Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Quote Of The Day



If you're wondering "Why are these photos together?" go here.

In yet another sign of how low we've sunk as a country, Glenn Greenwald contrasts our government's actions with Pakistan's regarding due process for foreign terrorism suspects, and finds us wanting. He concludes:

If there's any country which can legitimately claim that Islamic radicalism poses an existential threat to its system of government, it's Pakistan. Yet what happens when they want to imprison foreign Terrorism suspects? They indict them and charge them with crimes, put them in their real court system, guarantee them access to lawyers, and can punish them only upon a finding of guilt. Pakistan is hardly the Beacon of Western Justice -- its intelligence service has a long, clear and brutal record of torturing detainees (and these particular suspects claim they were jointly tortured by Pakistani agents and American FBI agents, which both governments deny). But just as is true for virtually every Western nation other than the U.S., Pakistan charges and tries Terrorism suspects in its real court system.

The U.S. -- first under the Bush administration and now, increasingly, under Obama -- is more and more alone in its cowardly insistence that special, new tribunals must be invented, or denied entirely, for those whom it wishes to imprison as Terrorists[.]

Genuine American Exceptionalism On Due Process

As usual with Greenwald, there's lots more there. It's well worth a read if you wonder why we need to go through the bother of putting foreign terrorism suspects on trial.


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