Here are a pair of pieces from the Los Angeles Times op-ed page — they appeared side by side — that startle. Law professor Jonathan Turley, whose legal commentaries are carried reasonably often in the Times, suggests that Camp Delta constructed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, carries within it the seeds of “an American gulag.” Carefully built on “American” property that, thanks to our colonial past in Cuba, lies just beyond American shores and so the reach of a cowed and/or increasingly right-wing American judiciary, the camp is the legal equivalent of an offshore account. “American gulag.” Those are strong words, made stronger by Turley’s comparison of Attorney General Ashcroft to one of the Iraqis who looted his own patrimony at the National Museum. But he’s undoubtedly right. There is now a growing legal black hole into which a still limited number of categories of people can disappear, seemingly never to re-emerge. Its pull is only likely to increase with time as long as these men are in control. With Turley’s piece, as you’ll see, went a first-person account of what it’s now like to live in post-Patriot Act America.
It’s good to see that the press can still sometimes bring us the bad news of our new world order at home and abroad directly and coherently, though it’s typical that this is more likely to happen on op-ed and editorial pages (which are, to my mind, far more easily dismissed, or in the case of editorial pages simply not read) than in the news pages of the paper.
A good recent example is the powerful lead editorial in this Sunday’s New York Times, dramatically headlined, The End of Wilderness. It read in part:
“Now comes another devastating blow: The revelation that [President Bush’s] Department of the Interior is no longer interested in recommending any of the millions of acres under its jurisdiction for permanent wilderness protection.
“The new policy has still not caused much of a stir. Like most of the bad environmental news emanating from this administration, it emerged from the shadows late on a Friday evening. There was no formal announcement — just a few letters to interested senators from Gale Norton describing a legal settlement she had reached earlier that day with the state of Utah. But a close reading of that deal showed it to be a blockbuster — a fundamental reinterpretation of environmental law, and a reversal of four decades of federal wilderness policy.”
Admittedly, the Times editorial page woke up to the Bush war on the environment only relatively recently, but at least it awoke. It would be nice to see some of this sort of coverage make it more regularly onto the news pages where it really belongs.
By the way, for an interesting recent attempt to explain the roots of Bush administration environmental policy, take a look at a long, smart analysis by Glenn Scherer, Why ‘Ecocide’ Is Good News for the GOP, which is posted at Alternet but originally appeared in Salon. Scherer begins with a convincing summary of the assault on the environment and the obvious explanations for it, but then proceeds into far more interesting territory:
“The new policy has still not caused much of a stir. Like most of the bad environmental news emanating from this administration, it emerged from the shadows late on a Friday evening. There was no formal announcement — just a few letters to interested senators from Gale Norton describing a legal settlement she had reached earlier that day with the state of Utah. But a close reading of that deal showed it to be a blockbuster — a fundamental reinterpretation of environmental law, and a reversal of four decades of federal wilderness policy.”
Admittedly, the Times editorial page woke up to the Bush war on the environment only relatively recently, but at least it awoke. It would be nice to see some of this sort of coverage make it more regularly onto the news pages where it really belongs.
By the way, for an interesting recent attempt to explain the roots of Bush administration environmental policy, take a look at a long, smart analysis by Glenn Scherer, Why ‘Ecocide’ Is Good News for the GOP, which is posted at Alternet but originally appeared in Salon. Scherer begins with a convincing summary of the assault on the environment and the obvious explanations for it, but then proceeds into far more interesting territory:
“During the Kyoto climate change negotiations, [Greenpeace activist] Leggett candidly asked Ford Motor Company executive John Schiller how opponents of the pact could believe there is no problem with ‘a world of a billion cars intent on burning all the oil and gas available on the planet?’ The executive asserted first that scientists get it wrong when they say fossil fuels have been sequestered underground for eons. The Earth, he said, is just 10,000 years old
“‘You know, the more I look, the more it is just as it says in the Bible.’ The Book of Daniel, he told Leggett, predicts that increased earthly devastation will mark the “End Time” and return of Christ. Paradoxically, many fundamentalists see dying coral reefs, melting ice caps and other environmental destruction not as an urgent call to action, but as God’s will. In the religious right worldview, the wreck of the Earth can be seen as Good News!”
He then goes on to explore various fundamentalist slants on the environment and exactly how they drive this administration. It’s quite a detailed and impressive account, not (yet at least) the sort of thing you’re likely to see much of in our major newspapers. Tom
Appetite for Authoritarianism Spawns an American Gulag
By Jonathan Turley
The Los Angeles Times
May 2, 2003Last week, the United States confirmed it is holding children under the age of 16 at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In keeping with the other shadowy facts about this camp, it is not clear how large the children’s wing at Camp Delta has become. Before the Marine guards launch a Toys for Terrorist Tots campaign, it is time to get some answers about our government’s plans for the growing number of detainees, including children, held in Cuba.
The camp’s children are among 664 detainees from 42 countries. Some were captured in Afghanistan; others were rounded up elsewhere. Many have been held without trial for more than two years.
The Bush administration has argued that these detainees are not “people” under the Constitution but, rather, legal nonentities it may hold, release or even execute at its sole discretion.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington Law School.
To read more Turley click here
Feeling the Boot Heel of the Patriot Act
By Jason Halperin
The Los Angeles Times
May 2, 2003Several weeks ago, my roommate Asher and I went to an Indian restaurant just off Times Square in the heart of midtown Manhattan. We helped ourselves to the buffet and sat down to begin eating.
Suddenly there was a terrible commotion and five police officers in bulletproof vests stormed down the stairs. They had their guns drawn and were pointing them indiscriminately at the restaurant staff and at us.
“Go to the back of the restaurant,” they yelled. I hesitated, lost in my own panic. “Did you not hear me? Go to the back and sit down,” they demanded. I complied and looked around at the other patrons. There were eight men including the waiter, all of South Asian descent and ranging from late teens to senior citizen. One of the officers pointed his gun in the waiter’s face and shouted: “Is there anyone else in the restaurant?”.
Jason Halperin lives in New York City.