BUSH AS ABSOLUTE MONARCH OF GUANTANAMO

The Beginning of the End of the American Republic

By Thomas Pany

[This article published in the German-English cyber journal Telepolis, 6/06/2005 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.telepolis.de/r4/artikel/20/20258/1.html.]




The first harsh reactions in the US appeared after the publication of the Hood report late Friday evening [cf. Urinating in the Ventilator (1)]. Members of the Democratic Party including prominent Senator Joseph Biden (2) urge closing the prison camp at Guantanamo.

The camp in Guantanamo has become a “propaganda- and recruitment tool for terrorists,” Biden said and proposed a gradual closure of the camp in Cuba. First, an independent commission should be created to analyze the value of maintaining the controversial camp. The finding of this investigative commission is already clear at the outset.

“The final result, I am convinced, will be closing (the prison) and moving the prisoners.”

Critics of US policy in the Middle East wielded heavy guns on Monday while the White House tried over the weekend to play down the Pentagon report on Hood that confirmed several cases of Koran desecration and blamed the media and low-ranking personnel (“exceptions”) for the image damage.

The timing of the publication of the report on Friday night was interpreted as a trick of the Pentagon to withhold the news (3), Juan Cole complained. Notwithstanding this, the US press did poor work in reporting about the consequences of the “Koran desecrations” within the worldwide Moslem community. Now it turns out that the statements denied by the government until recently were correct…

“The main reason is that the Bush administration built a prison in Guantanamo in the hope of getting rid of the Bill of Rights (4).”


Juan Cole

While the Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights guarantees the universal right to a trial and attorney, the government created a law-free zone in Guantanamo where prisoners could be held indefinitely without attorney and without legal proceedings. Terrorists are criminals but not non-human for whom the protection of laws could be abolished. Bush can act like an absolute monarch according to the legal understanding that exists for Guantanamo. The founding fathers of the US opposed absolute monarchs.

Patriot Act II [cf. The Symbolic Project of Torture and Arbitrary Justice (5)] could withdraw citizenship from American citizens when they are suspected of supporting terrorist groups. Cole is convinced that t6he American right-wing seeks ways to avoid and undermine the Bill of Rights.

The prison in Guantanamo should be closed because it was intended as the beginning of the end of the American republic.