Michael Ratner: Guantánamo at 10: the defeat of liberty by fear

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Guantánamo at 10: the defeat of liberty by fear
The unprecedented executive powers assumed by both presidents since 9/11 have crippled America's body politic

Michael Ratner
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012


On 11 January 2002, the United States began showing major signs of what I call "Guantánamo syndrome", after one of the ailment's first and most enduring symptoms. That was the day when the Bush administration transferred the first 20 detainees to Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being assured by its Department of Justice that the location placed detainees outside of US legal jurisdiction.

But the first hint of our national illness appeared earlier, in the weeks following the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers, when the Bush administration took the lid off unlimited executive power. This is the lid that nobles, who had endured centuries of rulers imprisoning anyone who ticked them off and holding them indefinitely without having to state or prove any kind of case, affixed in 1215 with the Magna Carta. It's the lid that the original framers tightened to the specifications of the United States when they ratified the Constitution in 1790.

But after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers, Americans feared our still-unknown assailants far more than we feared the implications of unchecked executive power. We could not get the lid off that particular petri dish fast enough. Less than a week after 11 September 2001, Congress passed the Authorisation for Use of Military Force, which grants the president unlimited power to use force against anyone in the world – any nation, organisation, person, associated forces and so forth that the president determines was, in any way, involved in 9/11. Military Order #1, passed two months later, authorised the president to direct the capture of any non-citizen anywhere in the world allegedly involved in international terrorism, and detain that person indefinitely without access to the remedy of habeas corpus. (In another example of the deterioration of Americans' rights post-9/11, that power can now be applied to citizens as well.)

Together, these acts, plus the Bush administration's declaration of a so-called "war on terror", doubled as publicity stunt and power grab. By treating the assaults of 9/11 as acts of war rather than crimes, despite the fact that laws of war apply to battles between countries, the White House could "go cowboy". And so it did, eschewing the Constitution, kicking down doors, taking prisoners at will, and doing whatever it liked with them – without any heed for international law and without caring whether those prisoners were the right ones or not. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/11/guantanamo-at-10-defeat-of-liberty