Problem is, George Bush was trying to wield more power than King George III had over Americans back in the day. And they called him a tyrant, as I recall. So, yes, I do have a pre-September 11 mindset. It's a 1776 mindset. It's a mindset that says in a free society the King, er, President, doesn't have the ability to point his finger at anyone he pleases and lock them up, torture them and throw away the key.
The Court's decision doesn't free these so-called "enemy combatants." It just means the government has to charge them with something and show legal proof why they should be detained. If these men are so bad and so dangerous as the Administration claims why would this then be an insurmountable task?
And the people howling that this amounts to giving Osama Bin Laden "Constitutional Rights" -- well, you gotta catch him first. And the Administration's torturing, renditioning, lock em up and throw away the key let's invade Iraq approach hasn't managed that, has it?
Matt also sniffs at doubts that all these "enemy combatants" may not in fact be terrorists. After all, if George Bush says it, it has to be true, right? I mean, Bush has been so correct these last seven years on intelligence matters -- thank God we listened to him and destroyed all those WMDs we found in Iraq. He surely has a slam dunk case against these evil doers. You know, just like his classification of North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil.
Here's what Major General Jay Hood, former commander at Guantanamo told the Wall Street Journal about that:
"[S]ometimes we just didn't get the right folks," but innocents remain at the base because "[n]obody want to be the one to sign the release papers...there's no muscle in the system."
No muscle other than the President, that is. And he is, after all, the Glorious Decider.
1 comment:
It's interesting that Republican leader Howard Epstein's complaint did not pertain to naming the sewage plant after Bush. He was more upset at the 'abuse of the system', citing the cost to the city rather than taking umbrage with the message the Democrats are sending.
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