Countdown Special Comment: Death of Habeas Corpus: ôYour words are
lies, Sir.ö
By: John Amato on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 6:30 PM - PDT

Keith Oberman 10/18/06 report in part

....................

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed
to Benjamin Franklin that "those who would give up essential liberty
to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor
safety."

But even within this history, we have not before codified, the
poisoning of Habeas Corpus, that wellspring of protection from which
all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vitalà the most urgentà the most inescapable of reasons.

And ù again, Mr. Bush ù all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who
has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever
done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who
has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's
against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with
a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the
stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who
may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American
citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere ù
anywhere ù but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful
Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this, hyperbole or hysteriaà ask the newspaper
editors when John Adams was President, or the pacifists when Woodrow
Wilson was President, or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin
Roosevelt was President.

And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for
American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If
you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or
an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" ù exactly
how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to
prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help
you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope, he has not lied about how he intends
to use it, nor who he intends to use it against?

"These military commissions will provide a fair trial," you told us
yesterday, Mr. Bush. "In which the accused are presumed innocent, have
access to an attorney, and can hear all the evidence against them."

'Presumed innocent,' Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the
detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain
"serious mental and physical trauma" in the hope of getting them to
incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva
Conventions in their own defense.

'Access to an attorney,' Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to
the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee
defendant, on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

'Hearing all the evidence,' Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies, that imperil us all.

"One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,"
àyou told us yesterdayà "said he hoped the attacks would be the
beginning of the end of America."

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists
(real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas Corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The Moral Force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon,
and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bushà they would be "the beginning of
the end of America."

And did it even occur to you once sir ù somewhere in amidst those
eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the
horrors of 9/11 ù that with only a little further shift in this world
we now know ù just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which
our patriots died ù

Did it ever occur to you once, that in just 27 months and two days
from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future President
and a "competent tribunal" of lackeys would be entitled, by the
actions of your own hand, to declare the status of "Unlawful Enemy
Combatant" forà and convene a Military Commission to tryà not John
Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, sir, all of them ù as always ù wrong.

Joe Scarborough is next.

Good night, and good luck.
Filed Under: Countdown/Keith Olbermann
Trackback Permalink Comments | Spotlight | EMail This Post