Roberts Voted to Give Bush Dictatorial Powers

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Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:54:20 -0000

Roberts Voted to Give Bush Dictatorial Powers

 

 

 

Roberts Voted to Give Bush Dictatorial Powers

http://counterpunch.org/floyd07202005.html

 

 

 

ROBERTS VOTED TO GIVE BUSH DICTATORIAL POWERS

CHRIS FLOYD, COUNTERPUNCH -

 

The United States long ago ceased to be

anything like a living, thriving republic. But it retained the legal

form of a republic, and that counted for something: as long as the

legal

form still existed, even as a gutted shell, there was hope it might be

filled again one day with substance.

 

But now the very legal structures of the Republic are being

dismantled.

The principle of arbitrary rule by an autocratic leader is being

openly

established, through a series of unchallenged executive orders,

perverse

Justice Department rulings and court decisions by sycophantic judges

who

defer to power - not law - in their determinations. What we are

witnessing is the creation of a " Commander-in-Chief State, " where the

form and pressure of law no longer apply to the president and his

designated agents. The rights of individuals are no longer

inalienable,

nor are their persons inviolable; all depends on the good will of the

Commander, the military autocrat.

 

George W. Bush has granted himself the power to declare anyone on

earth

- including any American citizen - an " enemy combatant, " for any

reason

he sees fit. He can render them up to torture, he can imprison them

for

life, he can even have them killed, all without charges, with no

burden

of proof, no standards of evidence, no legislative oversight, no

appeal,

no judicial process whatsoever except those that he himself deigns to

construct, with whatever limitations he cares to impose. Nor can he

ever

be prosecuted for any order he issues, however criminal; in the new

American system laid out by Bush's legal minions, the Commander is

sacrosanct, beyond the reach of any law or constitution.

 

This is not hyperbole. It is simply the reality of the United States

today. The principle of unrestricted presidential power is now being

codified into law and incorporated into the institutional structures

of

the state, as Deep Blade Journal reports in an excellent compendium of

recent outrages against liberty.

 

For example, on July 15, a panel of federal appellate court judges

upheld Bush's sovereign right to dispose of " enemy combatants " any way

he pleases, the Washington Post reports. In a chilling decision, the

judges ruled that the Commander's arbitrarily designated " enemies " are

non-persons: neither the Geneva Conventions nor American military and

domestic law apply to such garbage. Bush is now free to subject anyone

he likes to the " military tribunal " system he has concocted - a brutal

sham that some top retired military officials have denounced as a

" kangaroo court " that will be used by tyrants around the world

to " hide

their oppression under U.S. precedent. "

 

One of the kowtowing jurists on the appeals panel was none other than

John G. Roberts. Four days after he affirmed Bush's autocratic powers,

Roberts was duly awarded with a nomination to the Supreme Court. Now

he

will be sitting in final judgment on this case - and any other

challenges to Bush's peremptory commands. This is what is known, in

the

tyrant trade, as " a safe pair of hands. "

 

The ruling by Roberts and his fellow Republican jurists ignores the

fact

that the Geneva Conventions - which lay down strict guidelines for the

handling of any person detained by military forces, regardless of the

captive's status - have been incorporated into the U.S. legal code, as

Deep Blade points out. They cannot be abrogated by presidential fiat.

And anyone who commits a " grave breach " of the Conventions - by

facilitating the killing, torture or inhuman treatment of detainees

(e.g., stripping them of all legal status and subjecting them to

rigged

tribunals) - is subject to the death penalty under American law.