Friday, June 30, 2006
Abuse of Power - Checks and Balances, and The SCOTUS
The Hamdan Case * Guantanamo
Maybe there is hope. That was my thought when The Supreme Court's 5:3 ruling on the Hamdan case sent shockwaves on June 29th. To say that it was a setback to President Bush's arrogant disregard of the Constitution and Geneva Convention would be an understatement. It brought him to a screeching halt. What a subservient Congress does to give him the authority he is now seeking remains to be seen. Peter Baker and Michel Abramowitz in the Post: "For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit. If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it. If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it."
- Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush's military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.
- For many in Washington, the decision echoed not simply as a matter of law but as a rebuke of a governing philosophy of a leader who at repeated turns has operated on the principle that it is better to act than to ask permission. This ethos is why many supporters find Bush an inspiring leader, and why many critics in this country and abroad react so viscerally against him.
SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States)
Guantanamo
The Guantanamo Prison is also a part of the story about abuses. The Road to Guantanamo, a film made by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, depicts the experience of three British nationals who were held there. David Denby's review of the movie appeared in The New Yorker June 26th issue. Here is his concluding paragraph:
- "The movie is shot from the victims’ point of view, as a kind of absurdist, theatre-of-cruelty exercise set in the real world. But what do the Americans think they are doing? How do they justify themselves? The actors playing the guards and interrogators are nonentities with beefy faces; they are just as opaque as the men who have fallen into their hands. We seem to have entered a land in which intelligence of any kind has been extinguished. The Red Cross has reported that some of the prisoners at Guantánamo are falling into despair; three have committed suicide, and more than twenty have tried. “The Road to Guantánamo” will tell you why, but it won’t tell you much else. And the movie, harsh as it is, underplays the moral case against Guantánamo. The filmmakers implicitly condemn the practice of holding men without formally charging them, and without giving them access to counsel and family visits. But, in making a melodrama about three innocent men, they ignore the larger point—that all prisoners should be granted these basic rights. This exposé of American sadism is a shocker, but the movie doesn’t bring us any closer to understanding the abuse that is carried out in our names."
