Last week the Supreme Court ruled that alleged terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have the right to challenge their cases in American civilian courts. The outcry of the right wing was great, including Judge Scalia’s comment that this decision would “cost American lives”. How many lives will it cost us and how does the Judge know this? It’s no new question, but it does lend itself to wondering whether Scalia’s previous ruling when he made George W. Bush president against the will of people cost us any lives? Ask our military families whether there’s a connection there or not.
In order to put this into context I’m going to go back in time. It’s 1945 and WWII has officially been won by the Allied Forces, which at the time was Britain, The United States and Russia. The atrocities that were committed during WWII were unparalleled in history. Over 6 million jews were brutally murdered in concentration death camps. It had been rumored throughout the war how bad the abuse was, but until Allied forces actually liberated the camps in Dachau, Auschwitz and other cities in East Germany and East Europe nobody knew the real extent of it.
What they found was more than unbelievable, it was something that most human beings couldn’t dream up in their wildest imaginations. The concentration camps were filled with people that had been malnourished for years, abused, untreated medically and forced to constant hard physical labor. If you’ve ever done any research on the Holocaust I’m sure you will easily agree that what the world witnessed after WWII, was a horrible nightmare that most people couldn’t even fathom.
In the early 1930’s as Hitler rose to power, the life for Jews, Gypsies, and Political Opponents became increasingly dangerous. Where at first the attacks consisted of harassment, it ultimately ended in the detention and death for many of them. Torture and utterly inhumane treatment were characteristics of the Nazi regime. Considering that Germany had committed crimes that were so beyond most people’s comprehension, it would only seem “normal” if all the criminals the Allies caught after defeating Germany had been executed without a whole lot of legal run a round. Instead what happened was the following. The Allies decided to show the world, that even the biggest crooks in the entire world, would be tried and convicted using a commonly accepted rule of law. Instead of trying the accused based on lose accusations, the Allied Forces conducted trials up until 1949 and every criminal was convicted in a right and just way - the way any “ordinary” criminal would be treated.
Fast forward to the year 2008 where the US Supreme Court finally ruled, that so called “terrorists” have the right to have their cases heard in civilian courts to protest their convictions. What I believe so many people on the right seem to forget, is that we used to be the level to which other countries were compared. We proved after WWII that we will not fall victim to emotions or raw feeling like revenge. We proved to the world that only approach to dealing with convicted War criminals, was giving them fair trials. Somehow our leaders have strayed very far away from these ideals. Nowadays, in order to win the argument for unfair and inhumane treatment the US government simply classifies the terrorists as a different sort of people. People that somehow aren’t human, because all other human beings that are caught in an act of War, are considered prisoners of war. Prisoners of War, no matter in which country should have the protection of the Geneva Conventions. These conventions were put in place after WWI and the European countries realized that even in war, there had to be some kind of rules of engagement. The reason for this was the fact that WWI brought to life new inventions and tactics that proved to be detrimental for many people durign the War. The casualties were high and the weaponry used was indiscriminate of its victims. Mustard Gas, Machine Guns and other new technology is what made this war into one of the worst man kind has ever seen. Due to these atrocities the Geneva Conventions were put in place. They were supposed to guarantee every prisoner of war, that they would be treated humanely. The conventions set forth a set of rules, which clearly dictate how Captors are to treat their captives.
Somehow, the United in its “ultimate” wisdom has decided that these rules don’t apply to terrorists. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as angry as the next when it comes to 9/11 and the attack on this country. The problem I have is that the word terrorist, really is a matter of definition. What does anyone think would happen, if a foreign power invaded this country and decided to stay and occupy this country? Would you rise up? Would you resist? and if you took on arms and started fighting the occupiers, what would you call yourself? A terrorist, or a freedom fighter? I think that answer is quite clear. You, like myself wouldn’t subordinate yourself to a foreign power that has come to your country to take it over, we would fight it, or least I hope so.
This is of course the same situation with both Iraq and Afghanistan. Where I realize that Afghanistan harbored terrorists, I think it’s a statement of extreme weakness to attack that country. A country that’s already ravished by crime and economic problems, as a matter of fact it ranks as number 9 on the list of the 10 most impoverished countries in the world. I like to work with metaphors and analogies, so imagine this. You’re the poorest kid on the block and because you have no other means if income, you let some crackheads do their dirty work in your backyard. At some point it turns out that those crackheads gunned down some innocent people and the police comes to your house, since you had the crackheads living in your house. Can you deny that you let them in? Not really. Do you think that you are 100% responsible for their doings and think it would justified to have your house blown to shreds? I hope you catch my drift here.
At the end of the day, it’s becoming harder and harder to “sell” the product “USA”. We claim that we bring freedom and democracy to the world and where it’s never really been true in its most purest form, I don’t think we’ve ever been further away from it’s true meaning than now.
I just want to know why we treat “terrorists” worse than we treated convicted Nazis. Why didn’t they just throw all the Nazis into a dark hole, turn the key and throw it out? BECAUSE IT’S NOT WHAT COUNTRIES DO, THAT BRING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY TO THE WORLD.
I do hope Justice Scalia never gets mistaken as a terrorist, because he would never see the light of day again, considering the current state of the law that he helped create and now thinks will “get americans killed”.
This article was written by Arno - Author's Website
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