Wednesday, October 11, 2006
A campaign of absurdities
Luanne Traud
Recent columns
- Keep your butts to yourself
- Expect the best at WBHS
- Lessons from the home front
- From imperialism to a nation of law
From the RoundTable blog
To hear Sen. George Allen tell it, if prisoners gain the right to face their accuser, they will clog the courts by suing for high-speed Internet access. That, in essence, is Allen's definition of habeas corpus.
The pronouncement came during the end of Monday's debate when the senatorial candidates had the opportunity to ask each other questions. The long-winded Allen delivered a two-parter to his Democratic opponent Jim Webb by asking him to share his views on two controversial initiatives that President Bush has taken: the interception of communications (including Americans' conversations) without judicial oversight, and the indefinite imprisonment of enemy combatants without granting them rights to challenge their detention.
Webb had time to address only the first part. Allen then decided to answer the second part for him by declaring that Webb would favor granting prisoners access to file writs of habeas corpus, therefore allowing them to clog the courts with frivolous lawsuits demanding the Internet, cable TV and the like.
Allen lightly dismissed a central tenet of America's pact that all people -- regardless of how despicable their acts may be -- have the right to review and challenge evidence used to imprison them as a trivial dispute over wanting broadband. Virginians who still believe in the goodness and decency of America's values should have been just as offended by these remarks of Allen's as S.R. Sidarth was in being called "Macaca."
It was an affront on the country's firmly held adherence to the rule of law, and it breaks faith with U.S. citizens and people around the world that America holds reverent human rights.
While Allen's comments were flippant, they were designed to manipulate constituents to follow the path of willful blindness: There is no need to consider complaints of torture, or holding prisoners in isolation for years without charges or a legal manner to exact justice and punish true terrorists.
Allen wants Virginians to forget that he fully supported the Bush administration as it ran roughshod over the U.S. Constitution. And he wants them to forget about the blunder of the Iraq war. Because, according to Allen, the U.S. is Iraq's liberator despite the fact that one country can't bomb another and then say, "Here. Take this. It's the gift of freedom and democracy."
Has Allen paused to question whether a fledgling Iraqi government has been unable to stand up because the longing for democracy is the U.S.'s vision and not its own? Doesn't the sectarian violence indicate a people wishing to rule the opposition rather than govern together?
Allen desires to continue the same failed strategy despite the fact that ongoing U.S. presence has further emboldened recruiting efforts by terrorists.
Allen fails to understand that more than just extremists view us as conqueror. And why wouldn't ordinary Iraqis? Despite protests, such as those from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that there are not plans for permanent bases, "as many as 14 'enduring' bases for American troops in Iraq are under construction," writes George S. McGovern and William R. Polk in an essay for the October Harper's magazine, that is based on their recent book "Out of Iraq." Then there's the $1.8 billion fortress of an embassy complex.
McGovern and Polk methodically explain a blueprint for leaving Iraq that allows the U.S. to bring troops home while fulfilling a responsibility to fix what it has broken.
Among the breakage, which will for generations to come harden the hearts of Iraqis against us, is the irreparable damage to cultural sites. McGovern and Polk write:
"Astonishingly, one American camp was built on top of the Babylon archaeological site, where American troops flattened and compressed ancient ruins in order to create a helicopter pad and fueling station. Soldiers filled sandbags with archaeological fragments and dug trenches through unexcavated areas while tanks crushed 2,600-year-old pavements."
McGovern and Polk caution: "We should not wish to go down in history as yet another barbarian invader of the land long referred to as the cradle of civilization."
Virginians must do their part to keep that from happening.
Traud is a member of The Roanoke Times editorial board.
