The double standard that underlies our torture policies. David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center writing in Slate, succinctly dissects the mockery Bush & Co. make of human rights with the U.S.’ policy on detention of foreign combatants without protection of law. Even torture apart, the central ploy, holding foreign nationals abroad so as to claim theat the U.S. constitution does not apply, makes no sense. We find humanity through the encounter with the alien, who deserves our consideration simply because he or she is human, nthing more. If we dehumanize the alien, we cannot be anything but, in the literal sense of the word, inhuman ourselves. The Republican ethos, I am convinced, is incapable of embracing humanity because it is fundamentally an appeal to tribal identity which is deeply encoded, I am convinced, in the neuroevolution of our social brains. Progressive ecumenism represents a moral imperative transcending our tribal xenophobia and the demonization of the Other. The culture war being waged now is literally one between our finer and our baser natures, and Guantanamo and the other extrajudicial detention facilities of the Bush administration are the frontlines of our battle to remain human, in all that that may potentially mean in the 21st century.
There was obviously some back room dickering on this bit of legislation and that makes me about as sick as anything about this whole thing. They’re playing politics with habeas corpus for Gawd’s sake. This isn’t some fucking highway bill or a farm subsidy. It’s the very foundation of our system of government and the single most important element of liberty. If the state can just declare someone an ‘unlawful combatant’ and lock them up forever, we have voted ourselves into tyranny. “
