Why are we supposed to be "terrorized" by the one in a hundred
million chance of being blown up by cookware in the streets when we have
black-booted, goose-stepping Republican goons insisting that the rights
and liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution don't apply any time they
don't think they should? What terrifies me is not the bang in Boston
but the whimper of cowards demanding that people can arbitrarily be
deprived of their innate and inalienable rights by semantic chicanery
and that we justify it by fear. Why is the serial killer, the arsonist,
the
murderous Christian leader not a terrorist and so exempt from the
protection of the law we fraudulently flaunt as our American
birthright? Because we don't like their religion? Because they have
'foreign' names? Ask the Republicans. Ask them why they're again
demonstrating that the Constitution is a quaint anachronism and an
impediment to the lustful needs of absolute power -- or 'Homeland
Security' as they like to call it. Ask them why a massacre in Boston
justifies the dismemberment of the Constitution that grew out of a
previous one.
There
is no chance in hell that whether or not young Mr. Tsarnaev talks to
the FBI truthfully or not at all, has anything to do with whether or not
he is ritually told he has the right to keep quiet, is responsible for
what he says and has the right to legal counsel. He has those rights
and we all have the guarantee of those rights. He already knows it and
he's already demonstrated the personal qualities that prove he doesn't
have a hell of a lot of respect for the USA or its laws and restraints
anyway. If he can be forced to incriminate himself, if he can be
stripped of all the rights we used to guarantee, we thereby incriminate
ourselves as liars, hypocrites and barbarians unworthy of being called a
free nation.
We have no idea whether he was in any
condition to answer questions when apprehended or whether or not any
were asked. We know that the request to surrender was first answered
with a fusillade which is prima facie evidence of a mood of
non-compliance. Police weren't required to "Mirandize" him before
asking him to give up or asking him if he had explosives or if the boat
was booby trapped or if he had accomplices at large or anything similar
and at present he's sedated and intubated and the question of further
questioning is moot. Nothing he might say or might have said, is needed
to convict him.
When the Senators from the Great
State of Chickenshit insist that they have or someone has the power to
ignore the US Constitution with some peremptory declaration that a
criminal is an "enemy combatant" when there is no declared state of war
and no entity at war with us that the criminal belongs to or acted in
concert with, it's possible they are so stupid -- Republican Stupid --
that they haven't thought it out, but far more likely that they're still
their old anti-American, Democracy hating, liberty fearing bastard
selves -- and cowards, of course. Are they really afraid that he will
be released for lack of evidence, exonerated by some court just because
he has a public defender? Of course not. It's not about bombs, it's
about Obama. It's about accusing Obama of being a terrorist sympathizer
and crypto-jihadist for the benefit of the fearful, the bigoted, the
ignorant, the racist, the demented, delusional and dimwitted: the
Republican Base, or as one says in Arabic -- Al Qaeda.
The
stain remains on the American escutcheon from having sent American
citizens to the gallows using a secret military tribunal in 1865, but I
guess there's plenty more room for bloody fingerprints in the opinions
of Senators McCain and Graham, who by fighting against the foundations
of our nation are in my opinion true Enemy Combatants, subject to
indefinite imprisonment without charge or access to due process and of
course torture for the crime of having declared war on our country and
the laws they have sworn to uphold.
If we lose the
protection of the law simply because some political demagogue can strip
you of it then we have lost the moral basis of the American revolution
and the country should declare it's mistake and pledge its allegiance to
the Crown of England which may long since have surpassed us in its
concept and guarantee of justice anyway.
9/11 didn't change a goddamn thing. 9/11 was an excuse our internal enemies have been waiting for since the beginning.
Yep Capt, you nailed it. As much as I am sure the bastards are quilty and I would like nothing better than to see the surviving bastard tried as an enemy combatants and when convicted put to a slow torturous death it can't logically be justified under the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteWe are not in a state war declared by Congress, there is no national entity involved, and even this sorry as excuse of a human is "innocent until proven guilty", and since their is no declared state of war the useless dickhead deserves a fair trial under our system of justice. It is after all what makes us different. At least I would like to think so.
By the way, this kid is 19 years old and grew up in the United States. Does anyone think he's never watched an episode of Law and Order? Can he possibly not know that he has the right not to talk to authorities?
ReplyDeleteI understand the concern with foreign nationals who are likely not familiar with our laws, but really, isn't the question of whether to Mirandize him pretty meaningless in this case?
And I am a firm defender of Miranda rights. I just don't think there's a chance that he doesn't already know he has them.
Immediately after apprehension, he really wasn't in much of a state to talk. But he wasn't mirandized for a fairly simple reason: they invoked a "public safety exception."
ReplyDeleteThe theory is, he had already used two "main" bombs, a couple of improvized grenades, and there was bomb-making material found during the search of his home. So, they knew he had bombs, and they needed to make sure they didn't have any sitting around that they didn't know about.
So, as it should be, the safety of the public comes first. If they ask him, and he's been mirandized, if he tells them where any bombs are, he has, in essence, confessed. But if he hasn't been read his rights, his lawyer can suppress that evidence - it isn't admissible. So they can ask, and he can answer, and that part of the conversation is off the record.
It's a simple an elegant solution to the problem. (And no, you don't get to assume that he knows his rights. If it isn't documented, it didn't happen. That's a basic legal concept.)
The Republicans who are currently screaming that his rights as an American citizen should be stripped away and he should be treated as an enemy combatant, don't get to cry about "encroaching fascism" any more. That's just become their side of the game board.
The most outrageous thing I ever heard on the topic was none other than Willard Mittens Romney suggesting in one of the 837 Republican primary debates that our most important right is the right simply to be kept alive. If you buy that, everything else follows, right on up to "two plus two equals whatever Big Brother says it is today." But hey, oldthinkers unbellyfeel Newengsoc, right?
ReplyDeleteI think the enemy combatant meme is just ridiculous -- the justice system is easily up to handling the case, and I really doubt that the surviving suspect is any kind of fountain of terrorism-info, so there's nothing to worry about there.
It was announced on NPR around 1:00PM this afternoon that Mr. Tsarnaev will not be tried as an enemy combatant. Thinking about the statement as it was read, I am not sure if that means he won't be "treated" as an enemy combatant (they don't get tried) or that he won't be whisked away to the Gitmoubliette.
ReplyDeleteAnd old Lindsay "cracker" Graham told us all that this is wrong because "I believe we are at war." Isn't it nice that someone as out of touch with reality and devoid of cognitive ability can still get a high paying job with benefits in our great country?
ReplyDeleteNo matter what he believes, until war is duly declared, there is no goddamn state of war and you don't get to throw US citizens in front of Military tribunals. God damn it.