Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

It is easy to see why Cheney as a Congressman sided with the repressive South African government then in power and against future President Nelson Mandela since the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus loom as no more than unfortunate irritants to be demolished at the earliest opportunity.  There was a time in American history when jurists such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Robert Jackson, William O. Douglas, Hugo Black and Earl Warren safeguarded basic Bill of Rights traditional guarantees and saw that the bedrock principle of trial by jury and accompanying rights flowing therefrom were preserved.  

With Cheney leading the assault on civil liberties America now stands as a fortress propounding the concept of preventive detention that the South African apartheid government that imprisoned Nelson Mandela preserved as a linchpin of authority.  In 1964 William F. Buckley wrote in his syndicated column of his admiration for the South African regime since it had the power to arrest an individual and detain a potential suspect without having to answer to a magistrate.  As Buckley then noted, the burden of proof reverted to the defendants being held, "on them" as the columnist put it.

At least Buckley could be credited for saying what he actually meant.  He explained that in the then Cold War environment traditional liberties could be suspended and preventive detention was acceptable.  This is the same rationale being used by the ruling Junta with the war on terror being substituted for the Cold War.  The current lackeys of the Cheney-Bush Junta are far more devious in not only denying that basic constitutional liberties are being usurped, but that efforts such as the shameful 49-42 vote are justified as a means of "correcting abuse."

This is the position being advanced by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is making an early mark in preserving a reign of reaction established by his predecessor, the late Senator Strom Thurmond.  Graham falls comfortably into the realm of Junta point man based on a track record of obeisance.  

It will be recalled that it was Graham who emerged as one of the lead prosecutors in the impeachment trial against President Bill Clinton.  Graham led the charge in advocating that Clinton be removed from office for lying about an extra marital sex act on an affidavit in a civil case.  

While Graham felt that the Republic quaked in grievous danger from Clinton's transgression the former military lawyer and judge has no compunctions about stripping habeas corpus rights of individuals held without charge, nor did he display any reluctance to swing America into conflict mode through "shock and awe" in the interest of promptly serving Dick Cheney's continuing client, Halliburton, through a rush to war in Iraq.  Graham served as a determined and diligent Junta spokesperson on the Sunday talk shows prior to the initiation of hostilities.

At a time when United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was requesting additional time and brutal Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was destroying missiles, Graham ardently pursued the tough Cheney, no compromise posture in promoting instant "shock and awe" as shortly thereafter it thundered through the skies.  While Faux News ignored the loss of life, damage, and destruction, others examined the damage.  Contrary to what we were told, the high tech weaponry was not able to pick and choose targets in the manner suggested and scores of civilians were killed.  At last count there were some 100,000 deaths resulting from the continuing Iraq campaign, but you will see no figures emanating from Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department.  

It must be conceded, however, that Junta lackey Lindsey Graham has maintained a posture of consistency.  In advocating termination of habeas corpus and continuing preventive detention for Guantanamo detainees on the Patriot Act grounds that they are "enemy combatants" he also seeks to jettison basic constitutional liberties at the same time he scraps in robust Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld fashion the Nuremberg and Geneva codes in launching a war for a non-defensive purpose.  There is a symmetry present of rights be damned.  

Graham explains that his proposal is an effort to tidy up the process.  He contends that some lawsuits filed on behalf of captives have sought "dictionaries and high-speed Internet access."  There have also been complaints focusing on medical treatment in the wake of numerous reports concerning physical abuse, but the dictionary and Internet argument sounds better to Graham.  His proposal would also provide a detainee with one "narrowly defined chance to appeal his designation as a combatant to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington" according to Thursday's Miami Herald.  

"That's more due process than any prisoner has ever had," Graham magnanimously declared.  In other words, after Junta lackeys such as Graham have cut detainees off with nothing in the way of rights he tosses a fig leaf in their direction.

Senator Graham, we will have to nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize!