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Secret Military Tribunals: US Teaches World Loopholes in Democracy
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Monday, Mar 27 2006, 8:20AM
I find myself intrigued with last evening's installment on The Morningside Post, a new blog launched by students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
SIPA apparently invited Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi to speak -- which he did via teleconference.
Qaddafi's views on Libya's authentic democracy as compared to other fake ones fascinates:
Qaddafi pitched his version of democracy with determination. He seemed convinced that as Libya opens up to the world and the world begins to accept this historical pariah, Libyan democracy will be seen as the new, new thing."The world is duty bound to get acquainted with the Libyan system," he said. "The U.S. . .China, the Russian Federation need to get acquainted with this system because it is a savior for them."
He believes that Libyan democracy, with its people's congresses, is the only true democracy in the world because other countries have representative democracy (Wonder what he thinks of the electoral college?). "All else is false and fake," he said.
And what of Qaddafi's views on free speech? Everyone is free to publish their views with full freedom, he explained. But, it's still important to remember that you might turn out to be "liable."
"It's like driving on the wrong side of the road," he explained. If an article is offensive, an opinionated Libyan may end up in court. And, Qaddafi said, if someone asks, "Why did you take him to court?" the answer is: "He violated the law."
I am no fan of Qaddafi -- but his words deserve scrutiny. I happen to know a few of the families of victims of the Pan Am 103 bombing who will never find it possible to listen to this thug's thinking or words. I find it hard as well, but the fact that he is promulgating a narrative of democracy is interesting and important. He is, however, suggesting a warped and perverted democracy, and he's learned the loopholes from places like us and Singapore.
The fact that he mentioned "liability" as a check on free expression is exactly what the Singapore government uses when it bankrupts political opponents of the ruling party. Read up on the case of Chee Soon Juan, who was recently a Reagan Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Singapore's liability laws are an embarrassment and disgrace among modern states.
Likewise, when Christopher Lingle, an economics professor at the National University of Singapore wrote an article in the International Herald Tribune that said that judiciaries in some Southeast nations could not be considered "independent," he was successfully sued in absentia for personable liable by Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Lingle neither mentioned Lee nor the Singapore judiciary.
One sees how thugs -- even thugs like Qaddafi who want out of the global dog house -- take their cues from the rest of the "approved" roster of nations.
The SIPA poster on the Qaddafi digital encounter wonders what Qaddafi -- in talking about "fake democracies" elsewhere -- thinks about the U.S. electoral college. Only the electoral college can explain today why the Republican party (I'd mention the Democratic Party here but know of no similar behaviors) actually worked to vigorously challenge the credentials and voting rights of many elderly, Hispanic, and Black voters in Florida, Arkansas, Ohio, and other states. In other words, the Republicans deployed a system that was designed to put a speed-bump in the willingness of normal citizens to vote. Why? Because the electoral college has the capacity to move elections substantially if just one state tilts one way or another. If America had true popular voting for the presidency, there would only be an effort to get as many voters to the polls as possible -- not efforts to try to inhibit voters in key counties in key states.
Our democracy is less impressive because of the behaviors we have seen in our last few elections -- and other "talkers of democracy" at the helm of other nations are certainly learning that talking -- rather than doing -- can work for quite a long time.
I'll go one step further than the electoral college example, which is safe to discuss because it is like an appendix in the American system and with us anachronistically because it has not been modified after being with us through much of America's democratic experiment.
A better example is America's establishment of post-9/11 military tribunals. The Supreme Court will hear this week an appeal case challenging the military tribunals system -- and Antonin Scalia has already declared his staunch support of the tribunals.
Several years ago, I heard one of the most memorable speeches I have ever heard from Sonia Picado. Picado, former Costa Rica Ambassador to the United States, is now Chair of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights and former President of the Costa Rica National Liberation Party. She also served as the first and only woman judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
When I heard her speak it was at the annual retreat of the Pacific Council on International Policy organized by Abraham Lowenthal in San Francisco.
