The Pentagon's Power to Arrest, Torture, and Execute Americans

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:53:38 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Jacob G. Hornberger at LewRockwell.com - why the gummint handled the José Padilla case in the slimy way they handled it. They prevented the Supremes from overrulling the Fourth District courts decision that Americans could be treated as enemy combatants, arrested and tortured with no due process other than placing that label on their heads. Why habeas corpus must be available, always, with no exceptions. [lew]

As an integral part of the federal government's "war on terror," which itself is an inexorable part of the government's pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy, the U.S. military's power to arrest, torture, and execute Americans is now reality. It is impossible to reconcile such power with the principles of a free society. As long as it exists, even if only as a standby power in the event of a "crisis" or "emergency, " Americans cannot be considered a free people. It is the ultimate power that any government can wield over its citizens and, in fact, is a power wielded by such tyrannical regimes as those in Burma, Pakistan, China, North Korea, and Cuba. A necessary prerequisite for the restoration of a free society is its removal from the arsenal of federal powers.

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