Congressional Duck and Cover

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090524_congressional_duck_and_cover/

Congressional Duck and Cover

Posted on May 23, 2009

By Stanley Kutler

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Congress wants to close the Guantanamo facility, but it will not accept the responsibility that goes with that action. We cannot hold prisoners in Cuba indefinitely. Sadly, few are willing to stand for principle in the face of undoubtedly misplaced fears; instead, our representatives rant about imagined prisoners loose in some imagined backyard.

By a 90-6 vote, the Senate voted to strip money from a war supplemental bill to close Guantanamo. Those who mustered some political courage and voted in a responsible, considered way are terribly few: Richard Durbin (R-IL), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Patrick Leahy (D-VY), Carl Levin (D-MI), Jack Reed (D-RI),and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) (Byrd, Kennedy, and Rockefeller did not vote). Once again, Democrats have panicked for fear of being considered “soft” on national security.

The Gang of 90 must be oblivious to the population at the Supermax facility in Colorado. It includes Dandeny Munoz Mosquera, chief assassin for the Medllin Cartel; Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber;” Eric Robert Rudolph, bomber of abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympic Park; Terry Nichols, co-conspirator of the Oklahoma City bombing, Zacarias Moussaoui, the “20th hijacker” from the 9/11 World Trade Center destruction; and Ramzi Yusef from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. When not in solitary confinement, prisoners generally are allowed out of their windowless cells for an hour a day. None wander in our backyards; they will go nowhere.

Congress loves domino theories. Bring the “detainees” to American shores and they will unleash violence and terror on American citizens. Representatives have pounced on this popular proposition, believing it an easy path to re-election. They betray their own judgment, Burke would say. Instead, they might consider the principle President Barack Obama has laid before them: “We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens and keeps us safe,” he said in his National Archives speech on May 21.

While Congress plays to its home crowd, the Obama administration has brought an alleged al-Qaida militant accused in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya to New York, where he will be tried in a civilian court, marking a first for a Guantanamo prisoner. Even Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who never met a microphone or camera he did not like, has said nothing.

President Obama recently withheld releasing photos that depicted abuse and torture of prisoners by American military personnel, bowing to the Lieberman-Cheney-Gates contention that the photos would bring harm to our troops. But he also has said that he and Congress can “keep us safe” by restoring and strengthening our commitment to the rule of law. Good advice—perhaps Congress might re-assert its role as a proper representative body, reflecting real values and principles, not mere momentary enthusiasms.