June 07, 2007A Sham Wrapped in A Farce Inside A TravestyGitmo, that is. As the FT editorializes: For five years, the administration of President George W. Bush has sought to weave a cloak of legality to clothe the wrongs it has committed in the “war on terror”. As between "stunning incompetence" and "arrogant disregard for the law", I'm gonna say a good dollop of both. Frankly, not a bad epitaph for much of the Bush 43 years, all told. Posted by Gregory at June 7, 2007 03:26 AMComments
...what, the usual crowd aren't here to scream how the West is in a war for its very survival while a bunch of namby-pamby nitpickers go on about 'rule of law' and 'convictions?' This post has been up for over 12 hours, after all. Roman centurions betrayed by decadent Imperial courtiers while the barbarians stream over the Danube! Hordes of dozens of illiterate farmers descending on us to kill us all and then force us to wear burkas! The unstoppable juggernaut of jihadism, mounting economic and military power equivalent to King Frederick County, Maryland, descending on us, and you quibble about a few words on a government document! Anyone who is not a pie-in-the-sky overeducated elitist understands that every single person in Guantanamo is guilty, trial or not, law or not, and is an existential threat to all of Western civilization! The Constitution is not a suicide pact! They must be held in captivity forever, and it is only our innate civilization that keeps us from executing them out of hand as they so richly deserve, preferably in a slow and painful way. Sorry, Greg, I can't keep a straight enough face for this. "every single person in Guantanamo is guilty.....trial or not". Don't ya just love it. I would argue that if you reviewed Bush's life you would find that he has a stunning disregard for his own incompetence. Posted by: jonst at June 8, 2007 11:57 AM | Permalink to this commentI think the thing I find most discomforting about all of this is the secrecy with which most of it has been attempted. It can be argued, with some justification, that most leaders and most governments will -- in times of real or perceived risk or danger -- push to increase the government's power at the cost of civil liberties (regardless of their then current level). In times past, this has been the case in the U.S. -- with Lincoln during the Civil War, and in a number of other times, not the least of them being the imprisonment of people of Japanese descent during WWII. (American citizens, many of them.) Most of those misadventures were quickly challenged and worked their way through the legal system. Not always with the results a libertarian or legal scholar might appreciate, but they were generally tested and reviewed. With the Bush Administration, there has been an apparent attempt to push the limits and infringe on boundaries in ways that can't be easily observed and, in efect, not easily disussed, debated, or fought. Its as though they KNOW that what they're doing is wrong and they're doing it secretly to avoid being called on their behavior. Not all of the secrecy can be attributed to an operational need... They seem certain that the END justifies the means. That scares me more than terrorist attack. Posted by: Walt S at June 8, 2007 03:23 PM | Permalink to this commentLet see Omar Kadr, a Canadian national of Afghani extraction, fighting for the Taliban (a government recognized by only 3 Looks like Antiquated Tory spoke too soon. By the way, I hope you all caught both Tony Snow and Andrew McCarthy today officially agreeing with Emperor Palpatine's philosophy where detainees are concerned: "All suspects are GUILTY! If they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be suspects, now would they?" http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003417.php http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/06/just_round_them.html Posted by: Bruce Moomaw at June 13, 2007 06:53 AM | Permalink to this comment |
About Belgravia Dispatch
Gregory Djerejian, an international lawyer and business executive, comments intermittently on global politics, finance & diplomacy at this site. The views expressed herein are solely his own and do not represent those of any organization. More About the Author Email the Author Recent Entries
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