Western Civilization--A Marvelous Idea

The Muhammed Jawad case is shaping up as the moment the Obama Administration—and by extension the rest of us—decides if it treasures the rule of law and due process or endorses the torture of children as practiced by the Bush clique.

‘Mr’ Jawad—who may have been 12 when he was first arrested in Afghanistan—has never been tried for a crime, but the Bush-Cheneyite faction that I thought lost the last election thinks we should continue to persecute a kid who has now spent one-third of his life in our dungeons, rather than cede his case to the authority of a judge or jury. This has to happen, they argue, because Jawad might be dangerous to someone at some indeterminate time in the future.

Talk about ‘judicial activism’ or deciding a case based on ‘empathy’. Imagine if Sonia Sotomayor made up the law this way during her career.

Obama’s lawyers already have conceded that there’s no case against Jawad but insist he be kept in prison anyway. I innocently thought that the American Way included NOT being locked up because powerful people think there’s something wrong with you. Wrong again.

Today’s New York Times story quotes the inevitable Heritage Foundation jackal, one Charles D. Stimson, to the effect that Obama will have to decide between a ‘habeas judge’ and their own opinion that Jawad can’t ‘in good conscience’ be freed.

What a classic statement of love for dictatorial rule! What a shining proof that the so-called conservatives have lost any lingering love for the United States of America and have succumbed to barbarism. There’s nothing ‘conservative’ about these people; they are the worst sort of marauding radicals, and our man Obama now has to decide if he’s with them or us.

Here’s the background on the Afghan teenager, by the way, for those readers still interested. As the Times relates:

A military judge found last year that much of the evidence against Mr. Jawad consisted of statements he gave after he was tortured by Afghan officials. In Judge Huvelle’s July 16 hearing, Department of Justice lawyers said the government would no longer rely on those statements to justify Mr. Jawad’s detention.

The military judge, Col. Stephen R. Henley, found that Afghan officials had threatened to kill Mr. Jawad and his family if he did not confess to the attack. Colonel Henley also said Mr. Jawad had been abused at Guantánamo, finding that he had been isolated, beaten, kicked and subject to sleep deprivation. . . He attempted suicide in Guantánamo in 2003.

So there you have the choices: on the one hand, a clamor for the continued destruction of a child’s life in the name of Security for Americans. On the other, the remnants of our tattered civil protections.

Mr. Obama, how do you vote?