Posted on 06/01/2002 5:54:25 PM PDT by Alan Chapman
With one word, a federal judge has described not only John Ashcroft's handling of the Department of Justice, but also the Bush administration's policy of citing national security as the reason why it's trying to hide the Constitution from Americans.
U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar says Ashcroft's super-secret policies and violation of basic Constitutional guidelines sounds "idiotic."
Yaser Esam Hamdi, 21, an American citizen born in Louisiana but captured in Afghanistan, has been confined at the Norfolk (Va.) Naval Station since April 5. The Justice Department claims that since Hamdi is a captured enemy combatant not only isn't he entitled to legal representation but can be held indefinitely since he hasn't been charged with any crime. "That sounds idiotic, doesn't it?" asks Judge Doumar. Ashcroft also believes it's the government's right to record all lawyer-client communication; Judge Doumar, citing the Constitution and more than two centuries of American legal precedent, disagrees.
In a related case, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler will decide if the government has any Constitutional basis to keep secret the names and charges against those it currently detains as terrorists. Ironically, the Justice Department admits that many of those it's hiding from the public are not terrorist suspects. In numerous actions, Ashcroft and Vice-President Dick Cheney have retreated into their bunkers, arguing that the secrecy and the shredding of Constitutional guidelines are necessary for national security. Cheney himself told the Senate leadership in February that Bush officials would probably defy all attempts to question them about what they knew before and after the Sept. 11 attacks. Both Ashcroft and Cheney have labeled dissent, even by leaders of both major political parties, to be unpatriotic, something that should cause even more fear in Americans than anything that happened Sept. 11.
The Bush administration's quest for secrecy is understandable, considering it was primarily staring at headlights prior to Sept. 11. Newsweek and numerous other publications now report that the Bush administration, probably for political reasons, discounted the Clinton administration's severe and substantial warnings about terrorist activities. Ashcroft himself opposed an FBI proposal to add more counter-terrorism agents. Numerous memos by the CIA, backed by data from foreign intelligence agencies, were shuffled into a bureaucratic limbo by the Bush administration. These are the same leaders who agreed that color-coded days was a brilliant concept are now chomping away at our civil rights.
In the first weeks after the attacks, Americans gave the government wide latitude to seek out and destroy those responsible. The people realized they may have to temporarily yield a few of their own civil rights to gain their permanent security, a reality of life but one that would have shocked and saddened the nation's founders who wrote our keystone documents under terrors we can't even imagine.
John Ashcroft saw the confusion after Sept. 11 as political convenience. Within two months, drafted in secret under a cloak of "national security," Ashcroft had bullied Congress to pass the USA Patriot Act. Most of Congress now admit they didn't read the 342-page document which butts against Constitutional protections of the First (free speech), Fourth (unreasonable searches), Fifth (right against self-incrimination), and Sixth (due process) amendments.
President Bush--in Europe telling our allies that the reason to modernize the military is to make it more modern--has cloaked himself in the fiction of national security to justify a political agenda of secrecy. His popularity rating remains over 60 percent, even though his leading political advisor joyfully proclaims that the events of Sept. 11 should help elect more Republicans in the Fall elections.
What the President and his advisors must understand, yet may not be prepared to admit, is that Americans are giving unprecedented support not because they believe the President is a brilliant war leader but because they believe in the country, and hope that solidarity and increased vigilance will be the fortress against continued attacks upon the nation.
FBI director Robert Mueller, acknowledging numerous problems in America's intelligence-gathering and analysis, and in announcing a massive reorganization of his agency, says the FBI "has been the agency to protect the rights of others."
As long as John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and numerous Bush officials believe the Constitution is nothing more than a scrap of paper to be used to justify a cover-up for their own problems, then anything Mueller says is nothing more than empty rhetoric.
It is important to destroy terrorism. It's just as important we don't destroy the American fabric to do so.
They did. You ducked my earlier question.
Why do you think the checks and balance system became perverted so quickly? It isn't the government system set forth in the constitution, rather it is that the constitution allows matters of truth and morality to become open questions not anchored in divine law. In a governmental system where leaders are chosen by elections, the rulers will reflect the moral values of the people, or those among them that can exert the most pressure on the electoral process. If the moral values decline [and ours indeed have] people find ways to subvert or ignore checks and balances in order to impose the kind of government that they want.
