IP: William Safire: 'Voices of Negativism"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 22:39:12 -0800
> From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ultradevices com>
>
> Its refreshing to see a "conservative" voice who is willing to say no to the
> Bush administrations destruction of democracy....
>
> 'Voices of Negativism'
> By WILLIAM SAFIRE
> December 6, 2001
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/06/opinion/06SAFI.html
>
> Preparing to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee where to get off
> today, Attorney General John Ashcroft lashed out at all who dare to
> uphold our bedrock rule of law as "voices of negativism." (A nattering
> nabob, moi?)
>
> Polls show terrorized Americans willing to subvert our Constitution to
> hold Soviet-style secret military trials. No presumption of innocence;
> no independent juries; no right to choice of counsel; no appeal to
> civilian judges for aliens suspected of being in touch with
> terrorists.
>
> President Bush had no political motive in suspending, with a stroke of
> his pen, habeas corpus for 20 million people; his 90 percent
> popularity needs no boost. The feebleness of the Democrats' response,
> however — with the honorable exception of Vermont's Senator Pat
> Leahy — is highly political. Tom Daschle is waffling wildly because
> he is terrified of being slammed as "soft on terrorism," which might
> overwhelm his strategy of running against "the Bush recession" in the
> 2002 elections.
>
> With most voters trusting the government with anything, and with an
> attorney general and his hand-picked F.B.I. boss having the publicity
> time of their lives, one might expect us negativists to be in
> disarray.
>
> Here's why we are not: The sudden seizure of power by the executive
> branch, bypassing all constitutional checks and balances, is beginning
> to be recognized by cooler heads in the White House, Defense
> Department and C.I.A. as more than a bit excessive.
>
> Not that they'll ever admit it publicly; Bush will stick to his shaky
> line that civil courts cannot be trusted to protect military secrets
> and, as fearful Orrin Hatch assures him, jurors will be too scared to
> serve. But his order asserting his power to set up drumhead courts
> strikes some of his advisers, on sober second thought, as
> counterproductive.
>
> Set aside all the negativist libertarian whining about constitutional
> rights, goes his newest advice, and forget about America's moral
> leadership. Be pragmatic: our notion of a kangaroo court is backfiring
> — defeating its antiterrorist purpose.
>
> At the State Department, word is coming in from Spain, Germany and
> Britain — where scores of Al Qaeda suspects have been arrested —
> that the U.N. human rights treaty pioneered by Eleanor Roosevelt
> prohibits the turning over of their prisoners to military tribunals
> that ignore such rights. That denies us valuable information about
> "sleepers" in Osama bin Laden's cells who are in the U.S. planning
> future attacks. (Those zealots who cited F.D.R.'s saboteur precedent
> forgot about Eleanor.)
>
> At the C.I.A., data about China, Russia and other closed societies is
> gleaned from debriefing returning travelers. But U.S. kangaroo courts
> would legitimize harsh proceedings overseas against U.S. business
> executives, academics and tourists — thereby shutting down major
> intelligence sources. (Interviewing 5,000 Muslim students and
> visitors, however, is seen by our spooks as an excellent opportunity
> to recruit Arabic- speaking agents.)
>
> At Justice, those not in the Ashcroft-Mueller axis view the tribunals
> as giving priority to punishment for past attacks rather than helping
> to prevent future attacks. Thus Ashcroft undermines Justice's
> justification for its nationwide dragnet.
>
> At Defense, the hastily drawn order must be translated into a system
> of trials that would not be invalidated by a Supreme Court. Secretary
> Donald Rumsfeld has refused to follow lockstep behind Ashcroft in
> deriding strict constructionists as negativist. On the contrary,
> Rumsfeld calls the informed outcry "useful" in refining the order. The
> hopeful news is that Rumsfeld has reached outside the Pentagon to get
> advice from legal minds not conflicted by administration ties. Lawyers
> inside the armed services are also determined to resist the subversion
> of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by Bush's diktat.
>
> Many attorneys friendly to this White House know that order was
> egregiously ill drafted. The White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales,
> defended the order on this Op-Ed page by denying or interpreting away
> its most offensive provisions. That's his signal to the Pentagon
> general counsel, William Haynes, to give the broadest interpretation
> to the order's five words promising non-citizens "a full and fair
> trial."
>
> Otherwise, our Constitution would be set aside by Cicero's ancient
> inter arma silent leges — in time of war, the law falls silent.
>
>
>                    Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
> --
> Robert J. Berger
> UltraDevices, Inc.
> 257 Castro Street, Suite 223 Mt. View CA. 94041
> Email: rberger () ultradevices com http://www.ultradevices.com
> Voice: 650-237-0334 Fax: 408-490-2868

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