09.29.06
Regarding the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006
This is the text of a letter I am presently printing out to send to my elected representatives.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Dear [Congressman/Senator] ,
I am writing to express my profound displeasure and outrage at the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and to take you personally to task for your part in its passage.
To permit the passage of this Act, with its provisions for detainment, coercion, torture, and the legal admission of evidence obtained by these methods, is an act of moral cowardice.
To have not blocked this bill by any procedural means necessary is to kowtow to the hubris of a President who believes that might makes right, that the Geneva Convention and other international regulations need not apply to him if he doesn’t happen to feel like it, and who is firmly convinced that his own political agenda is more important than the Constitution.To have not blocked this bill is to cave in to the bullying of Republican and right-wing media (out of respect I shall refrain from speculating what this may have to do with it being an election year).
This bill could have been stopped. It could have been referred to committee. It could have been tabled pending further debate. It could have been filibustered. It was not.
That this bill was not stopped is on your shoulders.
Instead of doing your utmost to block an immoral and unconstitutional piece of legislation, you chose to endanger the bodily and mental safety of whatever individuals the United States chooses to detain for whatever cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment—“waterboarding,” sexual humiliation, starvation, sleep deprivation, physical beatings, psychological torture, virtually anything our American “interrogators” can dream up.
This is a very large step in a grotesquely wrong direction. This is a step in the direction of having a Gestapo, a Stasi, of desaparecidos and gulags. I don’t believe that “it can’t happen here.” I’m a professional historian. I know better. And so should you. These things can happen anywhere that they are not prevented from happening. You have failed, in this instance, in that task of prevention.
I would like you to tell me what defense any American citizen has, at this point, against being declared an enemy combatant? Further, what would you suggest that such a person do in his or her own defense if such a thing were to come to pass? How can I trust that you would lift a finger to protect me, an American citizen and one of your constituents, from being trucked off to a secret prison and tortured or even killed as an “enemy combatant,” if you cannot find the backbone or the moral authority to stand against this legislation directed at people whose only substantial difference to you or me is that they are not American citizens?
How can I trust your motives when you have freely chosen to abandon human beings to the none too tender mercies of jailers and torturers? How can I vote for you when you have shown by your lack of decisive action that you support the idea that the leadership of the United States of America should be above the law… and even above its own laws?
This legislation does not protect me, or anyone, from terrorists. It will not protect me, or you, or anyone, from terrorists. This legislation serves only to make the United States government more terrifying, and more morally bankrupt, than it has ever been before.
I am appalled, furious, and disgusted. More than that, I am, as a patriotic American citizen who loves her country and the standards it was founded on, profoundly betrayed.
I leave you with these words from President Theodore Roosevelt:
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Sincerely,
Hanne Blank
As for you out there reading this? Congress.org has a spiffy utility where you can type in your ZIP code and it spits out the names and addresses of your elected representatives.
Get on the stick. If they don’t hear from you, it lets them off the hook.
Save your own ass. No one else is going to do it for you.