Yes, FoxNews, If Torture Is How We Fight, I Hope We Lose.

“To speak of atrocious crimes in mild language is treasonous to virtue.” Edmund Burke.

"Whoever owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but no less than $10,000, and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." (18 U.S.C. 2381)

In other words, thanks to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, any citizen or resident of the United States – or anyone the George W. Bush Administration can get its hands on anywhere on the planet Earth – is subject to arrest and torture merely on the affirmation of a federal agent.

There is no other way to rationally and coherently read the text of the two laws.

We are, in short, in a fight to restore the nation’s rule of law. We have, by logical extension, lost our democratic republic. George W. Bush - King George the Seventh – is wont to call himself "the Decider," and with his signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, an abomination presented him by the conspiracy of criminals (is there anyone who still doubts what I have been saying in that regard for literally years?) we continue to call the U.S. Congress, he has more power – far, far and way more power - to reinterpret the rule of law including the definition of treason and the Constitution, than any president in American history.

In case there are any who doubt that, hear it from the horse’s (horse’s ass’s?) mouth. The day before his Majesty George signed the “law” (no law in contravention of the U.S. Constitution has any legal effect) there was this exchange between a reporter and presidential press secretary Tony Snow:


Reporter: "(This law) makes him (President Bush) the final arbiter on torture."
Presidential spokesman Snow: "Right."


Bush will now decide not only what torture is under the "coercive interrogations" allowed under the new law, but he will also decide what evidence is permitted before the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba – or anywhere else.

Our new dictator can also have "unlawful enemy combatants"—i.e., whomever he designates as such—picked up anywhere, and that includes the streets of the United States, to be held indefinitely. That applies to aliens, including millions of lawful immigrants into the United States – anyone found here, as I stated a minute ago.

As he already has with persons like Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla, Führer Bush can also lock up American citizens as "enemy combatants" for "purposely and materially supporting" the enemy. As citizens, according to the new law, they remain entitled to access to our courts – that, however, under procedures totally alien to the Bill of Rights - but all non-citizen "enemy combatants" will be forbidden to have lawyers file habeas corpus petitions in our courts.

There is now no way to question the legality of one’s arrest or imprisonment.

Der Führer is the first U.S. President since Abraham Lincoln to by right of might suspend “the Great Writ," that of habeas corpus. In 1866, when Abraham Lincoln attempted in like manner to suspend the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled that he had no constitutional right to do so. We don’t have that kind of court or law any longer. In short, there is no doubt that this administration and the military industrial complex that owns and controls it will use their new powers. Everything since the latter’s coup d’etat points to that. What do you think has brought us to this sorry, completely antithetical where a Jeffersonian democracy is concerned, state?

Unless the Roberts Supreme Court intervenes - and that means that hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands will have been imprisoned and tortured for at very least a year or more - the issue is decided. Before that happens, don’t forget, someone with enough money to hire a lawyer will have to have been arrested. The poor may stay in jail under torture forever without being notices (let's not forget that for years, while IRS violated each and every one of my rights under the U.S. Constitution, and I wrote literally dozens of letters to the likes of U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senators, and the ACLU, nothing happened; nothing EVER happened). Once you have been arrested to be held incognito – and that, obviously, is how it will be – you disappear; you are gone.

A while ago – anybody remember – U.S. Senator John McCain used to say that we can't allow terrorists to change who we are. Well, guess what. Senator McCain voted for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, then said a few days later, "I can assure you I would never allow anything I'd consider torture." Well, Senator – how do you propose to stop our Fuhrer? The same way you stopped him from declaring war on Iraq all by himself?

The new law says the President decides, something you knew when you signed this national urination on the graves of our forefathers. You also knew that the Führer will set the rules of evidence for trials, including the use of hearsay evidence and the products of "coerced interrogations." You call that a Constitutional trial?

What IS “aid and comfort?” Ask FoxNews. Al Qa’ida, we are told there, is stepping up their action in Iraq on account of our elections. Sean Hannity and their White House propagandist like are saying that even the upcoming election may encourage the insurrection (or is it “insurgency?) - whatever the hell we’re calling it lately – in Iraq. Everyone, in other words, who votes against the Republican Party is giving “aid and comfort” to the “enemy.” Everyone who speaks out against the Bush League and its almost incredible bungling in Iraq gives “aid and comfort.”

What’s the implication? If you see that as anything but calling for suspension of the elections, I’ll be happy – amused, even – to hear you explain how.

There is, we used to hear over and over in high school (not any more – when I went to high school), a great deal of difference between dissent and treason. Not any more. Listen to the media. Listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh. Listen to FoxNews and Sean Hannity. How long ago was it that Bill O’Reilly called Colorado Professor Ward Churchill “a traitor?” How about the Dixie Chicks?

Over the last several weeks, the froth-at-the-mouth contingent of the far right has been challenging their supposed opposition with the question, “Do you want the U.S. to lose the war (Iraq, I presume – but that will change as dictated by their position in any argument, won’t it?)?”

Here’s my answer: Yes – if torture is required for you to win, I hope you lose. So do all decent human beings. Anybody remember Henry David Thoreau? Walden Pond? “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,” he said, “the true place for a just man is also a prison.” The same can be said of a government that practices torture. Yes, I hope you lose.

There is, therefore, little left for people like me, anyone who has chosen to exercise any of his constitutional rights, or has had the temerity to demand that government obey the nation’s law, but to arm themselves and sell their lives as dearly as possible. I will do that, I promise you.

Sad, isn’t it, that it should have come to this?