Has Dick Cheney joined the Obama administration?
Recently reports surfaced that President Obama is drafting an executive order that would authorize a regime of indefinite detention without charge. Indefinite detention without charge is one of the most egregious of all human rights violations and is a hallmark of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes the world over. A handful of White House lawyers are now attempting to erase a bedrock principle of American justice by the stroke of a pen, without even the fig leaf of congressional approval. Background Information
"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake." What an inspiring message! Can we have the person back who said that?
If there is enough evidence to indefinitely detain a person, then there is enough evidence to try that person in a court. If there is not enough evidence to try a person, then there is not enough evidence to indefinitely detain that person. The claim that some people cannot be given a fair trial and yet cannot be released is not only repugnant to the conscience, it is also irrational.
Attorney General Eric Holder told a federal judge that the suit by the families of four detainees who committed suicide at Guantanamo Bay should be dismissed because the issue is "fraught with political and military concerns" and Cheney and the government lawyers have immunity from prosecution.
Attorney General Holder again delayed release of a 2004 CIA report which paved the way for detainee waterboarding, sleep deprivation and physical abuse.
posted by N. Sukumar @ 8:27 PM
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