If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Why is Guantanamo still open? Why has there been no public accounting for the use of torture? Why does President Obama successfully claim the right to assassinate American citizens living abroad? And why do civil libertarians lose arguments of this sort time and again?
Does torture fit with historical American values? One need only look to the filmography of the great Dana Andrews for the answer.
If we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who gave their lives fighting for their country, we'll redouble our efforts to make sure we're worthy of their sacrifice; we'll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide as soon as Thursday whether it will hear the Latif v. Obama and possibly restore a right to meaningful judicial review for detainees imprisoned in the name of the "war on terror."
This incessant message of denial is hard to swallow by many sectors of our society. The sad reality is that our nation has institutionalized vigilance based on stereotypical ethnic and religious profiling.
KSM's trial is the condensed metaphor for the way the west has dealt with terrorism. Only in this case, the prosecution knows better than to give in to what al Qaida wants.
The U.S. cannot un-torture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It cannot redo the detention of these men in a way that is humane and just. There is, however, the chance to ensure that the court in which they are judged is not a further perversion of the values Americans claim to hold dear.
I have now been to Guantánamo six times. Nothing I've seen has changed my view that the military commissions are unworkable. The system is set up to guarantee convictions and hand down death sentences, nothing more.
Speaking to former Guantanamo detainee 727 was like talking to a prisoner of Azkaban, that terrible prison guarded by soul-sucking Dementors from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
Most of the 169 remaining Guantanamo detainees will never be charged in court. They will thus never be given what those accused of the most serious terrorist offenses receive: the opportunity to be tried and sentenced if found guilty.
When even the former chief prosecutor opposes a trial in the military commissions he headed, there's something seriously wrong. Since their creation...
It's hard to imagine that any American, Jose Rodriguez included, would argue waterboarding isn't torture if the tapes in question depicted Iranian or Chinese agents waterboarding captured American pilots.
Every interrogation starts with analysis. That is, getting to know the detainee, researching their background, exploring their relationships with others, reviewing any available information and figuring out what makes them tick.
Another round of torture debates is soon to ensue on the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. Jose Rodriguez, the former CIA agent notorious for destroying 'the torture tapes,' will release his new book, Hard Measures, on the same date.
If civil liberties mean anything to liberals, we need to start criticizing violations of those civil liberties regardless of who perpetrates them -- and that criticism must be done with the same urgency as always.
What matters is having a leader, not a politician, assume political office. And so I suggest that people look to break out of the two-party trance and take on a pro-active role in taking your government back to serve You, your family, your friends, your community.
