Bob Herbert: Bush Admin Descent Into Barbarism Hits A Speed Bump

[kpete]

Leading to Low Ground
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 20, 2006

The inquisitors of the Middle Ages would have smiled knowingly at Guantánamo.


The United States had complete command of the moral and ethical high ground in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Most of the world was with us.

For some reason, the Bush administration deliberately abandoned those heights to pursue policies that were not just morally questionable, but reprehensible. Administration officials have fought like tigers to retain the right to torture. They have imprisoned people willy-nilly, without regard to whether they had actually committed offenses against the United States. They set up a system of kangaroo courts at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that was such an affront to the idea of justice that it should have sent shudders of shame down the spines of decent Americans.

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That rumbling you hear is the sound of the founding fathers spinning in their graves. Incredibly, under the trials originally authorized by President Bush, prosecutors would have been allowed to introduce evidence obtained through torture and other forms of coercion. The Bush administration didn't just leave the moral and ethical high ground. It sped away with great enthusiasm.

What is interesting is the common ground on this issue that is being found by human rights groups and the highest-ranking lawyers of America's armed forces. Testifying last week before the same committee that Ms. Massimino addressed yesterday, top lawyers from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines all endorsed proceedings that would give more rights and protections to detainees than the administration had been willing to give.

more at:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/opinion/20herbert.html?hp
or:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072106G.shtml