalities, often apparently at random, and sold them into US custody,” he said.
Now, nobody can say for sure how many people being detained by the United States are truly innocent and how many are really, truly, honest-to-God terrorists. For that, we would need — oh what are those things called — trials.
And therein lies the problem with the new law: it basically allows the Bush Administration not to care. Worse than that, it allows the Bush Administration to decide who is an "enemy combatant" (yes, even you could be one) and there is not a damn thing any court can do to overrule it.
There is a guiding principle of this country that everyone has the right to defend themselves, and everyone is innocent until proven guilty. We’ve always taken the position that these rights are not "just for Americans", but for everyone. Read the preamble to the Declaration of Independence lately?
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
When you are found guilty of committing a crime, you lose your liberty. But here’s the thing: you have to found guilty first. This is a founding principle of this country — a principle that we (supposedly) would like to see spread around the world. A principle that we have defended in war after war. Even Nazi war criminals had their day in court.
And we’ve just abandoned it. So how can we take a principled stand against despotism elsewhere, while we sanction it here?
But ultimately, the debate about torture and indefinite detention of detainees doesn’t turn on the issue of what detainees are "entitled" to. It’s about the kind of country we are.
Is this America? Do these pictures (reflecting what America has done to detainees) make you proud of your country?
Because Congress yesterday just said this is "okay" — morally and legally.
We are torturers now. Officially.
So when Senator Mitch McConnell says…
"We are at war against extremists who want to kill our citizens, cripple our economy, and discredit the principles we hold dear–freedom and democracy…"
I want to agree and ask: Then why are you sacrificing those very principles that extremists want to destroy?
When he says…
"This system is exceedingly fair since al-Qaida in no way follows the Geneva Conventions or any other international norm. Al-Qaida respects no law, no authority, no legitimacy but that of its own twisted strain of radical Islam. Al-Qaida grants no procedural rights to Americans they capture."
I want to agree and ask: So how does dragging American to the level of Osama’s cave actually benefit us?