Garrison Keillor takes on Gitmo
Garrison Keillor comes as close to being the bard of the American heartland as anyone I can think of. He does a weekly hour-long radio show, the whimsically named "Prairie Home Companion", that is mainly good-natured entertainment that features live performers before a live audience in his home city of Minneapolis/St. Paul... But it also sometimes has a political edge to it.
Today, Keillor has a hard-hitting column in the International Herald Tribune. (Hat-tip to Jane C. there.) Commenting on the significance of the US Senate's action last week that stripped the age-old right of habeas corpus away from non-citizens detained by the US overseas, Keillor writes:
- None of the men and women who voted for this bill has any right to speak in public about the rule of law anymore, or to take a high moral view of the Third Reich, or to wax poetic about the American Idea.
Mark their names: Alexander, Allard, Allen, Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Bunning, Burns, Burr, Carper, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Coleman, Collins, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, DeWine, Dole, Domenici, Ensign, Enzi, Frist, Graham, Grassley, Gregg, Hagel, Hatch, Hutchison, Imhofe, Isakson, Johnson, Kyl, Landrieu, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, McConnell, Menendez, Murkowski, Nelson of Florida, Nelson of Nebraska, Pryor, Roberts, Rockefeller, Salazar, Santorum, Sessions, Shelby, Smith, Specter, Stabenow, Stevens, Sununu, Talent, Thomas, Thune, Vitter, Voinovich, Warner.
...Three Republican senators made a show of opposing the bill and after they'd collected all the praise they could get, they quickly folded. Why be a hero when you can be fairly sure that the Supreme Court will dispose of this piece of garbage.
If, however, the Court does not, then our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States of America as you and I always understood it.
Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.
He concluded thus:
- The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantánamo, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise, so why should they worry? It's only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing just fine.
If you can't trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?
"As Winston Churchill insisted throughout the war, treating POWs well is wise, if only to increase the chances that your own men will be well treated if they too are captured. Even in World War II, there was in fact a high degree of reciprocity. The British treated Germans POWs well and were well treated by the Germans in return; the Germans treated Russian POWs abysmally and got their bloody deserts when the tables were turned.
Few, if any, American soldiers currently find themselves in enemy hands. But in the long war on which Bush has embarked, that may not always be the case. The bottom line about mistreating captive foes is simple: It is that what goes around comes around. And you don't have to be a closet liberal to understand that."
Why Churchill Opposed Torture
By: Niall Ferguson
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ferguson2oct02,0,4615277.column?coll=la-opinion-columnists
A Republican solution to a Republican problem:
“Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois . . . proposed abolishing the Congressional page program.”
Take away the temptation, eh Ray?
John C., so the analogy from your post is we must continue the Long Comma until all terrorists are eliminated and then we will no longer need to torture anyone. Whew. Thank goodness we have a plan!
John C., so the analogy from your post is we must continue the Long Comma until all terrorists are eliminated and then we will no longer need to torture anyone. Whew. Thank goodness we have a plan!