Geodog

Terrorists winning by making us more like them

In a disgraceful decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that the detainees at the American base at Guantánamo Bay have no right to any due process or any relief from the judicial system. The ruling is based on the legal fiction that Guantánamo Bay is sovereign Cuban territory -- if that were actually true, the United States would have been expelled by the Cubans a long time ago. I predict that this set of rulings will come to be be seen as the Dred Scott rulings of the 21st century.

The prisoners, most of whom have been in pens for over a year, remain officially "disappeared." They are not Prisoners of War, even though some of them were fighting with the government of Afghanistan, because that would confer too many rights on them. And they are not charged with criminal acts, because we don't have evidence that would stand up in a court of law. As the NYT said in an editorial today, they held incommunicado, in legal limbo, indefinitely.

Everybody is entitled to have their claims heard by an impartial party. As the NYT suggests, it doesn't have to be the same rules and formality as the U.S civilian court system, but there have to be some rules, some process, and an impartial judge. Otherwise, it is tyranny. Power corrupts. This is not the American way. This is totally at odds with our traditions. If we let America act this way, the terrorists have won. They have turned us, into them.