It’s a strange occurrence when a word spontaneously combusts and is erased from our lexicon, but when our president signed the Military Commissions Act into law on Oct. 17, there suddenly was no such thing as ‘torture’ anymore in Bush’s America.
The MCA was passed in the wake of Supreme Court cases Hamdan v. Rumsfeld of 2006 and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld of 2004, both filed by Guantanamo Bay detainees. Hamdan established that the military commissions formed to try detainees are biased, unlawful and violate the right to a fair trial as laid down in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. Hamdi ruled that detainees could invoke the writ of habeas corpus and challenge their detention.
Well, how are we ever going to beat reliable intelligence out of those “unlawful combatants” with the whole world crying humanitarian rights foul? Thank you Congress for giving President Bush a free pass and get-out-of-jail-free card.
The purpose of the Military Commissions Act is to “establish procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses triable by military commission.”
Sounds innocent enough. It even sounds like maybe the government wants to clean up its act and regulate detention facilities in a responsible manner, but then comes the circus.
Section five of the act denies the writ of habeas corpus to alien combatants, and now they cannot challenge their own detention. Our own Supreme Court, which has been vested with the power to determine the scope and meaning of the Constitution, ruled on this in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. The president, in an attempt to further his own endgame, has effectively stated that he is above the most important legal document of the country.
Hear that? It’s the Constitution screaming in pain.
Some of the other highlights of the act include section 949c, the denial of a defense attorney if that person is not cleared to view classified material, and section 949a, which gives military commissions the authority to introduce hearsay evidence and evidence obtained without a search warrant.
This is in direct violation of the Third Geneva Convention of 1929, which states, “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind.” Section 948r of the act allows the commissions to hear evidence obtained by these means.
Here’s a funny little addition to the MCA: According to section six, the president is given sole authority to interpret the meanings and applications of the Geneva Conventions. The act also gives immunity to officials who authorized, ordered or committed acts of abuse on or after Dec. 30, 2005.
Um . what? The president is given sole authority to interpret the meanings of words and phrases like “torture” and “humane treatment”? The man cannot even say “nuclear” correctly. The act also writes a pardon for the war crimes he and his administration are knowingly committing. Does this not sound weird to anyone else?
Proponents of the act suggest that these rights can be denied to alien unlawful combatants because they are not subject to the protections of the Constitution. It is true that aliens cannot invoke the Constitution; only Americans can. But the act does not exclude American citizens.
The MCA specifically states that the writ of habeas corpus will be denied to any alien unlawful combatants, but American citizens can still be declared unlawful combatants. While those citizens would retain the writ of habeas corpus, they would still be subject to all of the other constitutional violations outlined in the act, should they be tried. This provision was written in should another case like John Walker Lindh pop up.
The Military Commissions Act is not only against international law but also against the heart, soul and compassion of every American. If it wasn’t, there wouldn’t be immunity to war-crime charges written into it for our government, and our country would not have had to betray our honor to the international community to pass it.
I understand that the United States must protect itself, but we are now running the risk of losing our own country in the process. Apathy and anger are easy outlets when we witness human-rights atrocities committed around the world, but the success of our nation depends on our ability to remain calm in the face of violence and not allow ourselves to sink to the level of our aggressors as an act of vengeance.
