The New York Times condemns Bush: "Hideous... horrific... shocking"

fiorello

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Fri Sep-15-06 01:48 PM
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The New York Times condemns Bush: "Hideous... horrific... shocking"

Edited on Fri Sep-15-06 01:53 PM by sanfo

Hideous. horrific. Shocking. Immoral. Utterly false.
These are the words used by the New York Times lead editorial to describe Bush’s proposals to ignore the Geneva Conventions and strip the courts of power. This is no left-leaning blog or commentator, this is the New York Times. I’ve never seen them write like this.

Please bring this excellent summary of the White House horrors (there's a historic phrase) to everyone's attention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/opinion/15fri1.html

...
Yesterday, the president himself went to Capitol Hill to lobby for his bill, which would give Congressional approval to the same sort of ad hoc military commissions that Mr. Bush created on his own authority after 9/11 and that the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional. It would permit the use of coerced evidence, secret hearings and other horrific violations of American justice.
...
The idea that the nation’s chief executive is pressing so hard to undermine basic standards of justice is shocking. And any argument that these extreme methods would be used only against the most dangerous of international terrorists has been destroyed by the handling of hundreds of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, many of whom appear to have been scooped up in Afghanistan years ago with little attempt to verify any connection to terrorism, and now are in danger of lingering behind bars forever without a day in court.
...
One section of the administration bill would put American soldiers in grave jeopardy by rewriting the Geneva Conventions, condoning the practice of hiding prisoners in secret cells, and permitting the continued use of interrogation methods that violate the Geneva Conventions at the C.I.A. prisons....He also wants Congress to rewrite the War Crimes Act, which makes it a crime to violate the Geneva Conventions. The administration’s goal here is to avoid having C.I.A. interrogators, private contractors or the men who gave them their orders called to account for the immoral way the administration has run its terrorist detention centers.
....
The White House wants to strip the federal courts of any power to review the detentions of the prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. This provision has no real bearing on the handful of genuine terrorists who were recently shipped there from abroad. Their cases are likely to be brought before military commissions, whose judgments could be appealed to higher courts, including the Supreme Court. But it has a profound impact on the hundreds of others at Guantánamo Bay. Many of them, perhaps the majority, committed minor offenses, if any. The administration has no intention of trying them, and wants to prevent them from appealing for help in court.
...
Many members of Congress who succumb to the strong-arming will know, in their hearts, that they were doing the wrong thing out of fear for their political futures. Perhaps the voters will not judge them harshly this fall. But history will.