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Feb. 20th, 2007 11:45 amI try to keep politics out of LJ as much as possible; I'm not much of a political person, and I think everything balances out, eventually. I don't really have the time or the energy to devote to political ramblings.
But I am deeply disturbed by a US Court of Appeals panel decision that Guantanamo detainees (prisoners: living breathing human prisoners) do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment through the writ of habeas corpus.
May I direct your attention to Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution which says, specifically, that "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
I can see clever arguments for how the public safety may require it, but I fail to see the threat of rebellion and invasion. I fail to see how we, as the invading power, think we can ship enemy soldiers out of their own country, (not to ours, of course, just to an intermediate stop that we've commandeered to use indefinitely), away from their own government (which we set up), and then deny them a right specifically referenced in one of our own most important, indispensable documents. I realize that the majority of the prisoners, as non-Americans, are not guaranteed American rights. I just find it frustrating and mind-boggling that we think we can get away with going into a foreign country, taking its people, and holding them indefinitely. I don't even have the words to form a coherent argument about it, as you've probably figured out if you've navigated all the way through this post. It just saddens me, disappoints me, and makes me wonder how, twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now, history will remember us. How strongly history will condemn us.
Yes, us. Because I'm an American, and anything my country does reflects on and is a reflection of me.
But I am deeply disturbed by a US Court of Appeals panel decision that Guantanamo detainees (prisoners: living breathing human prisoners) do not have the right to challenge their imprisonment through the writ of habeas corpus.
May I direct your attention to Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution which says, specifically, that "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
I can see clever arguments for how the public safety may require it, but I fail to see the threat of rebellion and invasion. I fail to see how we, as the invading power, think we can ship enemy soldiers out of their own country, (not to ours, of course, just to an intermediate stop that we've commandeered to use indefinitely), away from their own government (which we set up), and then deny them a right specifically referenced in one of our own most important, indispensable documents. I realize that the majority of the prisoners, as non-Americans, are not guaranteed American rights. I just find it frustrating and mind-boggling that we think we can get away with going into a foreign country, taking its people, and holding them indefinitely. I don't even have the words to form a coherent argument about it, as you've probably figured out if you've navigated all the way through this post. It just saddens me, disappoints me, and makes me wonder how, twenty, fifty, a hundred years from now, history will remember us. How strongly history will condemn us.
Yes, us. Because I'm an American, and anything my country does reflects on and is a reflection of me.