Bush's Banana Republic
By Francis Boyle
George W. Bush was never elected President by the People of the United
States of America. Instead, he was anointed for that Office by five
Justices of the United States Supreme Court who themselves had been
appointed by Republican Presidents. Bush Jr.'s installation was an act of
judicial usurpation of the American Constitution that was unprecedented in
the history of the American Republic. Had it occurred in a developing
country, such a subversion of democratic process would have been greeted
with knowing derision throughout the West.
What happened in America could
only be likened to a judicial coup d'etat inflicted upon the American
People, Constitution, and Republic. There should now be no doubt that the
United States Supreme Court is governed by raw, naked, brutal, power
politics. Justice has nothing at all to do with it. This Supreme Court's
constitutional sophistry proved a harbinger of the new administration's
disrespect for the Rule of Law, whether domestic or international.
BUSH JR.'S CONSTITUTIONAL COUP D'ETAT
From the Supreme Court's installation of Bush Jr. as President to the
Ashcroft/Federalist Society post-September 11 regime of police state "laws,"
the politico-legal functioning of America is increasingly resembling that of
a Banana Republic. Since September 11th, we have seen one blow against the
U.S.
Constitution after another. For example, Attorney General John Ashcroft
unilaterally instituted the monitoring of attorney-client communications
despite the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures and the
Sixth Amendment right to representation by Counsel in criminal cases. He
just went ahead and did it, without even bothering to inform anyone. Over
1100 aliens have been picked up and "disappeared" by Ashcroft and his
Department of Injustice. The American People have no idea where most of
these people are. They are being held on the basis of immigration law, not
criminal law, for a period of detention which has not been defined.
Ashcroft proclaimed another ukaze that these immigration proceedings must be
held in secret. The phenomenon of "enforced disappearances" is considered
to be a crime against humanity by Article 7(I)(i) of the Rome Statute for
the International Criminal Court.
It appears that many of these aliens have been deprived of their basic human
rights to consular notification and access as set forth in the 1963 Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations, to which the United States is a
contracting party and which even the U.S. State Department concedes
constitutes binding customary international law. Apparently Bush Jr.'s left
hand does not care about what his right hand does.
Yet another international convention set at naught. The one characteristic
these detained foreigners have in common is that they are mostly Muslims,
Arabs, and Asians. Everyone needs a scapegoat for the 11 September tragedy,
and it looks like we have one, both at home and abroad. Thousands more such
aliens are being moved into the pipeline for the Ashcroft gulag by the FBI.
Ashcroft is now planning to reinstate the infamous COINTELPRO Program,
whose atrocities against the civil rights and civil liberties of the
American People have been amply documented elsewhere. It is just a matter of
time before the Bush Jr. Leaguers unleash the newly-augmented powers of the
FBI, CIA and NSA directly against the American People. And we already have
2 million Americans rotting away in prison -- the highest rate of
incarceration in the world, a disproportionate majority of whom are
Americans of Color, victims of the Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush, and Clinton
administrations' racist "war on drugs," which is really a war against People
of Color. The American Police State has already arrived for People of Color!
ASHCROFT'S POLICE STATE
This brings the analysis to the Ashcroft Police State Act. There are no
other words to describe it. While Bush failed to get a formal declaration
of war that would have rendered him a constitutional dictator, clearly
Attorney General John Ashcroft and his right-wing Federalist Society lawyers
took every piece of regressive legislation off the shelf, tied it all into
what they called an anti-terrorism bill, and then rammed it through
Congress, giving it the appropriately Orwellian name of the . Patriot
Act.
According to one report, Ashcroft's first draft would have had Congress
suspend the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus - the necessary prerequisite for
imposing a police state in the United States of America.
Many Members of Congress publicly admitted that they did not even bother to
read the Ashcroft Police State Act. Another Congressman said basically:
"Right, but there's nothing new about that." Interestingly enough the
so-called liberal Democrats in the House and the Senate were willing to give
Bush Jr. and Ashcroft more police state powers than the conservative
Republicans in the House. But there are no real differences that matter
between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to promoting America's
self-proclaimed "Manifest Destiny" to control the World and now Outer Space
too.
BUSH'S KANGAROO COURTS
It would take an entire law review article for me to analyze all the legal
and human rights problems with the Bush Jr.'s proposed military commissions.
