Japanese-American Internment Camp during WWII
When GW Bush was president, there was an ongoing fight over his handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Following 9/11, President Bush ordered enemy combatants (suspected terrorists) to be captured and held/detained at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba. The detainees were not afforded the right to seek redress in U.S. courts, essentially precluded from Constitutional due process by virtue of their not being U.S. citizens (which is what the Constitution covers) and by virtue of their not being soldiers associated with any country.
The Geneva Convention governs how nations should treat captured enemies on the battlefield. It prohibits torture and generally requires that all those captured be treated humanely. Most nations in the world signed this treaty, which is essentially a contract which binds the parties (countries) which signed it.
However, the Bush administration faced a dilemma: detain captured terrorists and treat them humanely under the Geneva Convention, foregoing the ability to interrogate for intelligence, or violate the Geneva Convention and gain valuable intelligence in the war on terror. Bush found a way around this, defining those captured as "enemy combatants" from organizations who were not parties to the Geneva Convention. After all, while most countries had signed this contract, organizations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban had not signed the contract. These terrorist organizations did not represent any nation, but rather were terrorist organizations spread out over many nations with stated goals of killing Americans and taking down the western way of life - freedom and democracy.
Since they were not a party to the Geneva contract, Bush argued, they were not subject to the provisions of the Geneva Convention. This made sense. If you're not a party to a contract, you aren't bound by it's limitations and you aren't afforded its protections. And, of course, it was clear that these terrorist organizations were not operating in accordance with the Geneva Convention - we are all familiar with the videos that surfaced on the internet of Americans and others captured by these terrorists who were beheaded in the name of Allah and Islam. It was pretty obvious that they didn't give much credence to the treaty/contract signed by various countries that required the humane treatment of captured enemies.
Nevertheless, liberal activists and attorneys pressed hard to have detainees at Guantanamo given access to legal counsel and the U.S. courts so that they could present habeas corpus petitions. Basically, they wanted these terrorist detainees to be afforded the due process rights that American citizens enjoy and that perhaps detainees subject to the Geneva Convention might enjoy. After hard-fought legal battles, the issue reached the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the detainees did, in fact, have due process rights. Since then, detainees in Guantanamo have had access to attorneys who file unlawful detainer petitions with U.S. federal courts seeking judicial review of their detentions. I disagree with the Supreme Court's ruling, but it stands as the current law nonetheless.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago - President Obama signs the NDAA into law. It gives him, in his sole discretion, the authority to detain any American citizen that he alone deems a national security threat, without any review by a court of law and without any ability by the detained person to challenge their detention in the same manner as Guantanamo detainees during Bush's tenure were afforded. Such detention may be indefinite, without the president ever providing any reason for their detention or any ability for the detained American citizens to seek redress in American courts. A blatant violation of the Constitution!
These are American citizens, keep in mind, not foreign, non-citizen, terrorists. So the terrorists in Guantanamo have a right to due process under the Constitution, but American citizens now detained for the same reasons by Obama do not have this right. Anyone else see the inconsistency and absurdly unlawful and outrageous nature of the NDAA in this regard?
There is much more that can be said about the NDAA, but I'll leave you with this famous quote from many hundreds of years ago which rings as true today as when it was coined: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Is Obama president, or king?
Don't expect the liberal media to discuss this issue. They are basically the PR wing of the democratic party. Aside from Fox News, which the rest of the media paints as the devil, the media is the ministry of propaganda for the lefties in this country, and I think most Americans either don't know about the NDAA and it's implications, or don't realize the gravity of it. Hopefully, this short diatribe may at least encourage you to look into this issue more fully on your own. Once you know more about this, I'm sure you'll find it as outrageous as I do. Don't be complacent, people, or you'll lose the ability to challenge these violations of liberty, and by the time you realize that something needs to be done, you won't have the freedom to challenge and change things. Don't trust me - don't trust anyone. Educate yourself, and fight for what you feel comports with the tenets of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I contend that the NDAA is a blatant attack on these sacred American values. We need to fight for strict compliance with the Constitution by our elected officials, who all take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution. Obama has violated this oath by signing the NDAA. Good luck and God bless America!
Your writing is great. I agree with you. Mr. Alborano would be proud.
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