But that was only for America before seven years ago. The Bush administration jailed Huzaifa Parhat, a Chinese Muslim known as a Uighur, back in 2001.
Why was he jailed? Because he was part of a Chinese separatist group that had links to Al Qaeda. He NEVER took up arms against America, and there's NO evidence he ever intended to...but the simple fact that he was part of a group that 'had links' to Al Qaeda was enough for the Bush administration to jail him without charges and without evidence...apparently for life.
I guess Bush didn't know that the reason China maintains the world's largest army is NOT because they want to take over other countries, but because they need to keep their OWN population under control. I guess Bush didn't know that Tibet is NOT the only province in China where the ethnic natives are agitating for autonomy. I guess Bush didn't know that one of the reasons we fought the Cold War was that we didn't believe in imprisoning people for years on suspicion alone.
This matter has brought shame upon America...and it is by any democratic definition a crime. Kudos to the U.S. District Court of Appeals that had the courage to stand up for the Constitution, and for a certain phrase in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal...."
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
A perspective on Guantanomo from WWII
From 'bliffle' on blogcritics.com:
The burdens of idealism are heavy indeed. But that is what we have embraced in our Constitution, Declaration Of Independence, Bill Of Rights and other re-affirmations.
In fact, we have asserted that international treaties that we sign are as binding as our own laws, not merely suggestions that we may or may not observe.
Thus, if we look back to, say, 1944 when we had some 200,000 German POWs incarcerated (in New Mexico and Arizona, primarily) we felt ourselves bound by Geneva Conventions and rules of war to treat those soldiers to the same living condition as our own soldiers and officers.
Gasp! This was a big sacrifice because USA citizens were undergoing severe rationing to make sure that our Army and Navy lads had the best food and the best support circumstances we could possibly afford. Now we were required to provide those same conditions to The Hated Enemy!
We citizens were undergoing meatless days, milkless meals, etc., while German POWs were eating high on the hog! It was so good for the POWs that only one ever tried to escape (he was easily apprehended wandering around in Alberquerque). There were plenty of well-organized protests by angry USA citizens, too.
We even had to provide movies and other entertainment facilities so that they might not even notice they were prisoners. As well as military-quality medical facilities (much better than civilian facilities in those days).
But we saw our duty and we did it.
Are we less men than the Americans of 64 years ago?
The burdens of idealism are heavy indeed. But that is what we have embraced in our Constitution, Declaration Of Independence, Bill Of Rights and other re-affirmations.
In fact, we have asserted that international treaties that we sign are as binding as our own laws, not merely suggestions that we may or may not observe.
Thus, if we look back to, say, 1944 when we had some 200,000 German POWs incarcerated (in New Mexico and Arizona, primarily) we felt ourselves bound by Geneva Conventions and rules of war to treat those soldiers to the same living condition as our own soldiers and officers.
Gasp! This was a big sacrifice because USA citizens were undergoing severe rationing to make sure that our Army and Navy lads had the best food and the best support circumstances we could possibly afford. Now we were required to provide those same conditions to The Hated Enemy!
We citizens were undergoing meatless days, milkless meals, etc., while German POWs were eating high on the hog! It was so good for the POWs that only one ever tried to escape (he was easily apprehended wandering around in Alberquerque). There were plenty of well-organized protests by angry USA citizens, too.
We even had to provide movies and other entertainment facilities so that they might not even notice they were prisoners. As well as military-quality medical facilities (much better than civilian facilities in those days).
But we saw our duty and we did it.
Are we less men than the Americans of 64 years ago?
The "Worst Decision in History"?
John McCain said Friday that the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees is “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Was it?
During the Cold War, we helped the world stand fast against the rise of a country that used
torture, arrested even its own citizens and imprisoned them for years without trial or even evidence, and held its highest government officials to be above the law.
That was for most of my military career. Now it's MY government, my AMERICA that does the same.
Read Bush's Executive Order 51, wherein he allows himself to take on dictatorial powers in the case of a national emergency. And then remember Bush's quote: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
It seems that it's now a crime against patriotism to think of any non-U.S. citizen as being deserving of justice in the sight of God. My heart aches for what my country is on the verge of becoming.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
That's "ALL MEN" - not 'all citizens'.
Can the Founding Fathers have been so wrong?