Here a cabal of Federalist Society Lawyers in the White House got President
Bush to sign an Executive Order on 13 November 2001 which, when implemented,
will be widely recognized to constitute a grave breach of the Geneva
Conventions and establish a prima facie case of criminal accountability
against the President himself.
It is emblematic of this particular war that right towards its very outset
President George W. Bush personally incriminated himself under both
international criminal law and United States domestic criminal law. The Bush
Jr. administration has severely undermined the integrity of the Four Geneva
Conventions of 1949. By doing this, the Bush Jr. administration has opened
up U.S. Armed Forces and civilians around the world to similar reprisals,
which has already happened.
As a licensed attorney for 25 years, a law professor for 23 years and
someone who has done a good deal of criminal defense work in U.S. Federal
Courts, I am appalled by the insinuation of these Federalist Society Lawyers
that America's Federal Courts established by Article III of the U.S.
Constitution cannot hold accountable those responsible for the crimes of 11
September 2001. This is an insult to all Federal Judges, Federal
Prosecutors, Federal Public Defenders and all the Lawyers who are Officers
of these Courts.
In one fell stroke these Federalist Society lawyers have besmirched and
undermined the integrity of two Branches of the United States Federal
Government established by the Constitution - the Presidency and the
Judiciary. So far the U.S. Congress has supinely gone along with the Bush
Jr. police state agenda. If and when these Bush/Ashcroft police state
practices make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, many of them will
probably be upheld. After all, a 5 to 4 majority of the Supreme Court
already gave the Presidency to Bush Jr. We need to seriously consider
whether they would strike down laws and practices that would give Bush Jr.
a Police State as well.
Philosophers have taught that a People get the type of government they
deserve. If the American People permit the Bush Jr. Leaguers to impose a
Police State at home in the name of furthering Pax Americana abroad, we will
have deserved it by abnegating our responsibilities as Citizens living in
what is supposed to be a constitutional Republic with a commitment to the
Rule of Law. The same thing happened to the Romans and to the Athenians.
The United States of America is not immune to the laws of history. Sic
transit gloria mundi!
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author of
Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, and The Criminality of
Nuclear Deterrence, Clarity Press. He can be reached at:
FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU http://counterpunch.org/boyle1011.html
Bush's Banana Republic By Francis Boyle
George W. Bush was never elected President by the People of the United
States of America. Instead, he was anointed for that Office by five
Justices of the United States Supreme Court who themselves had been
appointed by Republican Presidents. Bush Jr.'s installation was an act of
judicial usurpation of the American Constitution that was unprecedented in
the history of the American Republic. Had it occurred in a developing
country, such a subversion of democratic process would have been greeted
with knowing derision throughout the West.
What happened in America could
only be likened to a judicial coup d'etat inflicted upon the American
People, Constitution, and Republic. There should now be no doubt that the
United States Supreme Court is governed by raw, naked, brutal, power
politics. Justice has nothing at all to do with it. This Supreme Court's
constitutional sophistry proved a harbinger of the new administration's
disrespect for the Rule of Law, whether domestic or international.
BUSH JR.'S CONSTITUTIONAL COUP D'ETAT
From the Supreme Court's installation of Bush Jr. as President to the
Ashcroft/Federalist Society post-September 11 regime of police state "laws,"
the politico-legal functioning of America is increasingly resembling that of
a Banana Republic. Since September 11th, we have seen one blow against the
U.S.
Constitution after another. For example, Attorney General John Ashcroft
unilaterally instituted the monitoring of attorney-client communications
despite the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures and the
Sixth Amendment right to representation by Counsel in criminal cases.
He just went ahead and did it, without even bothering to inform anyone. Over
1100 aliens have been picked up and "disappeared" by Ashcroft and his
Department of Injustice. The American People have no idea where most of
these people are. They are being held on the basis of immigration law, not
criminal law, for a period of detention which has not been defined.
Ashcroft proclaimed another ukaze that these immigration proceedings must be
held in secret. The phenomenon of "enforced disappearances" is considered
to be a crime against humanity by Article 7(I)(i) of the Rome Statute for
the International Criminal Court.
It appears that many of these aliens have been deprived of their basic human
rights to consular notification and access as set forth in the 1963 Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations, to which the United States is a
contracting party and which even the U.S. State Department concedes
constitutes binding customary international law. Apparently Bush Jr.'s left
hand does not care about what his right hand does.
