US Vice President Dick Cheney has ruled out closing Guantanamo Bay on the basis that the detainees there are "bad people" and "terrorists". But then, rather than detaining them for years, they should be charged and put on trial before an independent and impartial tribunal. And if the government does not have enough evidence to do that (or has tainted it all through abuse), then they should be released.
That is how the justice system of a civilised country works. Sadly, with its use of medieval torture techniques, its policy of extraordinary rendition, and its Caribbean Gulag, the US no longer seems to fall into that category.
I was hoping you'd pick up on this.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of country accepts such banalities, best suited to the kindergarten playground ("Timmy is a bad person so we had to lock him in a cage"), as legitimate reasons for the indefinite detention without trial of hundreds of people.
And since when was it Cheney's job to determine who the "bad people" and "terrorists" are? Isn't that the judicial branch's job?
If Cheney thinks that people are bad, have committed crimes, or have conspired to, then he should prove it in court. That's what they're for.
ReplyDeleteInstead, what the Bush administration is asking its citizens (and the world) to accept is that the executive has the right to detain whoever it wants, whenever it wants (that's quite apart from the issue of then beating them until they say whatever it wants). And that's an idea that was rightly rejected back in the Thirteenth Century with the Magna Carta.
Indeed, it would be very helpful to develop a left/right consensus around this in New Zealand. No detention without trial is a foundational liberal principle, and it should have appeal across the political spectrum. But I fear certain authoritarians in National and NZF would be more than willing to suspend it for possible electoral advantage.
ReplyDeleteThe twisted liberal mind never ceases to amaze me -- I will never know why they/you hate America.
ReplyDeleteAnon: The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states, in part, "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".
ReplyDeleteWhy did the Founding Fathers hate America?