Habeas? We Don't Need Know Stinkin' Habeas!

What if what some of have feared for a long time is actually true? What if our President's insistence on the abandonment of Habeas Corpus has nothing to do with fighting terrorism but more to do with his increasing intransigence to admitting mistakes have been made? Any mistakes. What if an examination of evidence of the Guantanamo detainees showed that there is little if any evidence they intended to perform acts of terror?

What if someone just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

When asked about the man's crime, Manchel laughs bitterly. "Being the usual suspect in the wrong place at the wrong time," he says. "He was held as an enemy combatant, but he wasn't captured on a battlefield and there was no allegation that he'd had any special training. There's nothing I've seen to suggest that he's done anything wrong."

But that guy was actaully in Pakistan so stories about being in the wrong place aren't exactly true.

Emmet Bondurant, a prominent Atlanta litigator, is likewise frustrated with the lack of evidence against his client, a 39-year-old Moroccan named Ahmed Errachidi. In fact, a recent investigation by the Boston Globe concluded that during the months the U.S. government claims he attended an al-Qaeda training camp, Errachidi was actually working at a restaurant in London.

But these guys were apprehended by U.S. or allied forces who have no motivation other than the protection of the American people right?

Veteran defense attorney Howard Manchel represents Abdullah Ibrahim Al Rushaidan, a Saudi who said he'd been plucked out of a car by a bounty hunter in Pakistan and brought to Guantanamo blindfolded, chained to the floor of a cargo plane. Manchel's client was later sent back to Saudi Arabia, whose government threw him into prison -- all without explanation.

Well, that all just sounds like fancy lawyering from attorneys who are trying to set terrorists free. The military obviously knows the real deal.

Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the camp commander at Guantanamo until he left the post earlier this year, voiced his frustration to the Wall Street Journal in early 2005. "Sometimes," he said, "we just didn't get the right folks."

Habeas Corpus exists not just to protect the innocent. It doesn't even exist to just protect the guilty. Habeas Corpus exists to protect us all. It is the first stone in the foundation of every humane judicial system that has existed since 1250. What kind of nation have we become that this most basic principle would be sacrificed to cover up the insane zealotry of a few politicians?

If what some of us have suspected all along turns out to be true, not only will the Bush administration rot in a level lower than Nixon in history's hell but we will all be swathed with the taint.


Read the full article where I found these excerpts at Creative Loafing.