By Paul Craig Roberts
October 10, 2009 - Original Article
Obama’s dwindling band of true believers has taken heart
that their man has finally delivered on one of his many promises—the
closing of the Guantanamo prison. But the prison is not being
closed. It is being moved to Illinois, if the Republicans permit.
In truth, Obama has handed his supporters another defeat.
Closing Guantanamo meant ceasing to hold people in violation
of our legal principles of habeas corpus and due process and
ceasing to torture them in violation of US and international
laws.
All Obama would be doing would be moving 100 people, against
whom the US government is unable to bring a case, from the
prison in Guantanamo to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.
Are the residents of Thomson despondent that the US government
has chosen their town as the site on which to continue its
blatant violation of US legal principles? No, the residents
are happy. It means jobs.
The hapless prisoners had a better chance of obtaining release
from Guantanamo. Now the prisoners are up against two US senators,
a US representative, a mayor, and a state governor who have
a vested interest in the prisoners’ permanent detention
in order to protect the new prison jobs in the hamlet devastated
by unemployment.
Neither the public nor the media have ever shown any interest
in how the detainees came to be incarcerated. Most of the detainees
were unprotected people who were captured by Afghan war lords
and sold to the Americans as “terrorists” in order
to collect a proffered bounty. It was enough for the public
and the media that the Defense Secretary at the time, Donald
Rumsfeld, declared the Guantanamo detainees to be the “780
most dangerous people on earth.”
The vast majority have been released after years of abuse.
The 100 who are slated to be removed to Illinois have apparently
been so badly abused that the US government is afraid to release
them because of the testimony the prisoners could give to human
rights organizations and foreign media about their mistreatment.
Our British allies are showing more moral conscience than
Americans are able to muster. Former PM Tony Blair, who provided
cover for President Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq,
is being damned for his crimes by UK officialdom testifying
before the Chilcot Inquiry.
The London Times on December 14 summed up the case against
Blair in a headline: “Intoxicated by Power, Blair Tricked
Us Into War.” Two days later the British First Post declared: “War
Crime Case Against Tony Blair Now Rock-solid.” In an
unguarded moment Blair let it slip that he favored a conspiracy
for war regardless of the validity of the excuse [weapons of
mass destruction] used to justify the invasion.
The movement to bring Blair to trial as a war criminal is
gathering steam. Writing in the First Post Neil Clark reported: “There
is widespread contempt for a man [Blair] who has made millions
[his reward from the Bush regime] while Iraqis die in their
hundreds of thousands due to the havoc unleashed by the illegal
invasion, and who, with breathtaking arrogance, seems to regard
himself as above the rules of international law.” Clark
notes that the West’s practice of shipping Serbian and
African leaders off to the War Crimes Tribunal, while exempting
itself, is wearing thin.
In the US, of course, there is no such attempt to hold to
account Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and
the large number of war criminals that comprised the Bush Regime.
Indeed, Obama, whom Republicans love to hate, has gone out
of his way to protect the Bush cohort from being held accountable.
Here in Great Moral America we only hold accountable celebrities
and politicians for their sexual indiscretions. Tiger Woods
is paying a bigger price for his girlfriends than Bush or Cheney
will ever pay for the deaths and ruined lives of millions of
people. The consulting company, Accenture Plc, which based
its marketing program on Tiger Woods, has removed Woods from
its Web site. Gillette announced that the company is dropping
Woods from its print and broadcast ads. AT&T says it is
re-evaluating the company’s relationship with Woods.
Apparently, Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more
serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges
and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement
of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached
President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for
lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs
than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction
of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government
for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices
of 1,000 years ago—simply grab a person and throw him
into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining
a conviction.
According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation
of both US and international law, and Americans don’t
mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants
from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole
remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that
they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible
feat.
With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule
of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools
and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has
passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And
that’s where they are headed.
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Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of
the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing
Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny
of Good
Intentions.
Paul Craig Roberts can be emailed
here
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