Born in the USA

You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up

-Bruce Springsteen-


You may be born in the USA and on the on the Fourth of July, but if someone decides you are or look like or have the same name as an “Enemy Combatant” you may have no more rights than Ivan Denisovich; you may disappear into America’s Gulag for however long George Bush wants you to. You may never be charged. You may never have a lawyer. You may never have a trial. You may never return.

Our notorious facility at Guantanamo Bay has of course been under scrutiny for quite a while but investigations concerning torture and abuse of prisoners of war involve certain difficulties.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, former commander of the “detention center” at Gitmo, is declining to answer questions in two courts-martial cases involving the use of dogs during interrogations. Miller, who recently requested retirement, took command of the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba in late 2002 with a mandate to get more and better information from prisoners. Military law (UCMJ Article 31) provides the right to remain silent, something like the 5th Amendment protection against self- incrimination given civilians.

I agree, of course with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told Pentagon reporters that while he expects military leaders to do the right thing, that does not mean they should lose their constitutional rights.

The irony of course is that you or I may lose those rights on the basis of an unfounded accusation. Citizen or non-citizen. You may have less protection from cruelty than the law offers a dog or a barnyard animal.

I read in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that In August 2003, the Pentagon sent Miller to inspect interrogation procedures in Iraq, and he recommended using the Guantanamo techniques on prisoners in Iraq to improve intelligence on the growing anti-U.S. insurgency. He was sent to Iraq in March 2004 to run detainee operations. I expect the old soldier simply to retire and fade away. and perhaps the investigations of other incidents at Abu Ghraib will have similar outcomes. We will get little information from the torturers as we have had little information from the tortured. The boot heel of the Texas Tyrant will press a little harder on the face of America.