War Becomes Con Game

Nine months after the expertly coordinated terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon killed more than 3,000 people and tore the heart out of New York City, the Bush administration appears to pose a greater threat to civil liberties and domestic programs than it does to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

After all, bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda lieutenants are believed to be holed up in the lawless Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, under the protection of Pashtun warlords who answer to neither the Pakistan army nor US Special Forces. Meanwhile, James Ridgeway of the Village Voice notes that right-wing lawyers supplied to the Bush administration by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation are seizing the initiative to rewrite rules to provide local police with sweeping federal authority, push the military and CIA directly into everyday domestic politics, and sanction indefinite detention without a charge or court hearing, even for US citizens.

Bush's Justice Department arrogantly argues that its decisions to lock up prisoners indefinitely should not be subject to judicial review. In the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, the US-born man captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan and now held incommunicado at a Navy brig in Norfolk, the Bush administration argues that those declared enemy combatants in the war on terrorism have no right to counsel and can be held indefinitely, even if they are US citizens.

Don't look for help from US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who told federal judges meeting in Williamsburg, Va., June 14, the courts are inclined to bend the law in the government's favor during hostilities. "In time of war, the laws are silent," he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. He cited as examples President Abraham Lincoln's suspension of the right to habeas corpus during the Civil War as well as the Supreme Court's willingness to uphold the internment of Japanese Americans and the secret military trial of eight Nazi saboteurs during World War II. Of course, in those cases, the US actually was in a state of war, a status that is lacking in the current actions against Al-Qaeda and other allied groups.