Scott Miller
Perspectives Assistant
On Sept. 29, Congress passed the detainee treatment bill, a completely unnecessary and volatile piece of legislation that grants President Bush even greater powers in his feeble efforts to salvage his War on Terror by allowing him to bypass critical parts of the Geneva Conventions and effectively ignore the writ of habeas corpus. Not only is this legislation frightening because it places more power in the hands of an inept leader who has failed to fully justify the current war in Iraq, but it is unacceptable because of the blatant disregard for these practices.
Through the use of scare tactics including vague, color-coded threat levels, over-publicized terror plot discoveries and cryptic presidential speeches regarding national safety and security, Bush has attained a mind-numbing level of power. This power has let him systematically dismantle key portions of our legal system by simply alluding to the terrorist threat, and the government’s dire need of the expanded powers to protect us. After the installation of the USA Patriot Act, and the subsequent warrantless wiretapping programs that were spawned from it, Bush has now got his sights set on Article 4 of the third Geneva Convention, which guarantees basic human rights to captured enemies, as well as the writ of habeas corpus. Things that “hinder” the efforts of the United States to prosecute the criminals responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Our regime is saying it is crucial to our safety and survival that the CIA be able to hold detainees without any sort of trial or even the knowledge of what crime they have committed. These are the basic parts of the writ of habeas corpus, a fundamental law practice that largely influenced the United States’ constitution, and something guaranteed for prisoners of war (POWs) in the third Geneva Convention.
This has been deemed obsolete and archaic, because these basic rights are now denied to captured enemy combatants. Because the Bush administration’s assertion that insurgents and terrorists are of a different breed of enemy and do not fight on the behalf of a sovereign state or in a formal military, they must not be treated as wartime POWs. POWs should be any enemy captured during a major conflict, regardless of the nature of their military force.
The third Geneva Convention, originally drafted in 1929 and last revised in 1949, which deals exclusively with the treatment of POWs is now being disregarded as well. It prohibits torture, and inhumane treatment against POWs. Article 4 also states that one need not be part of a formal military to receive these rights. Despite this explicit language, Bush still maintains that terrorists are not POWs, and the language is “too vague.”
This is outrageous and deplorable — this kind of ostentatious behavior and disregard for international law is synonymous with terrorism, and only breeds contempt for the United States.
The message that Bush conveys about his War on Terror is the United States is the victim of a vicious and unprovoked attack because of her basic beliefs and principles. And we all want to believe that, but because of our actions, we are betraying our own victimization. We need to resume our role as an innocent victim of unprovoked murder in order to legitimately continue our war against terrorism.
In the efforts to punish the criminals from Sept. 11, the United States has sacrificed the moral principles that define her. We should never abandon what defines us — liberty and justice — in order to defend it. That is utter hypocrisy.
The bill, which should have limited Bush’s power by defining clear guidelines on the use of torture, has been bastardized to the point that the responsibilty of identifying enemies and “excessive means” of interrogation now fall on Bush’s shoulders. This cession of powers is very dangerous, especially to a leader who has exercised his existing powers to eavesdrop on his citizens, and mangle international laws regarding humane treatment of prisoners.
We must regain our position of justified victim, prosecuting the criminals responsible for an act of terror and evil. We must use legal techniques that do not infringe on international law and basic human rights. This is the path that the United States must follow, not the current, ends-justify-the-means attitude. We cannot stop anywhere short of full completion.
10-26-2006