BAD FAITH

AND LACK OF CONVICTION now reveal themselves in the Bush administration’s all too late capitulation to American concepts of justice in the Jose Padilla case. At the last moment, in order to avoid review of its shameful treatment of a United States citizen, the government charges Padilla for far less than it originally claimed.  Pathetic.  Even now the government claims Padilla may not have the right to confront his accusers nor to call witnesses in his defense because of what “the enemy” might find out about what we know and how we came to know it.  The reality has nothing to do with the enemy.  Or perhaps reality does.  All the citizens of America and the entire world would learn what our leaders have done in our name.

IN BAD FAITH George Bush is at war with America.  In bad faith George Bush wages war on all American values in a perverse and twisted logic, where cruelty is a kindness American given to the world with other hand, the hand held in the shadows as Bush holds up the fire of freedom in another.  In bad faith Bush Prometheus would protect us from all enemies to the American way, but he cannot protect us from himself.  In bad faith Bush’s professions for freedom only profane the word and its principles.  Even as Bush and his awful acolytes profusely speak of protecting our piece of heaven here on earth, they engage the methods of hell.  Cruelty, deception and deceit, savagery and secrecy are not the icons of a City on a Hill, the beacon of freedom to the world.  In bad faith George Bush wages war on civilization itself.

IN BAD FAITH George Bush now seeks to avoid his Final Judgement.  In attempting to remove Padilla’s case from the docket before the Supreme Court, George Bush seeks to remove from discussion what would surely be the center of unholy war on terror.  If Padilla’s treatment were found unconstitutional, the whole edifice of Bush’s methods would be shaken to the ground.  At its most base, the idea of unlimited presidential executive power would fall.  If the center cannot hold, its satellite attendant abuses of American ideals embodied in the Patriot Act would fall on top of it.
 
WE THE PEOPLE MIGHT discover that the Fourth Amendment to the Contitution in the end is the card that trumps all previously played that would throw in man in jail without legal counsel for over three years without charge and have tortured American justice.
 
IN BAD FAITH Bush believes that if he has no Supreme Court judgment against him, then he can continue on with his torture abuse of American ways.  May he soon learn he cannot.

RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL READING
[Newsday]  . .  .at least now Padilla will have a chance to challenge accusations that he conspired with four others to provide material support to terrorists and commit murder overseas, charges contained in the indictment. He will finally have the benefit of fair-trial rights guaranteed by the Constitution, now that the government will have to prove its case.
No citizen taken into custody in the United States should be deprived of those rights as Padilla has been. So the Supreme Court should accept the appeal filed on his behalf last month and answer the question it posed: "Does the president have the power to seize American citizens in civilian settings on American soil and subject them to indefinite military detention without criminal charges or trial?"
The administration, clearly hoping to avoid a Supreme Court showdown, announced the indictment just days before a deadline to file its legal arguments. Officials insist the issue is moot now that Padilla has been charged. But it's not. Padilla's circumstances have changed, but one key legal issue hasn't. If it's left unresolved, then Padilla, or any other citizen branded an enemy combatant, could be picked up and held for as long as George W. Bush or any subsequent president desires.
If Bush's power isn't checked, then, even if Padilla is found not guilty by the federal court in Florida where he's to stand trial, authorities could simply walk him from the courthouse door right back into a military brig. The nation needs an unequivocal ruling on the limits of presidential power in this context, and it's up to the Supreme Court to provide it. THE HERETIK NOTES Bush who was a cheerleader in high school seeks to avoid the other team’s slam dunk victory.  How much of this wasting of basic human rights is an attempt by Bush to make up for a wastrel youth is left to others.

WHAT BUSH HAS WROUGHT WITH TORTURE [Liberty Street] From this news, we can draw two conclusions:
First, after spending so much time rewriting and reinterpreting the meaning of domestic law and international agreements to permit the U.S. to torture detainees in the war on terror, it turns out the Bush administration doesn't trust the credibility of information obtained under torture enough to use it in court. They know it's not reliable. They know torture is morally wrong, evil, barbaric, and uncivilized. And they know that the American court system would not stand for a prosecution based on "evidence" gained through torture.
Second, IF Padilla did have ties to Al Qaeda; IF the Justice Department's case against him had merit; then the Bush administration has destroyed that case by using torture to obtain evidence.
Put another way, the Bush administration has seriously damaged this country's ability to bring suspected terrorists to justice, and thus has gravely compromised U.S. national security.
So there you have it, folks. The president who used the Bill of Rights for toilet paper; and who has made the name of the United States synonymous with contempt for human rights -- all for the supposed purpose of protecting Americans' safety -- has killed the U.S. government's ability to successfully prosecute alleged terrorists.

THE HERETIK NOTES even Bush’s methods are at war with his ends.  The ends may justify the means, but mean methods mean the means invalidate the ends.  Somewhere Lord Acton laughs, sardonically

Comments

[Linkmeister]

Did you happen to see David Ignatius in the WaPo Thanksgiving Day?

He says much of what many of us have been thinking for quite a while. Better late than never, I suppose.

"Of all the reversals the United States has suffered in recent years, this may be the worst. We are slowly shredding the fabric that defines what it means to be an American.

"Not so long ago our country really was seen as different. Foreigners queued up outside any institution that called itself an "American university," hoping for a chance at their piece of the dream. My own ancestors were educated at such a college, and their children's and grandchildren's success in the new land was part of a global chain of American affirmation and renewal."

He (and I, and so many others) laments the loss.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

Very impressively done, K. Added you to the round up at IN BAD FAITH

Thank you, Linkmeister! :)