The 17th of this month was a historic day.
The US President has now acquired un-controlled, despotic powers. Everybody can be declared "an unlawful enemy combatant". Everybody! US inhabitant or not. Innocent or not. Without ever seeing a judge or a court. Just because the President deems so. And if that happens, you'll be defenseless against torture. Because that's is now legal too. The bill has been rubber-stamped by the Congress, with only minimal opposition by some democrats.
Watch this video! It is a brilliant piece of the sharp Keith Olbermann journalism.
"Under this law the only thing keeping anybody out of Guantanamo is the sanity and honesty of the President of the United States."
The President now essentially has absolute power. Sounds very much like Hitler's Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) of 1933.
Be very concerned!
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I forgot to spell out a "missing link"....
...because it is not just the declaration of any person to be "an unlawful enemy combatant" that is new. He probably already does that in his private mind with a few people.
The point is: the Military Commissions Act that Bush just signed allows him to detain and lock away "enemy combatants" anywhere in the world without the protection of habeas corpus. And sticking to the Geneve Convention is now "optional" as well.
true
i totally feel the same about this. when i read it in the newspaper i also instantly thought of how the "presisdent's" power get ever more absolute during the last few years.
this is disturbing news.