During the Cold War, we helped the world stand fast against the rise of a country that used
torture, arrested even its own citizens and imprisoned them for years without trial or even evidence, and held its highest government officials to be above the law.
That was for most of my military career. Now it's MY government, my AMERICA that does the same.
Read Bush's Executive Order 51, wherein he allows himself to take on dictatorial powers in the case of a national emergency. And then remember Bush's quote: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
It seems that it's now a crime against patriotism to think of any non-U.S. citizen as being deserving of justice in the sight of God. My heart aches for what my country is on the verge of becoming.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
That's "ALL MEN" - not 'all citizens'.
Can the Founding Fathers have been so wrong?
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Judgment of Peers
A reply to Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”)
Angry, defiant, he answered the summons
Of great empires of antiquity;
Naught of this world was beyond his grasp
Save this verdict of history.
“You know the Burden you laid at my feet,
‘Twas never for white men alone,
But that futility borne by great empires of old
‘Make the tired, the poor as our own!’
And I stand before you triumphant!” he cried,
“O’er a century of woe and weal;
So proffer your arguments dire and prepare
To hear the strength of my appeal!”
In gilded seats of judgment sat
The peerage of empires past;
Sweet glory they’d known, and power unchallenged,
And illusion that such could last.
Many looked on from every land
Where the feet of men still tread
But three there were in positions of honor
Whose colors were gold and red
Hard and fierce, their miens reflected
The aspects their thrones had willed
Gold dragon, gold eagle, gold lions a-prowl
Crimson fields of blood they’d spilled.
The Dragon was eldest, was first to speak,
Of the temporal certainty,
“That you may learn the surest of all
The lessons of sovereignty.
“Such power you have, like none before,
But secular, not divine.
Millennia passed before I learned
The Middle Kingdom was not mine.
Kings I summoned, my Peacock Throne
Saw emperors kowtow to me.
But my wisdom provided no surety ‘gainst
The poisoned sweetness of vanity.
“I saw the danger of enemies without;
A great wall I built to defend.
The wall did not fail, but was easily breached
By corruption that festered within.
Your trust in power, in weapons of war
May give you a semblance of peace,
But the battle you fight is internal, eternal,
Your empire will falter and cease.”
The Eagle was next to speak, to decry
The folly of luxury.
“All roads led to my seven hills,
And led the barbarians to me.
“I knew well the peril of monarchy,
And trusted to tribunals.
But lawful republic fell to limitless pride,
To opulence and bacchanal.
But still we conquered, not comprehending
The end of our strength we had reached.
We perceived not the malice we had engendered
In savages we’d thought to teach.
“They turned on us, taught us that harshest of lessons:
‘Who falls farthest, falls hardest’,
And sentenced our children to perpetual dreams
Of past glories and bountiful harvests.”
The last to speak was the wisest, the Lion
On whose empire the sun never set.
“I begat you and shed blood beside you,
Our kinship ever benevolent.
“Before you were born, ‘twas I stood strong
‘Gainst the spectre of tyranny.
To contain Moor and Inquisitor I gladly paid
That price of admiralty.
I believed my Charter’d freedom and justice
Were sufficient to win the day,
And see! My children now stand on their own;
For all mankind they light the way!
“But you, my child, tho’ our hearts were one,
We desired the best for mankind.
Our paths have diverged, I will not follow
Your doomed imperial design.
“The historians now speak of Pax in past tense,
Not only of ours, but yours.
Romana, Britannica, Americana…
Is there aught that you can demur?
For yours is but a portion, a fraction
Of the centuries my peers survived;
My heart is heavy and cold with the thought
That my child may be less than I.
“You stood for the tortured, the wrongful imprisoned,
For freedoms of worship, of speech.
But now you sacrifice such liberties,
‘Pon a brass altar of security.
Empires thrive so long as they uphold
The ideals that made them great;
I fear you will not sit with my rank, the first,
But the second, the subordinate.
“’Tis your turn now to speak, my child,
Prove me wrong, I beg you, I plead.
Restore me the hope I once proudly held
That to freedom this world you would lead.”
The brash young man nodded, quietly smiled,
And stood serenely composed,
Before these three who in all history’s grand sweep
Had longest borne the mantle of hope.
“So this be the judgment of my peers,
Cold and hard-edged indeed!
We cannot deny your centuries of glory,
For which your dear sons did bleed.
