Letters to the Editor
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Black Sites and Black Lists
There is no doubt that anyone with even a sliver of empathy would be outraged by the inhumanity of this physical and psychological mistreatment of an individual in the custody of our government.
Somehow, the fact that this Yemeni man is seemingly an unfortunate victim of circumstance allows the reader to rationalize away the growing threat of assertive and unchecked executive government power to our own communities and persons. In other words, even this detailed accounting won't make it real to most of us. Many here will read the article, shake our heads, and go about our daily business. Many will conclude that this will really only be serious and threatening when it could directly affect our lives, and perhaps find comfort in a belief that such a scenario is unlikely to happen. After all, we all have regular sounding names and would never conceivably cross paths with counterterrorism efforts in Jordan, would we? Isn't the government really just doing this to protect us from future terrorist attacks, even if the effort is a bit rough around the edges?
In October 2006, George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act into law. This grants our President the power to declare individuals "enemy combatants", and to set conditions of detainment, including permissible interrogation tactics and the final decision on the definition of torture. The enemy combatant classification can include a US citizen who is "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States", a broad context. This act does not require that individuals be charged with any crime and sets no maximum duration to imprisonment. Most see the MCA as allowing the President to detain individuals at will for an indefinite duration, subject to interrogation methods of his choosing.
The full real world application of the MCA remains to be seen, although some have speculated that it might first be applied to anti-war activists, animal rights activists (some of whom have already been classified as terrorists by the administration), and environmental activists. A further step could extend the classification to thought leaders among government opposition groups, and yet further into dissenting media voices. Should such detainments begin on any scale, fear alone would likely silence and subdue broad segments of our society.
Let us hope that this administration applies these powers with tremendous restraint, lest some voices among us wind up like Mr. Bashmilah.