Congress gives Bush more repressive law
By
Heather Cottin
Published Oct 15, 2006 11:28 PM
George W. Bush, early in his
presidency, said that things would be a lot easier if he were a dictator. With
the complicity of the legislative and judicial branches of government, Bush
could get much closer to his wish.
Only the efforts of the people,
united to defend their rights and to oppose empire, stand in his
way.
Amid little fanfare, on Sept. 27
Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (S3930), which effectively
suspends the writ of habeas corpus for those deemed “enemy
combatants” by the president.
Habeas corpus has been touted as
“the foundation of all human rights legislation since before the Magna
Carta.” The U.S. Supreme Court has said it is “the fundamental
instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless
state action.”
Under S3930,
according to a New York Times editorial of Sept. 28, once a person is designated
an “enemy combatant” he/she is subject “to arrest and
indefinite detention with no hope of appeal.” With the elimination of
habeas corpus, the Times points out, the disappeared “would lose the basic
right to challenge their imprisonment.”
Forever.
The act gives the Bush
administration the authority to decide what does and does not constitute
torture, and allows other governments, allies or puppets of the United States,
to torture and imprison these so-called “enemy combatants” at
will.
Patriot Act on
crack
The Military Commissions Act
subjects U.S. citizens, as well as others, to abuses that were denied to the
government under the USA Patriot Act. This is accomplished by redefining an
“unlawful enemy combatant” as “a person who has engaged in
hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against
the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy
combatant.”
It also says,
“No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider
an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien
detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to
have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such
determination.”
There are already
an unknown number of people “awaiting” in torture cells and prisons
in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and prisons in the United States. The U.S. is
no stranger to repression and torture, as its history from the Indian Wars to
the Philippines to Vietnam to Latin America has
shown.
The British Magna Carta, which
established habeas corpus in 1215, has for centuries been ignored when it served
the state’s agenda. In 1870, Karl Marx wrote of the British
treatment of Irish revolutionaries: “Thousands of people have been
arrested ... without ever having been tried, brought before a judge or court, or
even charged. Not content with depriving them of their liberty, the ...
Government has had them tortured in the most savage way imaginable.” (Karl
Marx, “The English Government and the Fenian Prisoners,”
1870)
Who is at
risk?
How broad will the definition of
“enemy combatant” go? In a speech on Sept. 5, George Bush declared
war on the entire anti-war movement. He said there is “a media
campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their
government,” and that anyone who would say that the war on terror is
causing financial losses and casualties is acting “under the influence of
Bin Laden.”
Bush has only to sign
this bill into law. In the crosshairs now are Arab and Muslim people, but
as the case of attorney Lynne Stewart shows, and raids on immigrants indicate,
it is open season on anyone the government wishes to detain, deport or
prosecute.
Even establishment liberals
are worried. Sen. Patrick Leahy said on Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy
Now” on Sept. 29 that S3930 “removes as many checks and balances as
possible so that any president can basically set the law, determine what laws
they’ll follow and what laws they’ll break and not have anybody be
able to question them on
it.”
Marjorie Cohn,
president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, wrote that the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 “provides the basis for the president to round up
both aliens and U.S. citizens he determines have given material support to
terrorists. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Cheney’s
Halliburton, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold
tens of thousands of undesirables.” (Counterpunch, Sept.
30)
Voting in favor of S3930 were 65
senators, 53 of them Republicans and 12
Democrats.
The New York Times worries
that S3930 is “a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in
American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition
Acts” of 1798.
But people resisted
those laws. Over 200 years ago immigrants and native-born citizens smashed those
acts without intervention or protection of the Congress or the courts.
During the Korean War, the U.S.
Congress declared a State of Emergency that is still on the books. The law has
not been used because of peoples’ resistance movements, beginning with the
civil rights movement.
Laws are only as
strong as the government’s ability to enforce them, which means that
people in motion have the right and the ability to thwart any draconian attempts
to curb their rights.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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