Not the America we know
15 January 2007
TO MANY of us, America’s greatnesses is the importance it accords to individual freedom and the rule of law, ideals that it sought to spread around the world in the past, and with great success. That the Bush administration, however, acts differently is not a secret.
To coincide with the 5th anniversary of Guantanamo Bay prison, a senior Pentagon official has called on major US companies to boycott legal firms that take up the defence of the Bay detainees. For one, those detained at the Bay had for long been denied their right to defence; they won that right after years of detention, and possible harassment, thanks to the pressure that was brought to bear on the Bush administration by civil rights groups within America itself.
For another, all those detained at the Bay are suspects; and cannot be called criminals. That many of them have been set free in due course is proof of their innocence. Thus it’s safe to assume that more innocents might be languishing in the cells there. All the more reason why they deserve credible legal defence.
In civilised societies, even criminals are given a fair chance to defend themselves before pronouncing sentence. That’s what the due process is all about.
Legal experts and advocacy groups are right in their assertion that the official, by making this statement has implicitly gone to the extent of intimidating law firms that provide legal help to the Bay defendants.
These are really difficult times, also seen from the way a popular trial of a dictator was conducted by a kangaroo court in Iraq, and the way “justice was meted out” there-a land where America went in with the stated purpose of “spreading the ideals of freedom, democracy and justice”.