Go read this story in the New York Times and cry for what our country has become, and for what we have lost. The story is about Jose "Dirty Bomb" Padilla, and his treatment while incarcerated as an "enemy combatant" in a military brig.
He was locked up there, with no access to lawyers, for 21 months. He was, his lawyers claim, the solitary prisoner in a 10-cell wing. He was kept in a cell with blacked out windows, no clock, and no calendar. When he was removed from his cell for things like dental work, as you can see in the photograph on the Times website, he was moved around wearing blacked-out goggles and earphones. According to his lawyers, the mattress was removed from his cell, and he had to sleep on a steel bed. His copy of the Koran was also reportedly taken away.
Padilla certainly appears to be a man of many flaws, but there is a basic fact that seems to have been forgotten - certainly by those in our government who decided to treat him this way. Padilla is an American citizen. At that time, the government was loudly and very, very publicly accusing him of plotting to kill thousands of his fellow citizens. But that was all that had happened - they had accused him of a crime. They had not charged him with one, they had not tried him for one, and they certainly had not convicted him of one. They skipped those inconvenient trivialities, and went right to punishment.
It is entirely possible that our nation's founders are spinning fast enough in their graves to make the Earth wobble on its axis.
The treatment accorded Padilla during his time as an "enemy combatant" shows how much harm our leaders have inflicted on this country in response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Ultimately the self-inflicted harm will probably turn out to be much greater, and certainly longer lasting, than the horror caused by airplanes hitting buildings. The terrorists killed some of us, but it is our government that is taking our freedoms from us in response.
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Yeah, pretty horrible, but what USAder cares enough to do anything about it?
Yeah, but what, with the exception of voting against those who would take away their freedoms, can a USAder do about it? That is, if they did care.
Punishment first - trial and sentence later. (Oops, sorry - that is kind of like the trial in Alice In Wonderland.)
It seems we have modelled our present system on fairytales whose message was that that sort of legal system was unethical.
We used to talk about the military-industrial complex. Now we have a security-rights abuse industry coming into being. Tens of thousands of people are now working at jobs which do almost nothing to protect the public from evil. Their achievements range from their own evil acts against a few at one end of the scale to pointlessly inconveniencing almost everyone.
The power hungry have taken advantage of the public in order to create empires for themselves. They might be saying, "Don't be scared, I know what to do. Just let me create a Department of Keeping You Safe. A few thousand minions reporting to me will make all the difference in the world. You'll see."
That iPod in the airplane toilet last August in Ottawa was a fine example of over-reaction and oppressive behaviour. Within the mindset of these people over-reaction is good. Negative consequences can only affect them when they mistakenly under-react.
These people are helping the terrorist achieve their goals. Now try to figure out a way to take back the excessive power they have acquired.
@JohnnieCanuck: "Now try to figure out a way to take back the excessive power they have acquired."
One way to reclaim part of what you have now acquired is to vote Bush out. Many of these atrocities are able to be committed because Bush has signed more exemptions from your constitution and law than *all* previous presidents combined. By a magnitude or more. "Signing Statements" in your favourite search engine will give you more info, but here is one: http://www.google.com/search?&q=bush+signing+statements
After you get past those exemptions - that leaves the erosions that have been passed through your senate. From an external observer, they are not pleasant, but at least it is the combined will of your elected representatives (rather than the Executive alone).
The War Crimes Act of 1996 made the application of torture punishable by death. It's about time we started applying it.
"One way to reclaim part of what you have now acquired is to vote Bush out."
You don't seem to know much about the U.S. political system. George Bush is serving the remainder of a 4 year term, after which he cannot run again. He cannot be voted out, he can only be impeached by Congress.
I wonder: would you still feel the same if those restrictions had been emplaced following a nuclear attack on the US, instead of just a cruise-missile attack? (In terms of destructive force, the four 9/11 airplanes were basically manned cruise missiles.) What if it could be proven that the bomb was placed by individuals who couldn't be stopped precisely because your prattle about your precious "freedoms" had resulted in the intel and police agencies who might have stopped the plot being helpless to either collect information or act on it?
Andrew,
One of the details you as an external observer missed, is that I am not an American. Canuck refers to a Canadian. Ottawa is the capital of Canada. We are almost indistinguishable from them, yet strangely take pride in whatever small differences we find.
I don't know enough about US politics to predict whether the Democratic Party will be able to fix the security-rights abuse problems. It is a huge industry now and will be lobbying them just like all the other special interest groups.
