[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 17886-17887]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




THE DEFINITION OF TYRANNY; LOOK NO FURTHER THAN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION 
                AND THE REPUBLICAN ENABLERS IN CONGRESS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 12, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, if Franz Kafka were writing his famous novel 
The Trial today, he might find his inspiration in what is happening in 
America. In The Trial a man named Josef K awakens one morning and, for 
reasons never revealed, is arrested and subjected to the rigors of a 
bizarre judicial process for an unspecified crime. The agents who 
arrest him never tell him under what or whose authority he is being 
arrested. He is ultimately executed never knowing what he has done.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to enter into the Record a column by Bob Herbert 
entitled ``The Definition of Tyranny'' which appeared in the July 17, 
2006 edition of The New York Times. The subject of Mr. Herbert's 
article is the Bush Administration's response to the Supreme Court's 
holding in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld that the military tribunals in use at 
Guantanamo Bay were illegal. The President was not authorized by 
Congress, nor did he have the power under Title II of the Constitution, 
to make law for the tribunals or for the treatment of prisoners at 
Guantanamo Bay even though the country was engaged, he argued, in a 
``war on terror.'' The Court also faulted the President's failure to 
apply Article III of the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of 
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
  In response, the President has requested that the Congress make legal 
what the Court found illegal. This response brought to my mind the 
situation in which Josef K found himself in The Trial. I enter this 
article by Mr. Herbert for the edification of my colleagues in the 
House of Representatives.

                [From the New York Times, July 17, 2006]

                       The Definition of Tyranny

                            (By Bob Herbert)

       Congress is dithering and the American public doesn't even 
     seem particularly concerned as the administration of George 
     W. Bush systematically trashes such fundamental American 
     values as justice, due process, respect for human rights and 
     submission to the rule of law.
       In the kangaroo courts that the administration concocted to 
     try detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a defendant could be 
     prevented from seeing the evidence against him, would not 
     have the right to attend his own trial and would not have the 
     right to appeal the sentence to a civilian court.
       That's slapstick justice, a process worthy of the Marx 
     Brothers.
       ``You have been accused of being a terrorist.''
       ``Where is the evidence?''
       ``We can't show it to you.''
       ``That's ridiculous.''
       ``So is this court. We find you guilty. Take him away.''
       The Supreme Court now says, in a vote that was closer than 
     it should have been, that this sort of madness cannot be 
     permitted. In its recent decision striking down the tribunals 
     for terror suspects at Guantanamo, the court said of the 
     defendant, Salim Ahmed Hamdan: ``He will be, and indeed 
     already has been, excluded from his own trial.''
       The court said, in effect, that this is not the American 
     way, that ours is not a Marx Brothers republic. Not yet, 
     anyway. (It most likely will be if Mr. Bush gets to appoint 
     one or two more justices to the court.)
       The Bush-Cheney regime believes it can do whatever 
     outlandish things it wants, including torturing people and 
     keeping them incarcerated for life without even the semblance 
     of due process. And it's not giving up. The administration 
     now wants Congress to authorize what the Supreme Court has 
     plainly said was wrong. White House lawyers, in a torturous 
     (pun intended) interpretation of the court's ruling, seem to 
     be arguing that the kangaroo courts, otherwise known as 
     military commissions, will be quite all right if only 
     Congress will say so.
       They're not all right. They're an abomination (like the 
     secret C.I.A. prisons and the practice of extraordinary 
     rendition) that spits in the face of the idea that the United 
     States is a great and civilized nation.
       ``Can you imagine if the Hamdan decision, among others, had 
     gone the other way?'' said Michael Ratner, president of the 
     Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been waging an 
     extraordinary fight to secure basic legal protections for 
     prisoners at Guantanamo. ``I mean we'd be looking at a dark 
     nightmare.''
       The court's decision brought into sharp relief the 
     importance of one of the most fundamental aspects of American 
     government, the separation of powers. Checks and balances. 
     The judicial branch put a halt--a check--on a gruesomely 
     illegal practice by the executive.
       Mr. Bush has tried to scrap the very idea of checks and 
     balances. The Republican-controlled Congress has, for the 
     most part, rolled over like trained seals for the president. 
     And Mr. Bush is trying mightily to pack the courts with 
     right-wingers who will do the same. Under those 
     circumstances, his will becomes law.

[[Page 17887]]

       Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion 
     in the Hamdan case, referred to a seminal quote from James 
     Madison. The entire quote is as follows: ``The accumulation 
     of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the 
     same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether 
     hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be 
     pronounced the very definition of tyranny.''
       As the center noted in a recent report, ``The U.S. 
     government has employed every possible tactic to evade 
     judicial review of its detention and interrogation practices 
     in the `war on terror,' including allegations that U.S. 
     personnel subject prisoners to torture and cruel, inhuman and 
     degrading treatment.''
       There is every reason to be alarmed about the wretched road 
     that Bush, Cheney et al. are speeding along. It is as if they 
     were following a route deliberately designed to undermine a 
     great nation.
       A lot of Americans are like spoiled rich kids who take 
     their wealth for granted. Too many of us have forgotten--or 
     never learned--the real value of the great American ideals. 
     Too many are standing silently by as Mr. Bush and his cronies 
     engage in the kind of tyrannical and uncivilized behavior 
     that has brought so much misery--and ultimately ruin--to 
     previous societies.

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