In Lighter News...

"We will not allow the enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms."
--President George W. Bush (September 12, 2001)

"What has changed in the past five years that justifies not merely suspending, but abolishing the writ of habeas corpus for a broad category of people who have not been found guilty or even charged with any crime?... [Are] our people so terrified that we must do what no bomb or attack could ever do by taking away the very freedoms that define America?... What has happened that the Senate is willing to turn America from a bastion of freedom into a cauldron of suspicion ruled by a government of unchecked power?"
---Democratic senator Patrick Leahy (September 28, 2006)

Amid the important news surrounding North Korean nukes and the GOP's post-Foley woes, another important story has slipped through the cracks of that ol' liberal media... the passing of the detainee bill. The bill got lots of press early on when it could be covered from the sexy angle of 'maverick' Republican senators standing up to Bush on Geneva concerns (unimportant sidenote: all three eventually caved and voted for the bill), but got more depressing, and thus less news-worthy, when it became obvious we as a country were about to legalize indiscriminate torture and send habeas corpus on vacation. The larger implications of this bill went undiscussed by all except for some obscure print journalists and miscellaneous bloggers.

It is on this note that I wanted to post this excellent segment from Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" in which he tackled those implications with an appropriate mix of anger and snark. If you have a few minutes free, I highly recommend watching it-



Last week, I asked a question... has the President actually signed this detainee bill yet (you know the one needed so urgently it positively had to be passed before the elections)? If so, I haven't heard any news of it. Have you? And if it wasn't signed yet, then that confirms what an idious political ploy this all is. I'd expect a major signing ceremony/media-fest closer to the election, followed by endless GOP speeches about why Democrats want you to die.

As for those who insist that this bill is only about foreign terrorists (when the language of it is far broader) and Americans have nothing to fear, another cautionary lesson. If the case of Maher Arar (an innocent Canadian citizen abducted by the Bush administration while in NYC, and then sent to Syria to be tortured for nearly a year) is not horrifying enough, let us also flashback to the saga of Jose Padilla... the infamous 'dirty bomber'. To date he has not been charged with the terrorism charges that warranted deeming him an 'enemy combatant', but instead vague charges, one of which was recently thrown out. His indefinite suspension (during which he was repeatedly tortured) prompted a pre-Hamdan rebuke from the Supreme Court. This man who- like the Miami Seven and U.K. liquid bomb plotters after him- was deemed the next 9/11 in the waiting has now been all but forgotten.

Glenn Greenwald checks in on his case this week and shares some revealing details about what was done to him while in prison. From his legal defense's recent brief-

In an effort to gain Mr. Padilla’s "dependency and trust," he was tortured for nearly the entire three years and eight months of his unlawful detention. The torture took myriad forms, each designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and, ultimately, the loss of will to live. The base ingredient in Mr. Padilla’s torture was stark isolation for a substantial portion of his captivity....

...Mr. Padilla’s dehumanization at the hands of his captors also took more sinister forms. Mr. Padilla was often put in stress positions for hours at a time. He would be shackled and manacled, with a belly chain, for hours in his cell. Noxious fumes would be introduced to his room causing his eyes and nose to run. The temperature of his cell would be manipulated, making his cell extremely cold for long stretches of time. Mr. Padilla was denied even the smallest, and most personal shreds of human dignity by being deprived of showering for weeks at a time, yet having to endure forced grooming at the whim of his captors...

...He was threatened with being cut with a knife and having alcohol poured on the wounds. He was also threatened with imminent execution. He was hooded and forced to stand in stress positions for long durations of time. He was forced to endure exceedingly long interrogation sessions, without adequate sleep, wherein he would be confronted with false information, scenarios, and documents to further disorient him. Often he had to endure multiple interrogators who would scream, shake, and otherwise assault Mr. Padilla...

...It is worth noting that throughout his captivity, none of the restrictive and inhumane conditions visited upon Mr. Padilla were brought on by his behavior or by any actions on his part. There were no incidents of Mr. Padilla violating any regulation of the Naval Brig or taking any aggressive action towards any of his captors. Mr. Padilla has always been peaceful and compliant with his captors....

This is not some 'folk' captured on the 'battlefield' overseas... he is/was a U.S. citizen. But in the Bush/Cheney worldview, the entire planet is the battlefield and we are all potential enemy combatants. Jose Padilla may indeed have been a bad man, or not, but that is almost irrelevant. What is relevant that his case is not an extraordinary circumstance or an aberration. It is official U.S. policy. It is the path we have chosen to take- all to defend our freedoms of course.

Andrew Sullivan sums it all up: "The U.S. Congress has approved this president's extraordinary powers to detain any one at will, without charges, keep them indefinitely, and torture them if the president wants to. Some have argued that this can only happen to non-citizens. That is untrue... We live in a country where one man - the president - now has the power to detain any one at will, without being charged for years at a time, and tortured. This isn't an emergency provision, to be revoked when a conflict ends. Since this war has no fixed enemy and no fixed end, it is now our permanent reality. America as we have known it, is over. Al Qaeda never had the power to do this damage to constitutional liberties. We did it to ourselves."

Finally, Village Voice journalist Nat Hentoff looks at this bill in his column with a telling revelation... then-Attorney General Ashcroft wanted to add into the Patriot Act the suspension of habeas corpus, but Rep. Sensenbrenner (conservative chair of the House Judiciary Committee) refused on principle. Five years and numerous constitutional abuses later, he and his colleagues passed a bill doing what he once opposed and more. For short-term political reasons, they betrayed their oath of office and their country.

Do you feel safer? Do you feel more free? I do not.