We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom, to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants and ship them somewhere, anywhere, but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere, anywhere.
And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.
And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant,” exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?
This President now has his blank check.
He lied to get it.
He lied as he received it.
Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?
“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”
“Presumed innocent,” Mr. Bush?
The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke the Geneva Conventions in their own defense.
“Access to an attorney,” Mr. Bush?
Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.
“Hearing all the evidence,” Mr. Bush?
The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.
Your words are lies, Sir.
They are lies that imperil us all.
“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”
That terrorist, sir, could only hope.
Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists, real or imagined, could measure up to what you have wrought.
Habeas corpus? Gone.
The Geneva Conventions? Optional.
The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.
These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”
HOT ONLY HAS HE LIED TO GET IT AND RECIEVING IT BUT HE HAS LIED TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY ABOUT IRAQ-WMDs-AND EVERY THING ELSE!! CLINTON got IMPEACHED OVER ONE LIE ABOUT HIS DICK but this BASTARD HAS TOLD 750 LIES TO US! WAKE UP AMERICA! WHY ISN’T THIS ASS HOLE IMPEACHED?
OH BY THE WAY! CLINTON WAS FRAMED!!! WHAT WOMAN IN HER RIGHT MIND IS GOING TO KEEP A DRESS DIRTY WITH SEX DNA IF SHE IS NOT GOING TO USE IT LIKE SHE DID!!!!!
Mr. Olbermann,
I was so pleased to come upon this article?, editorial?, whatever? and to have the opportunity? to respond. BTW, this punctuation you use is hyperbole. Please give that a second thought. In general, you guys, Mr. Olbermann, simply don’t get it and that is unfortunate. Far be it from me to even attempt a correction on that point. You assert most generally, “Bush lied”; with a tee shirt, no less. I just don’t think so and I can be a little analytical. I’ve looked at your evidence, Sir, and “you do not persuade”. Your country, along with too few others, is responsible for the gift of the chance for self rule, freedom to some 37 million men, women, and chldren in Afghanistan and Iraq. There’s a legacy for you. I might even be willing to run a short term deficit or higher unemployment to offer that chance. Your habeas corpus fear tactic is weak and not supported, even anecdotally. Bush is not the only President to have nudged habeas corpus; Lincoln in the 1860’s. You guys, Sir, always yell about the war but you won’t admit we’re in one. Speaking of anecdote, your “defendant denied access” fits the bill. Your Geneva Conventions outcry is also a little weak. The Geneva Conventions have articles specifically protecting the uniformed military. One opinion is that we are, indeed, protecting the integrity of those articles. Also, there is little evidence Administration policy supporting human rights abuse. Most evidence is to the contrary. If the President and Vice President need to be impeached then, for heavens sake, “git ‘er done”. We’ve done it before and for nothing more than staining some dress and lying about it under oath which also resulted in a perjury conviction handed down by a Federal Court. If there is hard, Grand Jury hard, evidence then don’t yell at me; call Kerry, Sharpton, Clinton (either) and get the ball rolling. Consult with Newt if you can’t determine the process. He knows. I don’t worry about our National Beacon. It still seems to attract huddled masses who want to live in its light. Thank you for your concern if not your understanding.
Thanks for reading Dax. The funny punctuation is a result of an earlier migration of our site from another system/server. Special characters, like quotations marks, in our older posts were not recognized and were therefore converted to question marks. We restore the original punctuation as we find the problem, and I think I got them all in this article. Thanks again.