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No Senate Consideration of Habeas Corpus

No Senate Consideration of Habeas Corpus

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The US Senate has voted not even to consider upholding habeas corpus those designated an “enemy combatant” by the U.S. government (that could be you or me, folks).

This means that anyone can be held – STILL – for an indefinite amount of time without even being told why they are being detained (“arrested” “held” “imprisoned” “tortured”). They have no right to question or challenge detention, even if such detention is in violation of US and international law.

The draft legislation needed approval by 60 votes in order to be considered in the Senate (a cloture vote to block GOP filibuster).

It received only 56, with 43 voting against.

Of my own senators, Saxby Chambliss didn’t vote (which is a little strange – usually he’s right there doing whatever the Fuhrer wants). Johnny Isakson (who I sometimes have teeny-tiny hopes for) voted NAY.

Oh, yeah, Lieberman voted NAY, too.

Arlen Specter – a prominent Republican and one of the three sponsors of the bill – noted that the right to habeas corpus dates back at least to the English Magna Carta of 1215, and is enshrined in the US Constitution.

Look, habeas corpus is a very basic protection against arbitrary arrest. No country that tries to claim it is an any way democratic should be without it. Even non-democratic countries often honor thabeas corpus.

Habeas Corpus empowers the individual in holding accountable the exercise of the state’s awesome power to restrain liberty.

To put this in the context of the current situation, the aim of the ‘Habeas Corpus Restoration Act’ – in combination with the ‘Restoring the Constitution Act’ – was to restore some sort of credibility to the process of detaining terrorist suspects.

Right now, everything we are doing is – well, the least you can say is that it runs counter to American values and traditions. These would would have put detentions in a more tenable legal framework by restoring the ancient tradition of habeas corpus, narrowing the definition of unlawful enemy combatants, prohibiting evidence obtained under torture, and returning to an affirmation of the Geneva Conventions.


See the official vote tally

I spit in the faces of all the Senators who voted against even seriously considering the issues involved here. You have not upheld your oath, and you do not deserve to be in office.

Impeach George Now

Impeach George Now

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For a number of valid (if frustrating) reasons, the Democratic leadership is not considering impeachment at this time.

You, however, can still join the Peace Team in expressing your views on the matter. If there were more outcry, momentum toward impeachment might go forward.

IMPEACHMENT ACTION PAGE: http://www.peaceteam.net/impeachment_now2.php

Before the coming of george bush and his shadow president Dick Cheney, the greatest military blunder in American History was thought to be Custer’s Last Stand. It did not take a lot of hindsight to know that general Custer’s vain assault on a much larger force of better-armed native Americans would come to no good end. His own Indian scouts told him that the encampment at Little Bighorn was far too large to be attacked. But in his supreme arrogance, Custer believed that HE knew better than his own best sources of intelligence. We all know the result of that one.

How uncanny are the parallels to the current situation in Iraq? The neocon ideologues who seized dictatorial control of our government brushed off all contrary advice, and manufactured intelligence to support their case. They dismissed any challenge to their vision of the absolute power of American military dominance as a matter of right. They fired any underling who dared to try to tell them the truth, that
deposing Saddam would lead directly and inexorably to an Islamic theocracy, if not a sectarian civil war. They used the power of their crony associates in the corporate media to smear any public critic. And they are still doing it.

In case you had not noticed, the very first act of the new secretary of defense was to order more troops to Kuwait. [This was] to enable sending more to Iraq. In other words, the self-anointed “decider” has already decided– to defy the will of the American people, their Congress, and the entire rest of the world, for all it matters to him. In his mind, this is another one of those “done deals.” The only thing that’s taking so long to make the official announcement is the difficulty of yet another con job on us, with public opinion moving ever more forcefully in the opposite direction. Most of the remaining rubber stamp members of Congress are already coming down with a major case of cold feet, thanks to your voices, but george bush does not care.

They’ve even had problems this time finding strategists to sign on to this surge of stupidity. The best that they could come up with was some chest pounder talking about “choosing” victory, as if this was just some kind of personal motivation seminar, and the Iraqi people themselves were to have no say at all in the matter. Why don’t we have George Custer tell us that the number of Indians was of no consequence? The primary difference between him and what bush has done is that Custer did not wreck the ENTIRE U.S. Army, Custer did not mortgage our whole economy for generations to come, and, unlike bush, he actually had the courage to enter mortal combat himself.

You see, our child king has already declared that, as long as he is president, he is not budging an inch from Iraq. Take him at his word. You heard him say it. He is determined to take this country down with him in a pique of stubborn ignorance. He will not go out without a final surge of insanity and horror. And the only thing that can possibly save us all, and our future, is to finally stand up and hold him accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors. [These are] enough to impeach every president who has ever served.

IMPEACHMENT ACTION PAGE

It is impossible to read the Constitution and not see george bush’s name writ large in every reference to the salvation of impeachment. If the founders had known his actual name, it certainly would have been expressly stated there, just as they enumerated the many outrages of their own king George. And all that is required for it to happen is for enough of us to speak out at the same time, to our members of Congress, in letters to the editors of our newspapers, and it WILL be so. When Custer’s Crow scouts told him in unison that he was out of his mind, he let them go. It’s not only time to let george bush go; but we must MAKE him go– NOW.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours.

To be added to the list, go to http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

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