|
Once Illegal, Always Illegal
It always was inherent injustice to classify those who fought the U.S. troops in Afghanistan as something else than prisoner of wars or simple criminal civilians under the Geneva convention.
To cover up that basic injustice a pseudo-legal system was developed around military tribunal. The U.S. Supreme Court declared that system to be illegal.
The U.S. military came up with a new system legislated by Congress in the Military Commissions Act. That new system today received a probably letal blow.
Under the new act, the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have to be classified by some Combatant Status Review Tribunals, a military panel. The panel has found some prisoners to be "enemy combatants." These are to be arrained in a court of military commissions.
Today the case of the now 20 year old Canadian Omar Khadr was on trial. After five minutes, the judge threw the case out. According to the law only "alien unlawful enemy combatant" can be judged by the court.
But the defendent was not classified as such. He was only classified as "enemy combatant." Indeed nobody has ever been classified as "alien unlawful enemy combatant."
This is a catch22. The status review tribunals are not courts. How could they judge that someone is "unlawful?" But the court can, by law, only judge about "alien unlawful enemy combatants." The court had to throw the case out because it has no mandate and right to judge the defendent.
The prosecutors now have 72 hours to appeal today’s decision. But unfortunate for them – the appeal court does not yet exist and is unlikely to be set up soon.
To justify the basic legal injustice, laws were bend, new illegal laws enacted and kangaroo courts were created. Now one of these courts itself had to acknowledge that the systematic illegality contradicts itself.
A good fundament is the best base for a reasonable foundation. The legal house build in Guantanamo has none of it. Today it collapsed.
Let’s hope that now, finally, someone will say ‘nough is ‘nough and shut this sham of legality and Guantanamo Bay down.
I’m w/cloned poster. This may piss some of you off, but hear me out.
I personally, have found the last 6/7 years to quite refreshing in some ways, and not as crazy making as before this Bush II era. The reason being is because these elite fucks have given up on hiding and shielding their neurosis of power.
They have done what they have done mostly out in the open. Blatant and bold disregard for ‘the people’, –any people– for the constitution, the Law, education, human rights, the environment, the hungry (poor) etc..
They have done no worse (for those whom look) than other administrations, “leaders” and other elites who run this republic and influence the world (Democrats included) sorry. In that, they haven’t hidden their abject contempt for the masses. Power, Paranoia and presidential tyranny has been with us a long time. It didn’t start with Jr. Democracy in America has been bankrupt for a long time. Long before the boy king.
Again, I personally like my tyranny and it’s symptoms racism, bigotry, and power relations out in the open where I can see it. Plato defined disorder in the world of tyranny as polypragmosyne, the seizing of power by those who presume they possess wisdom in all things.
America has reached the backside of the event horizon of organized, institutionalized corruption and fraud on every level. Where protection rackets, embezzlement, larceny, confiscation, entrapment, misappropriation, and rico crimes, as well as murder have become the norm; by bullies, fraudsters, pervert soul sick class elites, politicians with their sykophants*, lobbys, lawyers of the Kelptomania class who run everything. A litigation nation where truth is treason, justice is a mockery, and liberty is for sale to the highest bidder, where action of the State, arising from suspicion and not from proof, has degenerated into the satisfaction of vendettas by a “coin-operated congress”, a “blue-blooded-aristocratic Senate” and finally, a power hungry blood thirsty executive branch- a general system of tyranny, all in the name of “public safety.”
The general public means nothing to them, we have been and are being, carved out like a pumpkin, the seeds spit in our faces, while they laugh at our poverty. “The essential political choice is the same as it always was: “freedom or security” nor, is the blame entirely with the warmongers, plutocrats, and demagogues.
If a people permit exploitation and regimentation in any name they deserve their slavery. The law has always been perverted to serve the “haves” and not the “haves-not”, only not always as heavy handed as it is now. We have made progress in the recent past with “the New Deal”, labor unions, civil rights, and the constitution. Only within the last few decades have the ruling elites pushed back, with their hatred of liberal democracy. What once existied in ancient Athens – now hold sway in America and Britain , (it’s transatlantic and trans-national now ) where powerful and corrupt individuals, organizations and corporations are routinely using threats of vexatious and malicious litigation to bully and oppress ordinary innocent and working class people. If democracy requires that power be distributed in a system of checks and balances to prevent the tyranny of any one power held in a single hand or body then that may be new, but these things have gone on for decades behind closed doors and mostly hidden and unspoken in polite company.
Coercion seems to be covering-up greater crimes committed by these individuals / organizations. Their corrupt misuse of Law takes the form of restraint of trade and prevention of free speech, eminent domain, tax cuts for the top 1%, hidden fiat/poll-taxes, money laundering in off shore bankings and usury interests and loans. All nothing more than hypocrisy, hiding behind law.
I’m sure you could come up with hundreds of other examples but make no mistake, “the Class War” has shifted and started a dramatic new phase of Supernova proportions with The Rise of Rove’s Republic. And the one thing that todays “New America” has in common is the elite stranglehold on Politics, medicine, law, policing, media, bureaucracy etc. where, they are all “self-regulating”. Further, and not so coincidentally, all these ‘trades’ tend, more or less, to control their own incomes at the top levels. [i.e. the fat cats decide their own].
So yes, I would rather these things be out in the open, so as not to be blind-sided by them. The things that this crew has done are what this government has always done, with a relatively few new exceptions.
Take arrows in your forehead, but never in your back.~ Samurai maxim
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 4 2007 23:24 utc | 4
|
