| Arguments to my opinion are not totally without merit, but both of the last responses are implicit slippery slope arguments. The idea that all Americans will eventually suffer because we're holding an American suspected of terrorist activity is unfounded.
Terrorists, whether American or otherwise, are much more like spies or military infiltrators out of uniform, whom other countries have summarily executed for centuries. "Rights" are not something to be plucked out of thin air -- they apply to those who play by the rules outlined under particular conventions. Enemy combatants, i.e. terrorists, have no intention of playing by any rules established by those who intend for others to follow them.
The Bush Administration is setting a precedent that could become dangerous only inasmuch that an administration lacking Bush's ethical and moral servitude could look at this confusing method of detention and apply it in immoral ways to otherwise innocent civilians...in this regard, I agree with you both that these decisions must be agreed to and implemented at the end of the day by Congress. We need new laws that would allow us to clearly indentify what we will do when dealing with terrorists in the coming decades. But for now, there is no sense pretending that there are any easy decisions being arrived at by the present administration when dealing with this new threat.
A couple points: in reference to the Japanese Americans that were detained during WWII. Not only was this roundup done by FDR, a Democratic president, but it has since not accounted for any reduction in rights afforded any American since. If ever there were an event that could threaten universal rights, it was this. Further, while all this was going on, Japanese Americans were coming forward in droves to volunteer in the fight agains the Axis powers ... they were not doing what the five Arab Americans today are doing who are showing no American pride whatsoever and suing airlines for supposed "profiling".
At the heart of the issue seems to be your fear that the US will slide right down the slippery slope to tyranny because we've detained "suspected" terrorists. That sheer assumption alone is ridiculous. The American people would never stand to live under totalitarian rule. Do you know any American who would ever allow himself to be dictated to? (!)
If Bush or anyone else were ever to start implementing martial law, the American system would snap them in two. Senators would start resigning and officials would refuse to cooperate. With all the commotion last week over the anniversary of the "massive" abuses of power Nixon claimed, people still refuse to discuss the fact that he RESIGNED. And ours is the country that even impeached Clinton!! As Jonah Goldberg has stated, it is sheer folly to believe that Americans would just fall over for a Hilter in a heartbeat.
In sum, I'm glad to know that the current administration isn't "cooling their heads" after 9-11. What an absurd statement... will you think the same thing after your guts are blown around Union Station next month by some of the same murderers that are presently romping around Israel? We face a danger unbeknownst to manking previously, at least here at home, and it's only going to get worse. You said it yourselves...Padilla and his buddies are scumbags. They deserve to be treated as such. Theories about unlawfulness and corruption are great -- it just seems we never get to experience the theory b/c reality takes over for it. And right now, the reality in this country is what matters...I'm not worried about some grand theoretical predictions in a term paper suffocating me quite as much as a nuclear attack on DC -- and neither should you.
TB |