I admire the constitution, but do not pretend that there is anything within it that will gurantee wisdom and morality. It is not holy and is certainly not a cure all for today's problems. Any system is only as good as the people who live under it.
It's also called cutting our own throats.
It's called protecting our interests...
Whose interests? Private industry?
...tell me what our alternatives are, I'm all ears.
Alternatives to what?
It was western research, development, and money that built those refineries, explored and discovered all that oil, invented new methods of withdrawal, and we just handed it over...
The federal government is not the private security firm of overseas private industry. The risks are those of the individuals willing to take the risks. The taxpayers' ought not be liable.
No taxpayers money should have been spent to do the things you listed (even though we both know it was).
What the hell do you call 9/11...
The inevitable result of stupidity, negligence, and incompetence on the part of politicians.
...expulsion from the middle east which would still be dealing in camels, textiles, and hashish if not for western technology and invention...
That's great and everything. But, private industry is capable of marketing goods and services overseas without interference from the federal government.
Name an instance where we targeted a civilian populace to punish a government...
Iraq, Afghanistan, Lyba, and Sudan are countries in which civilians have died as a result of US bombing. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced in Afghanistan as a result of our bombing. Reporters on the scene to observe the aftermath report of body parts all over the place including those of children. Wether or not we targetted civilians is irrelevant. Drunk drivers do not mean to kill anyone but when they do the act is not dismissed as collateral damage simply because it was unintentional.
The draft is unAmerican. It is the moral equivalent of involuntary servitude.
That is exactly the process that has been used by tyrants since time immemorial and was the reason that there is a writ of Habeus Corpus in our legal system. Obviously it is simply being ignored right now.
If you think that current circumstances warrant that, I hope that there is never a future set of circumstances that might cause the powers that be to decide that you need to be in jail, notwithstanding that you have done nothing.
Precedent is all powerful in our legal system and our culture and should not be taken lightly.
NOTE: Not all these detainees are illegal immigrants. Some are resident aliens or other legal persons.
They aren't citizens and they have committed illegalities... They illegally entered the US...
"Dunham argued that Hamdi, as an American citizen, should be treated not as an ``enemy combatant,'' as the government wants, but as an ordinary prisoner.
``Prisoner-of-war cases are not really applicable here because we don't have a war,'' Dunham said.
Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III appeared surprised by Dunham's argument. ``You're saying that despite the fact that this is denominated a war on terrorism, that 3,000 American citizens were killed (in the Sept. 11 attacks), that there's fighting in Afghanistan, this is not a war?'' he asked.
Dunham reiterated that the campaign against terrorism is ``not a declared war.''
LOL- Hey 'Dumbham'- don't lie about the Constitution before the Fourth Circuit!
No, Alan, we've got islamist infiltrators that will gladly do that for us and our stewardesses...
"It's called protecting our interests..." Whose interests? Private industry?
Nice leftist spin, but it also vicariously affects our interests...what do the trucks that deliver food and goods run on. Do you have an engine that runs on banana peels hidden away somewhere?
"...tell me what our alternatives are, I'm all ears. "Alternatives to what?""
Alternatives to oil energy and what democratic and trade-friendly alternatives in the oil rich regions that we can deal with? Was that so hard to figure out?
"It was western research, development, and money that built those refineries, explored and discovered all that oil, invented new methods of withdrawal, and we just handed it over..." The federal government is not the private security firm of overseas private industry. The risks are those of the individuals willing to take the risks. The taxpayers' ought not be liable.
Like I said, when we benefit from it, we'd be stupid not to make it our business...
"What the hell do you call 9/11..." The inevitable result of stupidity, negligence, and incompetence on the part of politicians.
That may be, but it doesn't absolve those who perpetrated that act, and seek to attack our citizens and installations.. "That's great and everything. But, private industry is capable of marketing goods and services overseas without interference from the federal government." That's true most of the time, but we're talking about the Spice here...it's not just rubber chickens or opals or something, it's the lifeblood of our economy and every economy on the planet.
