Thursday, October 19, 2006

Habeas Corpus only applies to Americans

I am blown away by the signing of the Military Commissions Act which was signed on Tuesday. I barely can comprehend how this country has justified this. I understand that the bill is directed towards "aliens," as in, not American citizens, but this comes back to the question: Is an American life worth more than ANYONE ELSE? Well, according to Bush and this Act, Yes it is.

Basically, this Act says prisoners do not have a right to ask a court why they are being held, a core value of our American heritage. It also gives the President the right to detain anyone he wants indefinitely, another slap in the face of the Constitution. Again, whether this is referring to American citizens or not seems beside the point . Basically, this Act is saying that we believe in natural rights of Habeas Corpus for Americans, just no one else.

This bill also gives Bush the power to "interpret the meaning and application" of any limits on prisoner treatment, or what does or doesn't qualify as torture. So we've put this determination into the hands of our President, who is now able to cover the rear-ends of all the people involved in the explicit torture of prisoners over the past few years.

All this justified because we are "fighting" a "War on Terrorism."

In The Oregonian this morning there is a story about an Iraqi in search of missing relatives, only to find them tortured and mutilated to death. The last statement he made at the end of the story spoke loudly:

"I don't believe there is anything or anybody that is cheaper than Iraqi lives these days."

1 comment:

Amy said...

so I was reading this thinking "Melissa posted again about politics- what's the dealy-yo-yo?"
And then I remembered, she teaches history. Someday this is the stuff you have to teach about. ;)