Petitio principii
Begging the question. That’s what Mark Noonan does in this boilerplate fuck-the-ACLU rant:
They don’t say where the man was “kidnapped” from, but it is almost certain he wasn’t detained in the United States…meaning he’s a foreigner taken on foreign soil. Far as I can tell, the US Constituition is inoperative outside the jurisdiction of the United States. What we have here is a direct attempt by the ACLU to undermine America’s ability to wage covert war against our terrorist enemy - what the ALCU is trying to do is prevent American agencies from doing anything, during wartime, which might be illegal if done inside the United States during peacetime. It is an absurdity wrapped inside an idiocy.
Pity the ACLU - a group of dedicated lawyers who haven’t a clue that the reason they are allowed to whine about the supposed rights of terrorists is because better men and women are out there fighting to keep ACLU lawyers in business.
What he’s upset about is this report:
A U.S. civil liberties group says it plans to sue the CIA in the case of a man who alleges he was kidnapped and sent to Afghanistan to be interrogated as a terrorism suspect.
The American Civil Liberties Union, in a release issued on Friday, alleged that “CIA officials at the highest level violated U.S. and universal human rights laws” when CIA agents seized an unidentified man and flew him to a secret prison in Afghanistan near Kabul called the “Salt Pit.”
The ACLU said the lawsuit would be the first legal challenge of a practice known as “extraordinary rendition,” and will be filed in court on Tuesday. It did not say when or in which country the alleged kidnapping took place.
At a news conference in Washington that day, the man represented by the ACLU will appear and state that CIA-authorized agents abducted, beat and drugged him before sending him to the secret Afghanistan facility, the group said.
The man is innocent, the ACLU said, and was held without notice for an undisclosed time before being released without ever being charged of a crime. An ACLU spokesman declined to give additional details about the case or the plaintiff.
Noonan, again: “[T]hey are allowed to whine about the supposed rights of terrorists…”
Alleging that an innocent man was “abducted, beat[en] and drugged,” then taken to a secret detention center, is “whining about the supposed rights of terrorists,” according to Mark Noonan.
Therefore, anyone who falls into the hands of the US government under the massive nebulous rubric of “The War on Terrorism” is a terrorist. Being suspected of terrorist activities or ties to terrorism is prima facie evidence of being guilty. Every War-on-Terror prisoner, the ones we know about and the ones we don’t, is a terrorist. How do we know that? Because they’re suspected of being terrorists.
Any desire to see these suspects enjoy the most basic of legal rights which are the foundation of American justice is wrong, then, because “terrorists” have no rights. They deserve whatever the executive branch of the US government sees fit to give them. And they all deserve it, because they’re all “terrorists.” How do we know they’re terrorists? Because the government says they might be.
This is the mindset of the Kool-Aid Faction, a group which, unfortunately, enjoys a lot of clout in our public discourse. This is frightening, readers.
What does it mean, by the way, to say “he’s a foreigner, taken on foreign soil” and “the US Constitution is inoperative outside the jurisdiction of the United States”?
It means, Fuck that guy. He has no rights, and he should have no rights. That’s the voice of the Kool-Aid Faction, who claim to be 100% behind a noble struggle for the American traditions of justice, freedom, and democracy. This is the voice of those who want the rest of the world to model themselves in our image, those who passionately say that America is the greatest nation in all of world history. How can a struggle for freedom and justice be fought like this? How is it not self-contradictory? Which American values are we supposed to be fighting for?
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December 12th, 2005 @ 13:40
Thank God for the Religious Reich!
Don’t people realize that we need organizations like the ACLU? They serve as a watchdog agency to the government, trying to make sure that they don’t get out of hand. Sure, a lot of their crusades are asinine, but that’s just the nature of the beast. When people aren’t allowed to speak out against their government without fear of reproach or censure, society totters on the verge of fascism.
If what the government did was reprehensible and the ACLU is calling them on it, then let’s all agree that what the government did was reprehensible rather than make an issue out of the ACLU. Let’s stay on the topic–the actions of the government. Let’s ask the questions, (1) are the allegations true, and if so, (2) are the actions acceptable. Who cares if it was the ACLU or the Heritage Foundation who brought them to light?
The ACLU is not unpatriotic. Mark Twain (a fine, upstanding American by anyone’s reckoning) defined patriotism as something to the effect of “supporting your country always and supporting your government when they deserve it”. Groups such as the ACLU don’t scrutinize the policies of the American government because they hate America–far from it! They scrutinize the policies of the American government because they LOVE America! Alexander Hamilton (I think) said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and watchdog groups believe this whole heartedly. The reason they are so up the American government’s collective arse and not doing the same thing to the governments of other, more atrocious regimes is because the governments of those other countries don’t represent THEM! They don’t care nearly as much about what is going on in Egypt or China or Germany because they’re American.
I roll my eyes every time the ACLU takes some idiot’s case who stuck his arm in a wood chipper and is now suing the company because he thinks that it’s because of racism. But the next time I hear about the ACLU defending some poor black guy who is pleading innocent for raping a white heiress and, while running from the police, shooting a cop in front of a dozen witnesses before being arrested on the scene, I’ll thank god for the ACLU. Not because I think that the guy should walk. (hopefully, the dozen witnesses and DNA evidence will make sure he rots for the rest of his life) But because there are still people out there who will represent anyone, and not for the money, but because they believe that everyone’s constitutionally protected freedoms and liberties are worth defending.
Here’s a bit right from their web site:
“The ACLU frequently defends the rights of free religious expression for all people. In Michigan, high school officials agreed to stop censoring religious yearbook entries after the ACLU intervened on behalf of a Christian student. In other states, the ACLU has supported the rights of students to distribute Christian literature at school. Recently, the ACLU of Indiana defended the First Amendment rights of a Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets.”
And Mason says that “The ACLU are a bunch of sick people who fight for anything that’s anti-American, anything that’s dirty or vulgar, and they hate anything that’s respectable or decent.”
What doesn’t match up there?
December 12th, 2005 @ 17:40
The only sane response is to mock these people and expose them for the gibbering looney-tunes they are. Anyone who’s capable of claiming, with a straight face, that the ACLU is “anti-American” has forfeited any claim to seriousness.