But neither need we appeal your decision,
Nor should we implore your leave,
For there’s one advantage that we yet wield,
Of which never did you conceive.
“For each of you praised the aristocrat,
The patrician, the mandarin,
And forever denied and denigrated
The pedigree of the publican.
Such similarity will always bind you
In the pages of history writ:
Your power restricted to only the bloodlines,
Of Han, of Roman, of Brit.
“You each believed ‘twas but destiny
Assured your perpetual reign,
But did you remember your gods’ caveat:
The wheel turns, all things must end?
“The Han, supreme, till a thunderbolt signaled
Their Mandate of Heaven was lost;
And Rome reigned nobly till honor and duty
Were o’ercome by comfort and sloth.
And you, O Lion, your wooden walls a-sail
Were our cradle, our crucible!
As from one in his prime to his sire now diminished
Our duty is oath-bound and filial.
“Our path is not yours, ‘tis not empire we crave,
But freedom of choice, of creed,
Your tempest-tossed fluttered folk and wild
Surely become the best we breed!
For any and all can be truly a part
Of this roiling and boiling pot,
Wherein melts away (if ever so slowly)
The hatred of those who are not.
“This world is not that which we jealously covet,
No dominion is our desire,
No Ozymandian edifice of stone,
Nor generations in royal attire.
Your paths we daren’t follow, though we have stumbled,
Supplanting freedom with patriots’ zeal;
And should we fall, yea, and someday we shall!
Others will rise bearing our seal.
“For we are not an empire or a nation,
But an idea whose time has come.
Your White Man’s Burden is bleached no longer,
But a grand spectrum, egalitarian!
“Today we declare our freedom from peerage,
From comparison with empires past;
Today we declare with harmonious discord
The Peace of Liberty, Pax Libertas!”
Angry, defiant, he answered the summons
Of great empires of antiquity;
Naught of this world was beyond his grasp
Save this verdict of history.
“You know the Burden you laid at my feet,
‘Twas never for white men alone,
But that futility borne by great empires of old
‘Make the tired, the poor as our own!’
And I stand before you triumphant!” he cried,
“O’er a century of woe and weal;
So proffer your arguments dire and prepare
To hear the strength of my appeal!”
In gilded seats of judgment sat
The peerage of empires past;
Sweet glory they’d known, and power unchallenged,
And illusion that such could last.
Many looked on from every land
Where the feet of men still tread
But three there were in positions of honor
Whose colors were gold and red
Hard and fierce, their miens reflected
The aspects their thrones had willed
Gold dragon, gold eagle, gold lions a-prowl
Crimson fields of blood they’d spilled.
The Dragon was eldest, was first to speak,
Of the temporal certainty,
“That you may learn the surest of all
The lessons of sovereignty.
“Such power you have, like none before,
But secular, not divine.
Millennia passed before I learned
The Middle Kingdom was not mine.
Kings I summoned, my Peacock Throne
Saw emperors kowtow to me.
But my wisdom provided no surety ‘gainst
The poisoned sweetness of vanity.
“I saw the danger of enemies without;
A great wall I built to defend.
The wall did not fail, but was easily breached
By corruption that festered within.
Your trust in power, in weapons of war
May give you a semblance of peace,
But the battle you fight is internal, eternal,
Your empire will falter and cease.”
The Eagle was next to speak, to decry
The folly of luxury.
“All roads led to my seven hills,
And led the barbarians to me.
“I knew well the peril of monarchy,
And trusted to tribunals.
But lawful republic fell to limitless pride,
To opulence and bacchanal.
But still we conquered, not comprehending
The end of our strength we had reached.
We perceived not the malice we had engendered
In savages we’d thought to teach.
“They turned on us, taught us that harshest of lessons:
‘Who falls farthest, falls hardest’,
And sentenced our children to perpetual dreams
Of past glories and bountiful harvests.”
The last to speak was the wisest, the Lion
On whose empire the sun never set.
“I begat you and shed blood beside you,
Our kinship ever benevolent.
“Before you were born, ‘twas I stood strong
‘Gainst the spectre of tyranny.
To contain Moor and Inquisitor I gladly paid
That price of admiralty.
I believed my Charter’d freedom and justice
Were sufficient to win the day,
And see! My children now stand on their own;
For all mankind they light the way!
“But you, my child, tho’ our hearts were one,
We desired the best for mankind.
Our paths have diverged, I will not follow
Your doomed imperial design.
