Bush Uses PROPAGANDA TO CAUSE LASTING DAMAGE TO CONSTITUTION (NYT Edit)

[kpete]

Editorial
Rushing Off a Cliff
Published: September 28, 2006

Here’s what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans’ fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists — because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That’s pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush’s shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

read the rest at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[dflprincess]

1. I was thinking tonight that while time and again we have broken faith

with those who lie in Flanders Fields - but with the passage of this bill we've now broken faith with those who lie at Normandy (and every other veteran of WWII). Our government is turning into the monster they fought to protect us from.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army
IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[Warpy]

2. People on this board who suggest that Democrats who betray

core principles shouldn't be reelected are flamed unmercifully by party only voters. Those party only voters howl about having a 100% pubbie government, hyperbole worthy of the party they excoriate. Those of us who tell what is intolerable to us are accused of being single issue voters, meaning not worth listening to.

Well, here is another issue. The cowards who voted with the Repugs on this disgraceful bill simply don't deserve the office. The Geneva Conventions were the bedrock of our foreign policy structure. Craven men and women who voted in favor of this president's whittling away at them must be thrown out.

At what point will we sacrifice enough core principles to discourage all the "my party and my party only" voters?

The NYT is absolutely correct on this issue. Anyone who voted for this abomination in the name of appearing tough on terrorism needs to be deprived of office. We could do little worse.

[rodeodance]

6. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

[kpete]

8. I agree with you Warpy

It is a matter of prinicipal

Otherwise - why bother?

[rodeodance]

3. 'to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election:'--this says it all.

[Erika]

5. Let's hope we toss out the GOP asses, and return government

to the people in 2006.

[madmusic]

4. laws — while actually doing nothing to protect the nation

That's the IN thing to do.

[Nikki Stone 1]

7. This editorial isn't strong enough

But I'll take what I can get

[gully]

9. "They hate us for our freedom" so we'll just cancel that shit.

Unreal.

[Atman]

10. Rushing off a cliff...

I drew this March 8, 2004.



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