Her message was simple. She said that for decades, democrats and democratizers fought militaristic thugs throughout Latin America. These thugs and their supporters were very well practiced in the art of secret military tribunals -- and that the triumph of rule of law, transparency, basic human rights, and due process required an end to such secret dispensations of arbitrary justice.
She said that with a flick of John Ascroft's pen, the military tribunals were given their birth and launch. They were not approved by Congress. They deprive those accused of fair hearings before their peers.
She said that this act sent "a cold chill" through democracies around the world because America had adopted one of the key institutions that they as genuine democrats had been trying to wipe out of existence.
To put this into context, imagine our efforts to rid the world of polio -- when another case appeared not in some poor, remote part of the world -- but surfaced in Washington, D.C.
Antonin Scalia is brilliant actually. It's a huge mistake to underestimate this man.
However, Scalia is an enemy of democracy, of real and true democracy -- not the kind that he has inspired in the likes of Qaddafi but the kind launched by the founding fathers of the United States of America.
America needs to stop teaching thugs in the world the loopholes in democratic process and needs to get back to walking the walk of democracy.
-- Steve Clemons
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absentia not abstentia
Scott...you are greatly appreciated. Moveable Type has no spell check -- and this system of typing on the run is dangerous. Thanks much for the correction.
best,
Steve Clemons
Our world always underestimates the abject fool. Castro, still alive and kicking. Hussein, still alive and spitting. Qaddafi, still alive and taunting. Deadeye Dick Cheney, still alive and ticking. Imperious Rex George Bush, still alive and killing innocents. Chief Flagellant of the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has predetermined the detainees down in Hellhole Guantanamo to be without rights. Seems mostly acerbic and biased. Recusal? Probably. Likely? Highly unlikely!
This is a great demonstration of hazards of parading our hypocrisy before the world.
People everywhere--especially people who perceive themselves at a disadvantage--are keenly aware of these sorts of contradictions. The strength of the United States gave us some international slack as long as we behaved ourselves. Now that we're actively and brazenly in contempt of international law and mores, we come under closer scrutiny.
Our government betrays us all when it holds the Constitution, Congress, the people, and the rest of the world in contempt, and no special genius is required to see us for what we are. Every time the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, the attorney general, our loose cannon at the UN, or any other member of the administration speaks, we demonstrate economic, political, and intellectual bankruptcy.
Folks are chopping at the ankles of the beast that believes it can bestraddle the world.
When a man the caliber of George W. Bush seizes control of the nation that claims to be the world's leading democracy, Qadaffi gains credibility.
I was very pleased to read Steve's remarks about the electoral college. One of the basic principles of democracy is to have one vote per citizen or to have each vote count as much as all other votes. Because of the electoral college, this rule does not apply to the American system. Therefore it cannot be called a "democracy" (and should certainly not be exported by the presisent). If I am correct, Al Gore actually had more votes then Bush in the presidential elections. It is truly a travesty of democracy to yield the executive power to the person with less votes.
I am delighted that this is at least talked about occasionally in America, and in this blog in particular.
Steve,
Thanks for this:
She said that with a flick of John Ascroft's pen, the military tribunals were given their birth and launch. They were not approved by Congress. They deprive those accused of fair hearings before their peers.
This is a key but overt element of Bush's transformation of governance that's gone largely overlooked in 'mainstream' political and media circles.
It's increasingly evident that militaristic takeovers and ruling methods in Latin America during the 1960s, 70s, & 80s have heavily influenced us -- rather than American-style democracy influencing those countries.
And I don't exclude Alberto Gonzalez' family background from that stream of influence. Perhaps his friendship with W extends back as far as Bush's 'National Guard' days...
Really excellent piece, Steve. I'm thinking that even my right-leaning friends could digest it.
Thanks.
Thugmeister Praetorian!
Drum just posted on Scalia already having made up his mind that upcoming case on political grounds.
