TW: Part 2 of Cohen's piece focuses on Obama re-asserting respect for constitutional law. This is by no means a given, most POTUSes run afoul of the Constitution one way or the other, but some push the envelope too far. The Bush Administration set new lows. In the piece Cohen focuses on the diminution of habeus corpus under Bush. When we start cutting serious corners with the law in the pursuit of some sort of ephemeral security, we more than erode our corresponding liberty.
From Cohen at Int'l Herald Tribune:
"I'm thankful for many things right now, despite the stock market, and first among them is the fact that the next U.S. commander-in-chief is a constitutional law expert and former law professor.
...the law, which is what defines the United States, for it is a nation of laws. Or was until Bush, in the aftermath of 9/11, unfurled what the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called "the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history."
There is no need to rehash here the whole sordid history of the Bush administration's work on Vice President Dick Cheney's "dark side": the "enhanced" interrogation techniques in "black sites" outside the United States justified by invocation of a "New Paradigm" that rendered the Geneva Conventions "quaint."
When governments veer onto the dark side, language always goes murky. Direct speech makes dirty deeds too clear. A new paradigm sounds bland enough. What it meant was trashing habeas corpus...
...Of the 770 detainees grabbed here and there and flown to Guantánamo, only 23 have ever been charged with a crime. Of the more than 500 so far released, many traumatized by those "enhanced" techniques, not one has received an apology or compensation for their season in hell.
What they got on release was a single piece of paper from the U.S. government. A U.S. official met one of the dozens of Afghans now released from Guantánamo and was so appalled by this document that he forwarded me a copy.
Dated Oct. 7, 2006, it reads as follows:
"An Administrative Review Board has reviewed the information about you that was talked about at the meeting on 02 December 2005 and the deciding official in the United States has made a decision about what will happen to you. You will be sent to the country of Afghanistan. Your departure will occur as soon as possible."
That's it, the one and only record on paper of protracted U.S. incarceration: three sentences for four years of a young Afghan's life, written in language Orwell would have recognized.
We have "the deciding official," not an officer, or a judge. We have "the information about you," not allegations, or accusations, let alone charges. We have "a decision about what will happen to you," not a judgment, ruling or verdict. This is the lexicon of totalitarianism. It is acutely embarrassing to the United States...
That is why I am thankful above all that the next U.S. commander-in-chief is a constitutional lawyer. Nothing has been more damaging to the United States than debasing the legal principles at the heart of the American idea...Give thanks on this day for the law. It's what stands between the shining city on a hill and the dark side.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/opinion/edcohen.php
Part 1 is here
http://treylaura.blogspot.com/2008/12/return-of-competence.html
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