Editorials

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2001 Editions - Nov 17, 2001


 

Tribunals or rule of law?

Somehow it is a little ironic that in the same week the Florida election report is released, the Bush administration is moving to shove aside civil liberties again. This time it’s not the right to vote, it’s the right to constitutional jury trial and due process. It’s about the rights of 5,000 unnamed immigrants.

Bush’s executive order, which allows for military tribunals to try non-citizens accused of terrorism, has set off alarms. It would undermine the U.S. legal system through the use of secret trials in other countries without a jury, no open presentation of evidence, no choice of lawyers, no need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the option of immediate execution without appeal. Does our own administration not trust the integrity of the U.S. legal system?

Ending the threat of terrorism is part and parcel of defending democracy and the rule of law. The fact that the executive branch would choose, try and possibly execute terrorist suspects stirs images of right-wing military dictatorships around the world.

This executive order is yet another act of Bush unilateralism. Neither military force nor military tribunal can end the threat of terrorism and bring the guilty to justice. It demands the united action of the world community within the framework of the United Nations; it can’t be done by the U.S. or a U.S.-led coalition.

This executive order, coupled with the Justice Department’s announcement of a dragnet “to interview” 5,000 men who have entered the country since Jan. 1, 2000, is a sign that Ashcroft and the Justice Department are continuing the beating down of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the name of national security.

The Justice Department has more than enough laws and regulations to investigate, pursue and apprehend those guilty of terrorism. In the last week they even ordered that investigators be allowed to eavesdrop on discussions between lawyers and their clients suspected of terrorism.

Where will it end? The rationale being used by the Bush administration for many of the slippery steps that have been taken to abridge democracy is that extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. Extraordinary times demand more democracy, not less. We must demand that Congress, no matter how they voted on the USA Patriot Act, defend democracy now!


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A U.N. solution

The United States and the United Nations has always had an up and down affair. A comparison of the speech of President George Bush with that of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and others at the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly goes far to illustrate the state of that relationship today: a time of war, terrorism and economic crisis.

Annan opened the session outlining the world’s problems and an approach to solving them. Problems of poverty, war, terrorism, racism, AIDS and inequality existed before and after Sept. 11, Annan pointed out. Bush, on the other hand, played the bully and threatened the other 188 members of the world body with the price that they may pay as the U.S. conducts the “war on terrorism” in any way it sees fit.

The role of the U.N. is maybe more crucial today than it was at its founding, in the aftermath of World War II. The U.N. is the only forum where nations can come together and act to solve the world’s problems in a just and equitable way.

The U.S. cannot be a bully in this process. As the U.N. General Assembly concluded, the Taliban retreated from Kabul. UN action in Afghanistan is the only way to stabilize the region, and help end the misery faced by the Afghani people. The U.N. needs to play a principled and unifying role, helping to establish a representative transitional Afghan government and working towards a democratically elected Afghan government.

The Bush administration cannot impose a puppet government on the people of Afghanistan. Nor should it deploy U.S. ground troops. After five weeks of intensive US bombing, 20 years of civil war, four years of drought, the Afghani people must have the space to determine their future without aggression. Only U.N. intervention can help bring this about.