habeas corpus

Here's an article entitled, "An Unconstitutional Amendment" by Peter Rothberg about the horrible Graham amendment. If this legislative amendment hasn't come to your attention, take a look at this:

Last Thursday, in a close 49-42 vote, the Senate adopted South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham's amendment to a military budget bill restricting the authority of US courts to hold the executive branch accountable for its detainee policies. (Click here for the roll call.)

The measure would overrule a 2004 Supreme Court decision allowing detainees, even those the government has declared "unlawful combatants," the right to appeal to American courts. This right--known as "habeas corpus"--is enshrined in the US Constitution and even strict constructionists like Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas can't be happy with this unprecedented encroachment on the judicial branch's turf.

Graham is carrying water for the increasingly embattled Bush Administration on this one, and it may come back to haunt him. The rapid-fire opposition to his bill is being joined by far more than the usual suspects, as Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith write in a new piece on The Nation.com: "John Hutson, a retired rear admiral and former judge advocate general of the Navy, not only protested but organized 60 former military officers to object. The National Institute of Military Justice, the organization of military lawyers, denounced it. High-powered legal scholars like Judith Resnick of Yale Law School, David Shapiro and Frank Michelman of Harvard Law School, and Burt Neuborne of New York University Law School circulated a blistering letter describing the legislation as "an effort to alter fundamental precepts of our constitutional order."

It also seems to me that if there is nobody in detention who can be convicted of anything without special kangaroo courts, then the real terrorists have indeed won, in part by pushing us to abdicate all moral authority.

On that topic, I also want to call your attention to an article by Jimmy Carter entitled, "This Isn't The Real America". Here's a sample of what he has to say:

In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Of even greater concern is that the U.S. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in U.S. custody.

Carter has more to say in this vein. I agree with him. This is not the America I grew up believing in. And my heart breaks.