A promising, quite do-able way to kill off the electoral college exists. But we'll have to do a lot more than that to walk the walk of democracy:
- Get the corruption out of elections and put people back in: public campaign financing. (I'm more than a little resentful of having my party's presidential nomination fixed in advance two years out because one candidate raises so much money.)
- Stop kidnaping people and bundling them off to be tortured by other governments or in our own global network of secret prisons. Repudiate the policy by trying those responsible for these crimes.
- Close Guantanamo, acknowledge that all detainees in U.S. custody are covered by the Geneva Conventions, and follow through on the implications.
- Here at home, restore free speech to its rightful place: all over the country. End the practice of herding protestors into pens whenever a high administration official travels outside Washington D.C.
P.S. I'm still not convinced Lockerbie was brought down by Libyans rather than Hezbollah/Iran. Bring the tinfoil...
PLEASE COMMENT ON TODAY'S BREAKING DEVELOPMENTS:
***NY TIMES: BUSH WAS SET ON PATH TO WAR, ACCORDING TO LEAKED BRITISH MEMO.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?hp&ex=1143522000&en=1a8220fd45b2aca0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
***RAW STORY: ROVE DIRECTED CIA LEAK PROSECUTOR TO CHENEY OFFICE E-MAILS.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Roves_cooperation_seen_to_advance_inquiry_0327.html
Steve, regarding the NY Times story, any further developments on the claims that Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera? All seems to tie together, but yet no consequences. Sad.
From Atrios, more of Scalia's Constitutional interpretations. In this installment, he brings us "Gestures as Speech Acts."
Manners
Republican Jesus wholeheartedly approves of flipping the bird in church.
A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.
"You know what I say to those people?" Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining "That's Sicilian."
The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper.
"Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.
I love how Scalia thinks he gets to order the press around.
-Atrios 12:43 PM
The Electoral College is one of the greatest devices for a Democratic Republic and much like the 2nd Amendment; it was corrupted so long ago. However, most people are too stupid or elitist to see its value. The point being that the majority is not always right.
The public was never supposed to vote for President: your influence over the Electoral College was made with 3 Votes; one for each of your Senators (2) and one for your Congressman (1). These individuals then voted on the President and Vice President to serve for 4 years. Hence the magic number of approx 283.
Really a beautiful system as the electorate will get mad at a Congressman who votes a shmuck into office and out he will be voted. Go back to the original intent and then maybe we would get a better President or better yet, some turn over in Congress.
Instead the elitist on the Coasts want a popular election, so we will always get the corrupted view from the moneyed elite in New York.
I'm not sure what any of these words mean anymore: "democracy," "representative government" and "freedom." Bush's most lasting legacy will entail condemning innocent American children to a lifetime of listening to foreign autocrats parroting our own hypocrisy. I can't wait for Qadaffi to start quoting Lincoln and MLK. If he discovers Thoreau, I may have no choice but to personally colonize Mars.
Steve, having sat across the table from policymakers of various post-Soviet countries and from the Middle East and China as well--all of them are now primed to respond to any criticism of their own policies and democratic deficits with a counter-example drawn from U.S. practices.
Recently my colleague Mark Medish had this to say at an event we took part in about human rights and democratic freedoms in Russia, and I think it applies here as well:
My final point is that in this context – and this is not a partisan comment – we must always keep our own house in order. Nothing is as corrosive of our capacity, in my view, to influence the world as the widespread perception that America has itself forgotten to apply the highest standards of democratic legitimacy and the rule of law to its own conduct. If we create the impression through our carelessness that we believe that might makes right, let us not be surprised if the prospect for the respect for human rights begins to darken globally.
Thanks Joe B,
Okay the state legislature had more influence, great. I want somebody local I can yell at for the selection. The more local the better. Bring it back to the original intent or tell me why it would not be better. This system is terrible and the state legislature is no better. The more time Senators and Congressmen have to spend at the home district the better. America needs less people in DC than ever.
What other favors has he done that he doesn't want published?
The House of Representatives represented the people.
The Senate represented the states.
The President represented the united states -- all the states collectively.
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