http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19462430-12274,00.html
US gets itself in a noose with its core democratic values
THE WRY SIDE
Emma Tom
June 14, 2006
FOR too long, the US has copped unfair accusations that it has limboed
beneath established legal procedure at its prison camp in Guantanamo
Bay.
For too long, ill-informed and ill-deodorised lefty activists - such as
student protesters and Britain's most senior judges - have been
shrieking that the Guantanamo terrorists should be formally charged,
should be able to challenge their detention in court, should be
questioned without testicle electrodes, blah blah habeas corpus blah
(talk about demanding).
This week the US responded by revealing the intricacies of how it
determines the guilt and innocence of enemy combatants. Thanks to the
aggressive terrorist suicide strikes at Guantanamo Bay at the weekend,
we now know that the US is not operating in a judicial black hole.
The leader of the free world does, in fact, have a bold new approach to
due process - an approach that draws heavily on the acclaimed standards
of proof involved in the witch-drowning trials of 17th-century Europe.
When two Saudis and a Yemeni hung themselves with nooses made of bed
sheets and clothes early on Saturday morning, camp commander Rear
Admiral Harry Harris's verdict was swift: the suicides were an act of
asymmetrical warfare against America.
"These are dangerous men and they will do anything they can to gain
support for their cause and the advance of their cause," he said of the
dead men. "They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own."
While all three detainees had engaged in hunger strikes in protest at
their indefinite imprisonment and had been force fed in the lead-up to
their deaths, US deputy assistant secretary of state for public
diplomacy Colleen Graffy dismissed suggestions of mounting detainee
desperation.
She described the hangings as a "PR move" and just another tactic to
further the jihadi cause.
No doubt the bleeding-heart, latte-swilling, gay-marriage, ABC,
Bush-bashing brigade will try to claim there's a world of difference
between a mass-murderous suicide that wipes out a great chunk of New
York and three lonely self-strangulations that occur in isolated cells
in an island camp so secret that even lawyers and family members aren't
allowed in.
But despite the endless whining and hand-wringing, the US approach to
enemy combatant justice has been revealed as being perfectly
straightforward: if you're in Guantanamo and you top yourself, you're
guilty. This is because it proves that you're a one-eyed jihadist who's
prepared to stop at nothing to besmirch America's good name by making it
look like the great nation has treated you so badly you've lost your
will to live. You evil *****.
If, on the other hand, you're in Guantanamo and you try to top yourself
and fail (the official number of such attempts is 41, though defence
lawyers claim the figure is much higher), you're also guilty. This is
because it proves you weren't really serious about doing yourself in and
you were just trying to draw attention to your vile, axis of Osama
cause.
You evil *****.
Oh, and don't forget that if you're being held in Guantanamo and you're
both alive and unsuicidal, you're really, really guilty. This is because
it proves you just can't wait to get out and start pissing on the right
to liberty, the rule of law, the checks and balances on absolute
government power and all the other core democratic values America holds
so dear.
Once again: You evil, evil *****. Of course, if you do wish to prove
your innocence, the solution is simple: just make sure you aren't
captured and designated a US enemy combatant in the first place. Not
that this guarantees you won't suddenly be blown to smithereens and have
your swollen corpse flashed across the world by a gloating US, a la Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi (PR move, anyone?).
But any citizen who can't see that defending core democratic values is
too important to bother upholding core democratic values is clearly an
infidel and deserves what's coming to them.
Footnote: For more information on the US position on justice in the age
of terror, see pages one to 519 of the internationally celebrated legal
manual Catch 22 by JosephHeller.
info@emmatom.com.au
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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