The Problem with the Republic 0

A little while ago, I commented on the Local Rag’s editorial about the current Federal Administration’s Concentration Camps.

That editorial evoked a letter to the editor today:

The Sept. 29 editorial “Welcome to Guantánamo” was sarcastic and made fun of our president. That’s fine; it’s your right, but it was nasty and silly. What it said is: We care more about how murderers are treated (not tortured, mind you, but simply “harshly treated,” to paraphrase you) than the safety of our citizens, including women and children whom these terrorists kill.

Here, of course, is the disconnect: There is no proof that any of the persons held in Guantanamo are murderers, though some probably are. There is ample proof that many of them just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But the writer of the letter has convicted everyone in Guantanamo on the say-so of one man: the current Federal Administrator.

Perhaps a danger to society like the 78-year-old man shown below, recently released, with five years gone out of the rest of his life:

Think of that: It took the current Federal Administration five years to conclude that this man was likely not a “combatant.”

This Administrator is the same man who wants to use secret trials, to use “evidence” collected through torture, and to deny the simplest protections that are the underpinnings of justice.

Remember also the history of the label, “enemy combatant.” The current Federal Administration created that phrase so it did not have to use other terms, such as “criminal” or “prisoner of war,” because, had it used those terms, it would have had to obey the law regarding how they treated the captives. Heaven forbid that, for we seem no longer to live under the rule of law.

Their goal was, by changing the label, to release themselves from any obligation to deal with their captives within the bounds of civilized behavior, including the captives’ rights to be a actually implicated in something before being detained, to have their treatment monitored by the Red Cross, to humane treatment.

If we allow one person to arrogate to himself the right to pronounce guilt or innocence, we forfeit our liberty.

But all the letter-writer seems to grasp is that the persons in Guantanamo must be murderers.

I guess the writer’s reasoning goes, “Hey! Otherwise George III Bush wouldn’t have put them there in the first place.”

But, then, again, we know the persons held in America’s Concentration Camps must be guilty. The current Federal Administration says they are, and we have ample proof of the Federal Administration’s voraciousness veracity, now, don’t we?

Oh, yeah, there’s this:

Sorry. My mind seems to have wondered. What was the topic?

I’m not sure, but I think part of it is folks who don’t recognize that, if you do not have “justice for all,” you have justice for none.