ROBERTS VOTED TO GIVE BUSH DICTATORIAL POWERSFri Aug 19, 2005 19:5664.140.159.113
ROBERTS VOTED TO GIVE BUSH DICTATORIAL POWERS
http://counterpunch.org/floyd07202005.html
CHRIS FLOYD, COUNTERPUNCH - The United States long ago ceased to be
anything like a living, thriving republic. But it retained the legal
form of a republic, and that counted for something: as long as the
legal form still existed, even as a gutted shell, there was hope it
might be filled again one day with substance.
But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being
dismantled. The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is
being openly established, through a series of unchallenged executive
orders, perverse Justice Department rulings and court decisions by
sycophantic judges who defer to power - not law - in their
determinations. What we are witnessing is the creation of a
"Commander-in-Chief State," where the form and pressure of law no
longer apply to the president and his designated agents. The rights of
individuals are no longer inalienable, nor are their persons
inviolable; all depends on the good will of the Commander, the
military autocrat.
George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on
earth - including any American citizen - an "enemy combatant," for any
reason he sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison
them for life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with
no burden of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative
oversight, no appeal, no judicial process whatsoever except those that
he himself deigns to construct, with whatever limitations he cares to
impose. Nor can he ever be prosecuted for any order he issues, however
criminal; in the new American system laid out by Bush's legal minions,
the Commander is sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.
This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States
today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being
codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures
of the state, as Deep Blade Journal reports in an excellent compendium
of recent outrages against liberty.
For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges
upheld Bush's sovereign right to dispose of "enemy combatants" any way
he pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the
judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated "enemies" are
non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and
domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone
he likes to the "military tribunal" system he has concocted - a brutal
sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a
"kangaroo court" that will be used by tyrants around the world to
"hide their oppression under U.S. precedent."
One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than
John G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers,
Roberts was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now
he will be sitting in final judgment on this case - and any other
challenges to Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in
the tyrant trade, as "a safe pair of hands."
The ruling by Roberts and his fellow Republican jurists ignores the
fact that the Geneva Conventions - which lay down strict guidelines
for the handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless
of the captive's status - have been incorporated into the U.S. legal
code, as Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by
presidential fiat. And anyone who commits a "grave breach" of the
Conventions - by facilitating the killing, torture or inhuman
treatment of detainees (e.g., stripping them of all legal status and
subjecting them to rigged tribunals) - is subject to the death penalty
under American law.
====================
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Judith Miller/Valerie Plame theory of immaculate conception: The cover story on Salon.com today is a piece on Judith Miller by Joe Strupp, a careful and meticulous senior editor with Editor & Publisher. Linking to my recent story which first disclosed a July 8, 2003 meeting between Miller and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Strupp writes:
http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/
THE COURT IS IN SESSION:
Message Board by American Patriot Friends Network [APFN]