I just hate letting terrorists win indirectly. The security types cause a huge impact on the public's quality of life and the economy. If we cared only about the direct death and destruction terrorists caused, we would be doing an awful lot more to reduce carnage on the roads.
According to the recent Times article on risk, 44,000 are killed per year in the US. They claim that the number of people who died because they chose to drive rather than fly post 9/11 exceeded the direct toll due to the terrorists by a third again.
Turning this around, if we can accept the MVA numbers, we can logically tolerate some terrorist generated deaths. Emotionally it is not so easy. Pride and illogical fear get in the way. The Brits for example were quoted as refusing to stop using the tubes after those attacks because that would be letting the terrorists win.
wolfmaker
Whatif? What if we do give up many freedoms and accept the tyranny of those who know best for us? Where is the guarantee that they will competently use the information they will have access to? Take a look at their track record so far. Not much of a bargain to embrace one devil and then not get the promised protection from another.
What if the attack had been nuclear? Then more would have died. Fear and pride would have been invoked on a larger scale. One possibility is that many Iraqis, Afghanis and maybe Saudis would also have died from nuclear retaliation.
You may not agree, but this is the basis for my position:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin {wikiquote}
"What if we do give up many freedoms and accept the tyranny of those who know best for us?"
You already have. So have we, down here in the States. It happens everywhere, every day. Mostly we don't notice because most of the losses seem so trivial, or even justifiable: trans-fatty acids in restaurant food, smoking in public areas or restaurants, driving without a seatbelt, taking a walk on the street without an ID. Your email is not secure. Your telephone is not secure. Your web-browsing habits are not secure. Your financial records and buying habits are not secure. In a couple of years the concept of "fair use" of copyrighted material will be gone -- not by law, but by action of electronics manufacturers who are building hardware into their devices that detect and refuse to copy copyrighted material. Anyone who wants to can get enough of your private information to steal your identity. In Canada you go a little further in some ways -- gun control, for example. Do you object to any of that? If not, then why do you object to this Padilla case?
In another time, which almost seems a lifetime ago now, I advanced the same arguments you're using now. I still believe them. But 9/11 changed all the rules. The probability that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons has changed them again. A nuclear attack on any one of half a dozen US targets would destroy us as a nation, and bring down most of the civilized world in the aftermath. That means that the terrorists are simply too much of a threat to continue using our old kid-glove methods on them. We now have too much to lose.
Any "self-inflicted harm" can be reversed in a day, by Congress repealing the laws in question. It might not even need that, as many of the really unpleasant new security provisions have sunset clauses in them which will expire them automatically. But the fall of the US from nuclear attack would be permanent. To claim that we must stick rigidly to first-principles even in the face of a threat to our very existence strikes me as foolish in the extreme.
So you argued against fascism during the Cold War, but support it now?
Wow. You must have a very special mind to be able to handle such complex and diverse views all at once.
In truth, my view is probably so simple it defies your understanding:
1) Innocent citizens should enjoy all the rights, privileges, and protections found in the Constitution.
2) When an individual is found guilty of a crime, the penalty should include the loss of some of those rights, privileges, and/or protections. The worse the crime, the more they lose. Treason (and after the atrocities of 9/11, an American citizen who aids any anti-American terrorist group is committing treason) is one of a handful that I consider a crash-and-burn crime -- meaning, in this context, that the penalty should include loss of all rights.
That's just great. How does that relate to the abolishment of the rights of people who haven't been found guilty of treason, again?
I know it looks like this conversation has ended but if I hear the "What if a terrorist knew the location of a bomb" argument one more time, I'm going to scream. First of all, the premises are ridiculous. How exactly can you know, with 100% accuracy, that someone is in possession of some particular knowledge you are seeking, and that this knowledge can be used to save lives, but only if obtained within some limited amount of time? How is it that you can know with 100% accuracy that the only way to get this information is to torture them? How is it that you know the "countdown" has begun and how much time is left?
To look at it another way, how can you be 100% sure that every suspected "terrorist" doesn't have this type of knowledge. It's possible, right? Shouldn't we be torturing every single person brought in for questioning by the authorities?
If the morally reprehensible act of torture is now acceptable, is there any act that would be unacceptable to do? What if the terrorist is also a pedophile and offers the information for letting him watch you rape and sodomize a 5 year old girl in front of him?
Isn't it worth it to save all those lives?
What if the "terrorist" demands the rape, sodomy, and then decapitation of your own daughter in front of him?
Wouldn't that be worth it? Think of all the lives that would be saved by your sacrifice. Are we supposed to put the life of one toe-headed little girl above the lives of thousands of other Americans?
Kind of puts a different spin on it, don't it.