Read em and weep.
Oct. 23rd, 2003 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleThe BBC recently ran a piece on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and then opened the floor to comments. A lot of people from all over the planet sounded off, including a bunch of folks form the USA. Sadly, most of my fellow Americans see no problems with imprisonning people in Cuba for years without trial in this instance, though I wonder how many would give Castro a similar pass. (Read the BBC piece: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3180424.stm)
The BBC didn't use my comment, which was to the effect of:
By holding people in this fashion, without trial, without representation, without formal charges of any kind, we are denying them the basic human rights enshrined in our Constitution. The great shame of this is that, in so doing, we reject what we hold most sacred and become our own worst enemies, whether we defeat al-Qaeda or not.
What I'll add here, because it's my journal is this:
The issue isn't the complicity of these people in terrorism (important as that is), it is that our government wields its power openly. This matters because, whether one agrees with our laws or not, they do provide limits to our government's power, limits which protect all of us, Americans and foreigners alike. The CIA, FBI, and various police departments in the US have all made serious mistakes at one time or another. This happens in any human endeavor. The real problem is that these organizations often lie to cover up their mistakes, or to achieve the selfish ends of leaders such as J. Edgar Hoover. Open trials, with charges, evidence, lawyers and all the other trappings of law, for all their flaws and limits, ensure that somebody outside of these privileged circles gets to check the evidence, poke holes in logic and ask the embarassing questions. I have, I must admit, confidence in our cops and our spooks to do their jobs well most of the time, and generally be right when they finger someone as a terrorist or a murderer, and I wish that Bush and co would share that faith and let these prisoners meet with lawyers and go to trial. The fact that, for more than a year now, our government won't do this leads me to suspect, along with other skeptics around the world, that we don't really have a good reason for holding these people, and that, maybe, we're just the biggest damn hypocrites in the world. Since I really don't like feeling that way, I'm pretty angry with Bush et al, and I long for the day when I can vote them out of office. Perhaps next time democracy will even work.
The BBC didn't use my comment, which was to the effect of:
By holding people in this fashion, without trial, without representation, without formal charges of any kind, we are denying them the basic human rights enshrined in our Constitution. The great shame of this is that, in so doing, we reject what we hold most sacred and become our own worst enemies, whether we defeat al-Qaeda or not.
What I'll add here, because it's my journal is this:
The issue isn't the complicity of these people in terrorism (important as that is), it is that our government wields its power openly. This matters because, whether one agrees with our laws or not, they do provide limits to our government's power, limits which protect all of us, Americans and foreigners alike. The CIA, FBI, and various police departments in the US have all made serious mistakes at one time or another. This happens in any human endeavor. The real problem is that these organizations often lie to cover up their mistakes, or to achieve the selfish ends of leaders such as J. Edgar Hoover. Open trials, with charges, evidence, lawyers and all the other trappings of law, for all their flaws and limits, ensure that somebody outside of these privileged circles gets to check the evidence, poke holes in logic and ask the embarassing questions. I have, I must admit, confidence in our cops and our spooks to do their jobs well most of the time, and generally be right when they finger someone as a terrorist or a murderer, and I wish that Bush and co would share that faith and let these prisoners meet with lawyers and go to trial. The fact that, for more than a year now, our government won't do this leads me to suspect, along with other skeptics around the world, that we don't really have a good reason for holding these people, and that, maybe, we're just the biggest damn hypocrites in the world. Since I really don't like feeling that way, I'm pretty angry with Bush et al, and I long for the day when I can vote them out of office. Perhaps next time democracy will even work.