“The historians now speak of Pax in past tense,
Not only of ours, but yours.
Romana, Britannica, Americana…
Is there aught that you can demur?
For yours is but a portion, a fraction
Of the centuries my peers survived;
My heart is heavy and cold with the thought
That my child may be less than I.
“You stood for the tortured, the wrongful imprisoned,
For freedoms of worship, of speech.
But now you sacrifice such liberties,
‘Pon a brass altar of security.
Empires thrive so long as they uphold
The ideals that made them great;
I fear you will not sit with my rank, the first,
But the second, the subordinate.
“’Tis your turn now to speak, my child,
Prove me wrong, I beg you, I plead.
Restore me the hope I once proudly held
That to freedom this world you would lead.”
The brash young man nodded, quietly smiled,
And stood serenely composed,
Before these three who in all history’s grand sweep
Had longest borne the mantle of hope.
“So this be the judgment of my peers,
Cold and hard-edged indeed!
We cannot deny your centuries of glory,
For which your dear sons did bleed.
But neither need we appeal your decision,
Nor should we implore your leave,
For there’s one advantage that we yet wield,
Of which never did you conceive.
“For each of you praised the aristocrat,
The patrician, the mandarin,
And forever denied and denigrated
The pedigree of the publican.
Such similarity will always bind you
In the pages of history writ:
Your power restricted to only the bloodlines,
Of Han, of Roman, of Brit.
“You each believed ‘twas but destiny
Assured your perpetual reign,
But did you remember your gods’ caveat:
The wheel turns, all things must end?
“The Han, supreme, till a thunderbolt signaled
Their Mandate of Heaven was lost;
And Rome reigned nobly till honor and duty
Were o’ercome by comfort and sloth.
And you, O Lion, your wooden walls a-sail
Were our cradle, our crucible!
As from one in his prime to his sire now diminished
Our duty is oath-bound and filial.
“Our path is not yours, ‘tis not empire we crave,
But freedom of choice, of creed,
Your tempest-tossed fluttered folk and wild
Surely become the best we breed!
For any and all can be truly a part
Of this roiling and boiling pot,
Wherein melts away (if ever so slowly)
The hatred of those who are not.
“This world is not that which we jealously covet,
No dominion is our desire,
No Ozymandian edifice of stone,
Nor generations in royal attire.
Your paths we daren’t follow, though we have stumbled,
Supplanting freedom with patriots’ zeal;
And should we fall, yea, and someday we shall!
Others will rise bearing our seal.
“For we are not an empire or a nation,
But an idea whose time has come.
Your White Man’s Burden is bleached no longer,
But a grand spectrum, egalitarian!
“Today we declare our freedom from peerage,
From comparison with empires past;
Today we declare with harmonious discord
The Peace of Liberty, Pax Libertas!”
Saturday, June 7, 2008
What did they know? Not much. And when did they know it?
Only when they decided that truth was less important than starting a war. The New York Times stated it clearly enough below
"The Senate Intelligence Committee report endorsed by Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq’s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda.
...
The report shows that there was no intelligence to support the two most frightening claims Mr. Bush and his vice president used to sell the war: that Iraq was actively developing nuclear weapons and had longstanding ties to terrorist groups. It seems clear that the president and his team knew that that was not true, or should have known it — if they had not ignored dissenting views and telegraphed what answers they were looking for."
The Senate Intelligence Committee's report, then, shows at best gross negligence by the Bush administration...or at worst, outright lies used with the express intent to start a war that they thought would cement their place in history.
In the second case, Bush and Cheney were right - the Iraq war will cement their place in history: as the worst president and vice president in American history.
"The Senate Intelligence Committee report endorsed by Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq’s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein’s links to Al Qaeda.
...
The report shows that there was no intelligence to support the two most frightening claims Mr. Bush and his vice president used to sell the war: that Iraq was actively developing nuclear weapons and had longstanding ties to terrorist groups. It seems clear that the president and his team knew that that was not true, or should have known it — if they had not ignored dissenting views and telegraphed what answers they were looking for."
The Senate Intelligence Committee's report, then, shows at best gross negligence by the Bush administration...or at worst, outright lies used with the express intent to start a war that they thought would cement their place in history.
In the second case, Bush and Cheney were right - the Iraq war will cement their place in history: as the worst president and vice president in American history.
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