Yet another international convention set at naught. The one characteristic
these detained foreigners have in common is that they are mostly Muslims,
Arabs, and Asians. Everyone needs a scapegoat for the 11 September tragedy,
and it looks like we have one, both at home and abroad. Thousands more such
aliens are being moved into the pipeline for the Ashcroft gulag by the FBI.
Ashcroft is now planning to reinstate the infamous COINTELPRO Program,
whose atrocities against the civil rights and civil liberties of the
American People have been amply documented elsewhere. It is just a matter of
time before the Bush Jr. Leaguers unleash the newly-augmented powers of the
FBI, CIA and NSA directly against the American People. And we already have
2 million Americans rotting away in prison -- the highest rate of
incarceration in the world, a disproportionate majority of whom are
Americans of Color, victims of the Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush, and Clinton
administrations' racist "war on drugs," which is really a war against People
of Color. The American Police State has already arrived for People of Color!
ASHCROFT'S POLICE STATE
This brings the analysis to the Ashcroft Police State Act. There are no
other words to describe it. While Bush failed to get a formal declaration
of war that would have rendered him a constitutional dictator, clearly
Attorney General John Ashcroft and his right-wing Federalist Society lawyers
took every piece of regressive legislation off the shelf, tied it all into
what they called an anti-terrorism bill, and then rammed it through
Congress, giving it the appropriately Orwellian name of the .
Patriot Act.
According to one report, Ashcroft's first draft would have had Congress
suspend the ancient Writ of Habeas Corpus - the necessary prerequisite for
imposing a police state in the United States of America.
Many Members of Congress publicly admitted that they did not even bother to
read the Ashcroft Police State Act. Another Congressman said basically:
"Right, but there's nothing new about that." Interestingly enough the
so-called liberal Democrats in the House and the Senate were willing to give
Bush Jr. and Ashcroft more police state powers than the conservative
Republicans in the House. But there are no real differences that matter
between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to promoting America's
self-proclaimed "Manifest Destiny" to control the World and now Outer Space
too.
BUSH'S KANGAROO COURTS
It would take an entire law review article for me to analyze all the legal
and human rights problems with the Bush Jr.'s proposed military commissions.
Here a cabal of Federalist Society Lawyers in the White House got President
Bush to sign an Executive Order on 13 November 2001 which, when implemented,
will be widely recognized to constitute a grave breach of the Geneva
Conventions and establish a prima facie case of criminal accountability
against the President himself.
It is emblematic of this particular war that right towards its very outset
President George W. Bush personally incriminated himself under both
international criminal law and United States domestic criminal law.
The Bush Jr. administration has severely undermined the integrity of the
Four Geneva Conventions of 1949. By doing this, the Bush Jr. administration
has opened up U.S. Armed Forces and civilians around the world to similar
reprisals, which has already happened.
As a licensed attorney for 25 years, a law professor for 23 years and
someone who has done a good deal of criminal defense work in U.S. Federal
Courts, I am appalled by the insinuation of these Federalist Society Lawyers
that America's Federal Courts established by Article III of the U.S.
Constitution cannot hold accountable those responsible for the crimes of 11
September 2001. This is an insult to all Federal Judges, Federal
Prosecutors, Federal Public Defenders and all the Lawyers who are Officers
of these Courts.
In one fell stroke these Federalist Society lawyers have besmirched and
undermined the integrity of two Branches of the United States Federal
Government established by the Constitution - the Presidency and the
Judiciary. So far the U.S. Congress has supinely gone along with the Bush
Jr. police state agenda. If and when these Bush/Ashcroft police state
practices make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, many of them will
probably be upheld. After all, a 5 to 4 majority of the Supreme Court
already gave the Presidency to Bush Jr. We need to seriously consider
whether they would strike down laws and practices that would give Bush Jr.
a Police State as well.
Philosophers have taught that a People get the type of government they
deserve. If the American People permit the Bush Jr. Leaguers to impose a
Police State at home in the name of furthering Pax Americana abroad, we will
have deserved it by abnegating our responsibilities as Citizens living in
what is supposed to be a constitutional Republic with a commitment to the
Rule of Law. The same thing happened to the Romans and to the Athenians.
The United States of America is not immune to the laws of history. Sic
transit gloria mundi!
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author of
Foundations of World Order, Duke University Press, and The Criminality of
Nuclear Deterrence, Clarity Press. He can be reached at:
FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU http://counterpunch.org/boyle1011.html
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