I would never have guessed that I'd ever quote from conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan without criticizing what he said. But on this momentous day we have Andrew Sullivan united with liberal columnist Molly Ivins in opposition to the Military Commissions Act passed by the Senate yesterday. Sullivan calls the Democrats cowards for not standing up to the President, and notes that Bush will use opposition to torture as a campaign weapon against Democrats in upcoming elections.
Habeas Corpus is a legal right that allows those arrested to challenge in court the reasons for their arrest. It was first implemented in the Magna Carta in 1215 to eliminate the then-common practice of secret arrests, and has always been a part of American law. This bill allows secret arrests of enemy combatants with no timeline for charging the arrestee with a crime and no right to a lawyer other than one appointed by the military.
Of course, we're assured that only dangerous "enemy combatants," someone who “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States” will be arrested under this bill. According to Ivins, "One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network."
The bill also allows those dangerous cable TV salespeople to be tortured, but only up to "serious pain, "defined as “bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain." In the secret trial before a military panel the government can use information collected without warrants to convict the detainee.
Ivins quotes George Bush in a speech from July 2003: “The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.” I guess the example is that torture is OK, even if it is a human right.
The image above was posted by Andrew Sullivan yesterday pointing to a post from David Corn's blog with photos from Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which has been turned into a museum documenting Khymer Rouge atrocities. We'll probably just create our torture museum in the Smithsonian, don't you think?
