There’s something of a debate brewing over at TV Squad, about whether of not Keith Olbermann is too preachy, whether or not he “relies more on berating the president for what he’s done rather than convince people his point of view is the correct one.”
Well, maybe “debate” is the wrong word. The comments fall along the predictable lines of “Olbermann’s just telling it like it is!” and “Shut up you whiny liberals!”
Personally, I fall much more often into the first camp. I don’t really think Olbermann is being overly didactic in his criticism of the President, but usually I’m just glad that somebody’s criticizing him, seriously taking the man to task for the eggregious and specific faults (and quite possibly crimes) of this administration.
Which is why, I guess, I found the comments by “A Student” in bold below so wrong-headed and worthy of response. TV Squad really isn’t a political forum, so I’m posting my open response here.
[Read more]
Claiming habeas corpus has been withdrawn doesn’t make it so.
Here’s the actual text of the Military Commissions Act passed by the Senate, S.3930, Section 7:
No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
He’s right. Habeas corpus being removed is what makes it so. It’s arguable that this only applies to non-citizens. (Who I guess it’s okay to detain and torture without trial or evidence?) However, the Act also establishes some pretty loose definitions of who is and isn’t an “enemy combatant,” definitions under which the government could very easily choose to detain — and withdraw habeas corpus protection for — U.S. citizens.
It’s been done before, but not by Bush.
Oh, well that makes it all okay then. Olbermann has actually discussed this point, at some length:
We have been here before-and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush….
Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.
And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.
The “it’s all been done before” theory just doesn’t wash.
And really detaining innocents without any cause or trial has been done before too– by FDR.
Again, Olbermann:
And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.
The claim that because Roosevelt did it, that makes it okay for Bush to make the same mistake, is absurd. The claim that the internment of Japanese-Americans wasn’t a mistake…well, that’s just insulting.
Real domestic spying has been done before too, but not by Bush.
I’m going to let the “it’s been done before” nonsense slide this time to focus on the “but not by Bush” half of this statement. There is ample evidence, including the Bush administration’s own admission, that the NSA has engaged in warrantless domestic surveillance. Whether or not the administration was justified in authorizing this surveillance is debatable; whether or not this surveillance program is unconstitutional has yet to be determined by the courts. But “real domestic spying” has definitely occurred and is still ongoing.
We’re nowhere near any of that. We’re nowhere near violating the Geneva Convention either, which is a contract between nations that agree to it– not our enemies today.
But you see, that’s just it: this administration does not make those distinctions. Every prisoner of war is labelled an “enemy combatant” and therefore guaranteed no protection. And, with no oversight and no guarantee even of habeas corpus, who can say if these enemy combatants are all exempt from the Geneva Convention, much less actually terrorists? I think Marty Lederman summed this up fairly well:
The point…is *not* to discuss whether any or all of the detainees in the current hostilities are, or are not, protected by the Geneva Conventions themselves. It is, instead, to explain that the U.S. for fifty years had abided by the *customary* international law norms described in Common Article 3, until February 7, 2002…
We’re not just near any of that — we’re there already. Even if legally the Geneva Convention applies only to those enemies who abide by it, we have both a moral and practical imperative to abide by it in all cases. We’re supposed to be better than the terrorists — but, perhaps more importantly, if we repeatedly demostrate that we’re not, then our hand is weakend diplomatically, our troops may themselves be tortured in retaliation, and we are ultimately much less safe in the world.
I don’t know what this person is a student of, but it seems unlikely that it’s current events.