"Name an instance where we targeted a civilian populace to punish a government..." Iraq, Afghanistan, Lyba, and Sudan are countries in which civilians have died as a result of US bombing. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced in Afghanistan as a result of our bombing. Reporters on the scene to observe the aftermath report of body parts all over the place including those of children. Wether or not we targetted civilians is irrelevant. Drunk drivers do not mean to kill anyone but when they do the act is not dismissed as collateral damage simply because it was unintentional. Iraq, Libya, and Sudan are the sole fault of the dictators in these countries who committed transgressions and then sought to slink away. Iraq by attacking Kuwait and not honoring its surrender agreement, Libya by employing terrorists in Berlin and Pan Am Lockerby, Sudan with it's 2nd only to Afghanistan amount of islamist terrorist training camps, where Aidid's men and would be assasins in Egypt and other countries receive training. Afghanistan falls into this category as well...its people may have been caught in the middle between the U.S. and the Taliban regime, but that does not make the U.S. responsible for the deaths because it was retaliating against a direct attack on its soil.
Very true. I see this knee jerk reaction from people way too often. How about they attack the message, not the messenger. Is it perhaps some of what is in the message has Some validity ?
This is supposed to justify what? More government? More spending? Further erosion of liberty? More police powers?
...but it also vicariously affects our interests...what do the trucks that deliver food and goods run on.
As I said before, the federal government isn't the private security firm of overseas private ventures. Trucks that deliver food and goods can run on fuels produced in the US.
Alternatives to oil energy and what democratic and trade-friendly alternatives in the oil rich regions that we can deal with?
We have oil here in the US. The government won't allow it to be drilled. We also have wind, solar, tidal, and nuclear. If we are unable to import oil then private industry can develop alternative sources of energy if they're allowed to do so without interference from government.
Like I said, when we benefit from it, we'd be stupid not to make it our business...
This is supposed to justify what, exactly?
...it doesn't absolve those who perpetrated that act...
I was not attempting to absolve those who perpetrated the acts. I was pointing out that politicians have a history of inciting hatred toward the US through interventionist foreign policy. Sometimes the hatred is so intense that people risk death to get vengeance. If policitians are permitted to continue meddling in the affairs of foreign countries it won't belong before a billion people hate the US. Out of that billion a million could potentially actually act on that hatred.
...we're talking about the Spice here...it's not just rubber chickens or opals or something...it's the lifeblood of our economy and every economy on the planet.
It's time to allow private industry to develop a new lifeblood. Repeal regulations and stop legislating competition out of the market the way California has.
Iraq, Libya, and Sudan are the sole fault of the dictators in these countries who committed transgressions and then sought to slink away.
Unless they directly attack the US we have no business taking sides or meddling in their squabbles.
by attacking Kuwait and not honoring its surrender agreement...
You mean the same Iraq that we armed so it could go to war with Iran? Iran, the country whose leader we helped depose?
Libya by employing terrorists in Berlin and Pan Am Lockerby, Sudan with it's 2nd only to Afghanistan amount of islamist terrorist training camps...
Because a country happens to be the origin of a terrorist is no justification to drop bombs on that country and kill thousands of civilians who had nothing to do with the acts.
During the 1992 Los Angeles riots should the appropriate action have been to fly over the city and drop bombs to stop the rioters? Afterall, people were pillaging, murdering, and razing.
Afghanistan falls into this category as well...
The same Afghanistan to whom we've given hundreds of millions in foreign-aid? The same Afghanistan whose invasion by Russia was partially financed by the US?
...its people may have been caught in the middle between the U.S. and the Taliban regime, but that does not make the U.S. responsible for the deaths because it was retaliating against a direct attack on its soil.
It absolutely makes the US government responsible for everyone of those deaths. No official declaration of war was made and neither were Letters of Marque and Reprisal issued. The bombing was to appease Americans who were screaming for something to be done. Now the infrastructure of Afghanistan lays in ruin, thousands are dead, hundreds of thousands are refugees, and we are no more safe from terrorism.
9/11 was the act of a terrorist organization and not a nation of people. Al Queda terrorists also inhabit Saudia Arabia and Pakistan. Why aren't we dropping bombs on those countries?
The US government was looking for any reason to invade Afghanistan so it could topple its government and replace it with one friendly to international oil intersts. It's been all over the news in the rest of the world but not in the US. Gee, I wonder why that is.
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