American Inquisition, Redux

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American Inquisition, Redux
18th of September, 2006
by Douglas J. De Clue,
Orlando, Florida

I originally wrote the piece that follows below (www.brainshrub.com/american-inquisition) last November when President Bush and Vice President Cheney first publicly defended their program of secret prisons and torture against the shocked conscience of a nation and when the Republican dominated Senate first revolted against the Republican Administration 90-9. In light of recent events, I feel it is important now to return to this topic and remind people of what I previously wrote.

Like so many battles with the Bush administration, this issue of torture keeps arising over and over like some evil undead monster of the night.

This President has never believed he is bound by any checks upon his power by the legislative or judicial branches of government and took this 90-9 Senatorial rebuke as a stinging personal insult rather than as the Senate merely fulfilling its own duty under the Constitution to preserve the Republic and protect the rule of law.

President Bush has lately taken once again to bullying members of the Congress, the Senate, and the press over his latest plan to gut the Geneva Convention so that he can resume torturing prisoners.

Why?

Because in addition to the McCain anti-torture bill, the Supreme Court told him in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that he must abide by the terms of the Geneva Convention, the bounds of the Constitution and other laws prohibiting torture - and he has been forced by the media to personally and publicly admit the existence of illegal and secret CIA prisons where he has detained at least 14 alleged terrorist suspects without any respect for their rights whatsoever under this treaty, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the ordinary civillian criminal courts, or international law.

This renewed effort by the President to change the law so as to allow him to torture prisoners has drawn not only the ire of every Democrat but also many key Republican allies and prominent retired military commanders including:

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who as a naval aviator was shot down, taken prisoner, tortured by the North Vietnamese, and held as a POW for 5 years during the Vietnam War.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC), who served as a naval attorney in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps during the first Gulf War.

Bush's own former Secretary of State and his father's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, General Colin Powell - who served as an Army officer for 35 years.

Colin Powell is quoted as saying in his recent letter on this subject: "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore it would put our own troops at risk".

Former Ronald Reagan Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John W. "Jack" Vessey, a military veteran with 46 years of service.

General Vessey wrote in his own letter: "If such legislation is being considered, I fear that it may weaken America in two respects. First, it would undermine the moral basis which has generally guided our conduct in war throughout our history. Second, it could give opponents a legal argument for the mistreatment of Americans being held prisoner in time of war."

President Bush just doesn't seem to grasp that he is NOT entitled to torture people - It is NOT part of his oath nor is it one of his enumerated powers under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. After all, the President has no other source of power than the enumerated powers listed in Article II, Section 2 because the 10th Amendment explicitly reserves all unenumerated powers to the people and the states and prohibits them to the Federal government.

The President's duty is to defend the Constitution - his oath charges him expressly to do so and fails to make any mention of any duty to defend the American people or homeland. His express duty is to protect, preserve and defend the Consitution. The Constitution in turn prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment" which is the only way one can describe torture.

There are limits to the powers of a President - there MUST be limits to his powers - or we all live in a dictatorship.

The Supreme Court has just this year reaffirmed as much in the Hamdi decision.

Not even the infamous Richard Nixon ever claimed he had any right to torture anyone.

Any President who repeatedly seeks the right to torture people - who claims he cannot perform his job without this grotesque and inappropriate power - is someone we should all, regardless of our party, be working to impeach, convict and remove from office as quickly as possible. The safety of our democratic form of government demands no less of us.

As I said in November, "torture is what we expect from Nazis, Imperial Storm Troopers, and other villians in black hats - We certainly didn't expect it from our American democracy."

Don't allow the President to alter Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention so that he can get away with torture and secret prisons.

It's just not the AMERICAN thing to do.


Respectfully,

Douglas J. De Clue
Brainshrub Guest Blogger
Orlando, FL

Captain Fluellen: "Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer't; in your conscience, now, is it not?"

Henry V, Act IV, Scene 7 by William Shakespeare


By condoning an American Inquisition, the Bush Administration is behaving like cultural icons who justify torture:

www.brainshrub.com/american-inquisition

November 23, 2005

We all know the scenes. We even know the lines by heart. They are embedded in our collective consciousness:

Captain Renault in Casablanca telling Victor Lazlo in the presence of Nazi Major Strasser about the "death" of Señor Ugarte - "I'm making out the report right now. We haven't decided whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape."

Darth Vader in Star Wars telling Princess Leia - "The time has come, Princess, for us to discuss the location of your rebel base" as an ominous torture droid with syringes and other menacing attachments hovers in her detention cell on the Death Star.

Nazi Major Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark saying - "Fraulein Ravenwood. Let me show you what I am used to." as he threatens her with a red hot poker to learn of the location of the headpiece to the staff of Ra.

Torture is what we expect from Nazis, imperial storm troopers, and other villains in black hats.

We certainly didn't expect it from our own American democracy.

Yet President Bush is now promising to veto any legislation containing Senator John McCain's recent anti-torture legislation which was passed 90-9 by the United States Senate. Vice President Cheney is also actively campaigning against this anti-torture legislation by pressuring Congressmen to vote against it.

Senator McCain as a downed U.S. Naval aviator and prisoner of war in Vietnam was repeatedly tortured by the North Vietnamese and has clear moral convictions on this subject borne of his own personal pain and that of his fellow prisoners. Lieutenant Bush and Mr. Cheney meanwhile avoided both Commander McCain's war and his pain through the National Guard and multiple college deferments.

We have already seen the atrocities at Abu Grabe on the evening news and heard of others at Guantanamo Bay. We have seen the publishing by Cambridge University Press of "The Torture Papers" by Greenberg and Dratel, a 1248 page collection of actual source documents from the U.S. government detailing the systemic government plan to torture prisoners for information.

We have even seen the 60 Minutes report on "renditioning" which is apparently a fancy word for kidnapping and disappearing someone without anyone's knowledge, much less a trial, a judge, a jury, or even an International Red Cross inspector so that he can be tortured by the security services of other governments where they aren't so picky about little legal "problems" like the Geneva Conventions, the Bill of Rights or the Magna Carta.

Now we are hearing reports in the news of secret prisons in Eastern Europe where the Administration is holding alleged terrorists in unknown conditions. No doubt they've "rounded up the usual suspects" once again -and, apparently just like Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men, they don't think that "we can handle the truth", so they have chosen to hide it from us.

How is this any different from the behavior of South American banana republic dictators, military juntas, and death squads such as we have seen in the past in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and elsewhere in Latin America with their thousands of "desaparecidos" anyways?

Torture of prisoners is neither American nor Christian. (To paraphrase a popular bumper sticker - "Who would Jesus torture?")

This must end now.

The government must apologize and rectify the situation. We the People must know the truth, sooner - not later - and those in this Administration who are responsible must be impeached and brought to justice for their crimes.

Douglas J. De Clue
Orlando, FL

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