Rights? Who Gives a Damn. (Not Barack Obama.)

Rumor has it that (President) Barack Obama taught constitutional law — at the University of Chicago. Given the right-wing leaning of many at Chicago, he might be forgiven if he is hazy on the notion that human beings have rights. But he also, according to rumor, studied at Harvard, home then to the late John Rawls (though also to the likes of Charles Fried and Alan Dershowitz).

One way or another, it seems at least plausible that Obama may have, at least once, have come across this line:

Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.

This comes from John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. It expresses one of the core principles of Western moral thought, one that has spread around the world and motivated countless movements for human rights.

It a notion that Barack Obama is, despite his rhetoric, abandoning in his support for Bush-era crimes supposedly in the name of "national security".

The simple fact is this: There are some acts that cannot be justified, no matter what the 'good' that is promoted by the act. This is a notion that Americans embrace with near universality (the likes of Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, Condoleezza Rice being among the few exceptions). It is worth noting that no one is promoting the "ticking time-bomb" argument with regard to strictly domestic criminals.

The only reason that Obama might get away with his criminal denial of rights to Guantánamo detainees is that they are (1) Arab (or Afghan, or 'Middle Eastern') and (2) Muslim. There is a long history of due process being accorded to the most dangerous, most reprehensible individuals. Think of some American organized crime bosses, or Nazi war criminals, or serial killers. Surely profoundly dangerous. In the case of organized crime figures, surely individuals with wide networks that could threaten communities home to the prisons holding these criminals.

I find ite nearly impossible to believe that Barack Obama, whom people routinely describe as the 'smartest person' they've ever met, doesn't grasp this. That he is willing to sacrifice so fundamental a priniciple of American law for the sake of political expediency condemns him and his presidency to the same moral status as his loathesome predecessor.

American Injustice

The Bush Department of Injustice has declared that seventeen Chinese prisoners at Guantanamo may be held there for the rest of their lives, though they have never been charged with any crime in the seven years they have been held.

This could be an early test for the next administration. The men, ethnic Uighurs (an oppressed Muslim people of western China), were captured by Pakistani troops in Afghanistan in 2001 and handed off to the US. (Afghanistan borders western China.)

A federal judge has ruled they should be freed, but the Bush regime has blocked their release.

At every turn, the Bush brigade has trampled their rights under domestic and international law. To this day by stipulation of the Department of Defense, they are chained to the floor through meetings with their lawyer, Sabin Willett.

Here is the Orwellian logic of the US Department of Injustice, quoted in the Guardian article:

[T]he men "are linked to an organisation that the state department has labelled to be a terrorist entity, and it is beside the point that the organisation is not 'a threat to us' because the law excluding members of such groups does not require such proof."

"Linked to a terrorist entity" . . . . After seven years of Bush crimes against humanity, we have a sense what that does and does not mean. We know that someone "is linked" just in case the Bush administration asserts that there is a link.

"The law . . . does not require proof" . . . . Well, the Bush administration has never required proof — never even required evidence — of something to proceed with attacks, injustices, an entire war.

The Bush standard for seven long years has been "If it might be the case, proceed as if it were the case. Assert what ever is required, lie as 'need' dictates, regardless of proof or evidence."

This hasn't been a bootstrapping technique, which requires something like a foundation or rational starting point. It has been nothing more than outright fabrication, from start to finish. Purely, utterly circular. A true Catch-22. "They are in our custody. They must be their for a reason, because we make no mistakes. Therefore, they must remain in custody."