I hate playing whack-a-mole

[pecunium]

Obama is acting like Bush

The summary is this: The Administration just won a court case in which they argued that prisoners in Bagram, Afghanistan, had no right to make habeas corpus petitions, because they were in Afhganistan, and so outside our jurisdiction.

This is, to be blunt, a facile lie. Yes, they are in Afghanistan, but they are in our custody.

Lindsey Graham said, at the time of the second post, that we needed to restrict them because the claims were "clogging the courts." Which was as much nonsense as his comment on this case, "“There is a reason we have never allowed enemy prisoners detained overseas in an active war zone to sue in federal court for their release. It simply makes no sense and would be the ultimate act of turning the war into a crime.”

No, Senator, the reason we don't do that for enemy prisoners is that they are prisoners of war, and they aren't entitled to it. They also don't need it, because they have a slew of (important, and justifiable) rights.

But we didn't say these people were POWs, we said they were criminals. More to the point, these weren't captured on the battlefield. No, they were arrested in a completely different country and then shipped to Bagram. Why? Because this Administration chose to continue the policies of the previous one, we now have (barring a Supreme Court which reverses the Appeals court... iffy, even if Kagan isn't appointed, or recuses herself because she argued for this case, because one of the justices who made the decision affirming the habeas rights of prisoners at Gitmo was Stevens, and a 4-4 split would leave the lower court's ruling as is) a gov't with the ability to arrest anyone they like, and send them to Bagram, where they have no rights.

It's possible this might be absolute (the ruling is vague on how broad the class of people being stripped of their rights is), and the gov't could, in fact, apply this tactic to anyone, you, me, anyone.

Just grab them as a "terrorist" and ship them to Bagram, where all those pesky little guarantees of freedom, just evaporate. In short, we have no rights, just stirring platitudes which assure us that "America Stands for Freedom"™.

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yes. looking at it in a purely personal light: I now live -- with considerable sadness and bitterness -- in one of those countries where a large majority of the populace supports (to the extent that there is no other viable option in our elections) the concept that the individuals who are our Government are considered to have a right to set aside the provisions & ideals of those Basic Laws which (once, or supposedly) guaranteed so many human Freedoms and Rights.

It's not that we've always observed those Laws & Ideals, either in the Letter or the Spirit, but during most of my (81+ years) lifetime they've been held up as our Noble Ideal. It's difficult to accept the loss of something like that, and I think we've seriously (and unnecessarily) diminished ourselves.

[madfilkentist]

What does Graham even mean by a "war zone." It needs to be said over and over: Congress has the sole legal authority to declare war, and it has not done so. Congress can stand by as the administration breaks the law, but it can't use its standing by as the justification.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

"Free-dohm. [...] That is a worship word. Yang worship. You will not speak it." Seems to have lost most of its actual meaning lately.

Obama's America. New! Improved! Now with more Freedom™!

I still think he's better than the alternative would have been... but I'm very disappointed. I didn't expect that everything would get better, and I didn't expect that the changes would occur instantly, but on too many crucial points, I'm not seeing any change at all.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

It does feel like whack-a-mole. It kind of seems like changing administrations improved few issued, just made the information about them more scattered, fragmented and obscured by jargon.

My feeling about this is threefold: 1. the press was far more able to focus on the issues when guided by brazenly draconian administration; 2. Bush ideologues were aggressive about giving their supporters jobs at all levels, rooting policy deep in the governing infrastructure where it is harder to undo; 3. the Obama administration is clearly more conservative, reactive and/or passive than they seem.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

The Reagan-Bush Administration(s) savaged the Constitution and the Republic. the Clinton Administration entrenched the changes.
Repeat.
The "Republicans" advance and take new ground in the conquest of the Constitution, then the "Democrats" solidify the occupation.

It was a good Republic for a lot of people while it lasted.

[izzydesan.livejournal.com]

What esteem I had for this administration took an exceedingly large slip when I heard that Obama was seriously considering doing away with or postponing the mirandizing of suspected terrorists (a term which I still feel is all too nebulous and far too overused). This just takes it even lower. I am very frightened of the road down which we are heading. To watch so many rights slip away in such a short span of history is incredibly scary.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I thought you were going to comment on Obama is to Deepwater as Bush is to Katrina, but you meant Afghanistan. Yeah, there too.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

It's a spurious argument, IMO.

If they're being held where U.S. law is enforced (UCMJ) then ipso facto they have rights under U.S. law.

If one wishes otherwise, one needs a place that is not regarded as U.S. in which to hold them. Forex, a pit dug into the desert floor, preferably located in some pestilence-ridden hell-hole of a country where the populace is suitably cowed and dis-armed.