Hostages and enemy combatants
Terrorism laws - - Posted on July, 5 at 5:55 pm by Ken L
Many people are rejoicing at the freeing of 15 people who had been help captive by guerillas in Colombia for more than six years. Understandably so; the misery and suffering they endured must have been appalling. The official story about the circumstances of their release might have been called into question, but that is irrelevant to the pleasure provoked by straightforward compassion that their ordeals are over.
Several hundred people have now been held captive by the US government for five years or more. The US Supreme Court has ruled:
… that the foreigners held under indefinite detention at Guantanamo have the right to seek release in civilian courts. The 5-4 ruling was the third time the justices had repudiated Bush on his approach to holding the suspects outside the protections of U.S. law.
Strange to say, there have been few expressions of joy that the ordeals of these people are about to end. On the contrary, the Bush Administration is doing its best to find ways to circumvent the ruling, while engaging in hysterical fear-mongering bullshit to the effect ‘that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A.’
The capacity for compassion for people unfairly deprived of their liberty seems to be very selective in first world society.
Posted in Terrorism laws |
July 5th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
The US never deprives anyone of their liberty (apart from the 3 million currently in jail and death row, many of whom are probably innocent, have been declared innocent, or are about to be found innocent from DNA) because it is the home of freedom and democracy, remember?
In just one incident, Reuben Hurricane Carter was jailed for 23 years for a triple homicide that he never did. Having the great misfortune to be born black was all the proof that the all-white jury and sneering America needed to nail this uppity boxer who “coulda been the champion of the world” and inspired Bob Dylan to sing “It makes me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.”
Today Dylan should remain equally ashamed as precisely nothing has changed except that the all-white jury is now the president and the jail has moved south to Cuba.
Perhaps he could write a new song about Main Street USA and how safe it is compared to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
July 6th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
In the decline of the day, near Kentucky river, as we ascended the brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed out of a thick cane-brake upon us, and made us (“Frontier Land”) prisoners.
Daniel Boone
Human-rights advocates, for example, claim that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is of a piece with President Bush’s 2002 decision to deny al Qaeda and Taliban fighters the legal status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions.
John ”Compassionately Conservative” Yoo
Only free men can negotiate; (political) prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
Nelson Mandela
From the rolling hills of Kentucky to the jungles of Coumbia; from the “human made” hell-holes of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib to the Halliburton/Kellog Brown Root slap up jobs in the deserts of America, your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
The ONLY reason that that David Hicks was sprung from Gitmo, was that enough Australians were pissed-off at Hicks’ lack of a “fair go” for The Rodent to feel sufficiently threatened with an election loss to force Little Man Howard to call in a “favour” from his warmongering PNAC pal, George “The Imbecile” Bush.
As you conclude, Ken: “The capacity for compassion for people unfairly deprived of their liberty seems to be very selective in first world society.”
Ain’t that the truth!