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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (32244)	6/13/2002 1:27:11 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

This "Dirty Bomb" suspect is going to the heart of the civil rights problem. From today on the "Reason" site. June 13, 2002 Stink Bomb The dirty bomb plot turns into an attack on the Constitution. By Mike Lynch "The concern we'd like to pursue is what's the substance of this," a congressional source told the Los Angeles Times after emerging Tuesday from an administration briefing on Jose Padilla, a.k.a. Abdullah al Muhajir, the alleged dirty bomber. "We're all for sticking bad guys in the hole, but you've got to have evidence." But these days, the executive branch is making a neat end run around that tired old principle of "evidence for crimes." If it lacks such evidence -- or insists on keeping it secret -- the president can simply call a person an "enemy combatant" and ship him off to the custody of the armed forces, leaving the suspect with no counsel and no constitutional protections. The United States has always prided itself on being governed by a written rule of law, not the arbitrary dictates of its momentary leaders. But the imperatives of the War on Terror are eroding that principle. The dirty bomb story smelled bad from the outset. The FBI and CIA are under fire for lack of information-sharing, among other things. The president promised "pre-emptive action" during a speech at West Point on June 1. Worried talk of dirty bombs has filled the air for months. Presto, Attorney General John Ashcroft is live from Moscow announcing Padilla's custody shift from Justice to the Defense Department, and praising the FBI, CIA, and other federal agencies for their "close cooperation." Still, elements of the press remained skeptical. Articles appeared questioning the suspicious timing. Democrats and civil libertarians frustrated with the highly selective release of information accused the administration of news-cycle management. But the truth turns out to be even worse: The administration's hand was forced because it was scheduled to have to justify itself before the courts. If the administration had its way, we'd never have heard of Padilla and his alleged plans to construct a dirty bomb. It was only when it was threatened with having to present evidence of such a plan in court that the government squeezed those lemons into lemonade, took credit for thwarting, in Ashcroft's words, a "terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive "dirty bomb," and pushed Padilla into the never-neverland of military custody. This is where the rule of law comes in. Padilla is a U.S. citizen. The military tribunal system, at Bush's insistence, is for non-citizens. The administration points back to a 1942 U.S. Supreme Court decision under which U.S. citizens who were also German saboteurs were tried by a military court and executed two months after their capture. But the government is not interested in trying Padilla for a crime; it just wants to hold on to him indefinitely. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told CBS's Early Show, "He's an enemy combatant and as in earlier wars, you can hold an enemy combatant until the end of the conflict." His two bosses -- Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush -- have made the same point. "Our interest, really, in this case, is not law enforcement," said Rumsfeld. "It is not punishment." Declared Bush, "This Padilla's a bad guy and he is where he needs to be -- detained." Some congressional leaders support the administration. "If you aid and abet the enemy, whether you are a citizen or not, you're not entitled to the rights of due process," says New York's senior Senator Charles Schumer (D). But how do we know he aided and abetted the enemy? It's due process -- the very thing the administration is denying Padilla -- that would determine this. This rights-denial is justified by our undeclared war on terrorism -- which is a declared war on anyone the government says is a terrorist. The Padilla case is part of a pattern of government abuse of power. The government has detained hundreds of individuals in the aftermath of 9/11, holding some on violations of federal law, including immigration law, and others as material witnesses. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get such basic information as the detainees' names and names of their counsel. A New Jersey state court ruled against the government's policy of secret arrest and detainment. Some of the cases are deeply troubling. Nabil Almarabh, a former Boston cab driver and terrorist suspect, was kept in solitary confinement without access to either a lawyer or a judge for eight months. If the Bush administration gets its way, Padilla could find himself in the same position for much, much longer. Mike Lynch is Reason's national correspondent.

To: Bilow who wrote (32244)	6/13/2002 1:42:53 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

For the same reasons, having Arafat (or Sharon) removed from power will not significantly pacify the region. To get real peace, the people (on both sides) have to want peace more than revenge (or retribution, or "defense", or "martyrdom", or whatever they want to call their violence). Maybe. But removing Milosevicz did seem to make a difference in Serbia. Sometimes it's not until after the dictator is gone that people start to look around and say, "oh sh-t, that didn't work so well."

To: Bilow who wrote (32244)	6/13/2002 2:07:08 AM
From: paul_philp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Carl, I agree with you about the situation between Israel and the Palenstine. There is no desire for peace. I support the US backing off and letting the two parties work it out. I was speaking about Saudi Arabia as a 'host' of the Al Qaeda. It is one country where establishing economic reform is possible. It looks like the status quo means that the House of Saud will fall eventually to an Islamist movement. So the royal family has some incentive. The Saudi middle class will very quickly give up on the Palestinian cause as they buy their 2.4GHz WiFi enabled computers. I think 'healing the host and boosting the immune system' might be a viable strategy. Otherwise I see the situation become West v.s. Islamists at some point. I remember seeing a Northern Irish film at the Toronto Film festival. It was quite funny. The cast and crew were there and took questions afterwards. Someone asked about the troubles. The film's director answered that the only people who cared anymore were the middle aged men hanging out in pubs all day looking for some excitement. The younger generation had gotten good paying high tech jobs are were just not interested anymore. Paul

To: Bilow who wrote (32244)	6/13/2002 6:48:28 AM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Not only did most Germans adore Hitler Not most, "only" a majority of Germans adored Hitler. but I think that most of them approved of his actions against the Jews. Not because of anything different or special about Germans (or Jews), but instead simply because of the natural human tendency to organize together for brutal bloodshed. No, Germans didn't organize for bloodshed. It wasn't like in ancient Rome where spectators were able to watch prisoners being torn apart by lions. Jews and members of other minorities who were sufficiently deviant from the "norm" (communists, homosexuals, gypsies, critical intellectuals, disabled persons) just "disappeared" to "work camps". Remember that the "final solution" for the Jews was decided as late as January 1942 during the Wannsee conference; only then the deliberate mass killings started: ghwk.de In my view the psychological condition allowing to happen what initially looked like detainments and displacements is better described by the famous Milgram experiment. Yale University psychologist Milgram first published the results of a perplexing study in 1974. He had found out that 60% of a set of teachers were prepared to kill a person in a mock experiment which looked real to them. A Wikipedia description of Milgram's work: wikipedia.com A summary of the 1974 book: "The Perils of Obedience" home.swbell.net We agree again when you say there wasn't "anything special" about Germans during the Nazi regime. A similar period could occur in the USA with a dictatorial leadership. Therefore it is crucial to avoid authoritarian or dictatorial regimes. The built-in structural wisdom of democracy is that counterbalancing institutions are supposed to prevent any single madman from rising to power. Additionally leaders rarely serve longer than a decade which limits the error of going in the wrong direction for too long.