“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
For those of you who don’t know, Habeas Corpus is our right to defend ourselves from being detained illegally.  It’s what keeps people from being arrested and held without being charged with a crime.  It’s a right that every United States resident enjoys, and it ensures that the government doesn’t arrest people without a just cause.  Or at least that’s what it is supposed to do.  For the last six and half years we’ve had a detention camp that suspended Habeas Corpus and has been detaining people for long periods of time without a formal charge on the grounds that they are an “enemy combatant”.  This detention camp is the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.  This camp has been notorious for human rights violations including torture and sexual degradation, among other things.  Before we move on, let’s think about that.  A lot of these people, who may or may not be terrorists and are definitely prisoners of war, have not been charged with any crimes, have never stepped foot in an American court house or military tribunal, and they’re being tortured, sexually harassed, pepper sprayed, intimidated, and are being subjected to religious persecution.  And whereas we would have the right to appeal our imprisonment, these people have had to sit back and take this until they’re released (which may or may not be because they were found innocent eventually in a tribunal).

Well, no more of that!  The Supreme Court has ruled that our constitution does indeed apply to our navel base in Cuba where some 270+ men are being held.  These tortured and belittled men finally have the ability to claim that they are being held illegally.  Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be released, as our intelligence agencies claim they have evidence that the men are actually dangerous enemy combatants.  However, this evidence has not be presented to date as it has not been necessary to prove that the imprisoned people deserve to be there. 

There is a dark side to this ruling, unfortunately, and that is that it has been denounced by the Bush administration.  You know, those guys who want to protect the free world.  These people who have been put into to place by and to serve the constitution are denouncing a ruling that gives U.S. prisoners constitutional rights.  There is something incredibly wrong with this.  It’s not surprising though, considering their record.  I guess what’s even more unnerving to me is that McCain, the presumed Republican nominee and candidate for United States President, has said that’s it’s concerning that the courts have ruled this way.  I don’t see what’s so concerning about due process.  I don’t see what’s so concerning about innocent until proven guilty.  It’s a hell of a lot better than torture them into confession, and if that doesn’t work let them go eventually.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 06/13 at 12:00 AM  •   •  permalink

Thirty-eight years ago a treaty was ratified by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the then-Soviet Union, and roughly forty other countries world wide.  This treaty was an agreement by all the signatories that they would not aid in the proliferation of nuclear weapons in countries that had not yet developed them, that they would seek to disarm their own arsenals, and that it was the inalienable right of all countries to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purpose, meaning the purpose of providing energy.  Today this treaty is still in effect, but it’d be hard to tell from the actions of multiple countries who ratified that treaty back in March of 1970.  To this day we’ve seen little done by our own country to neutralize and disarm its nuclear arsenal; if anything, we’ve built it up adding things like bunker-busting nuclear warheads.  As we build up our arsenal in defiance of the second pillar of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we are also standing against the third pillar of the treaty by trying to deny other countries around the world their right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program, one that can help third and second world countries avoid the trappings of oil and natural gas that are plaguing our own nation.  Iran is a prime example of this issue.  Iran, a country with about 133 billion barrels worth of oil in their reserves, is having to import oil and gas because of their quickly growing population.  They’re having to import a resource that they have billions of barrels worth of, they recognize the environmental impact that the resource is having on their country, and they want to work towards a clean alternative to a dirty resource, but we don’t want to let them.  Regardless of the fact that International Atomic Energy Agency has verified that Iran has not gotten to the point were they could weaponize their uranium and has made no evident effort to do so, we are insisting (along with Israel and a group of our other allies) that Iran stop its enrichment program entirely, claiming that they are without a doubt working towards weaponization, and that those weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists.  We have even gone so far on this idea to refuse to rule out the idea of a preemptive nuclear strike against Iran for failing to bow to our demands.  We really need to step back and examine what we’re doing here.  We are preventing a country who wants a clean, relatively cheap source of energy (once you get past the initial costs) to power a growing economy and population from having the tools they need to become a first world industrialized nation.  We wonder why so many countries in this region are hostile towards us, but we’re not willing to look at our own policies objectively and try to figure out why.  A simple examination of our conduct internationally is all it takes, people, it’s really not that hard at all.

To not make this all just a one sided attack against American policy, Iran really should have kept their nuclear program declared.  We can argue their point that the United States was at that time covertly keeping the materials they needed from them, but when it comes down to it continuing the program secretly was a breach of the treaty.  If they had evidence of the United States covertly keeping them from their right to nuclear energy they should have immediately brought that to the forefront at the United Nations rather than trying to hide their nuclear program in a hope that we’d not realize what was going on.  This has only hurt your position, Iran, and I really hope that we can all look past that.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 06/11 at 01:04 AM  •   •  permalink

Well, it’s finally over.

After a long race, the primary is finally over. Hillary Clinton has given a glowing endorsement of her former opponent Barack Obama. I just have to say that I’m happy that this is the way she decided to end it. I’m am elated that she has made the choice not to take this and drag it out to August. With her backing Obama fully rather than bitterly just saying the race is over we now have the chance to see a page in history turn come November and then January. I honestly didn’t expect her to end it this way, but now that it’s over I am just so happy that this is how it ended. Sorry for sounding redundant, but I really just don’t want to see another Republican in the White House.

This brings me to my main point today. Just because the primary is over doesn’t mean that we can relax. There are still a lot of bitter Clinton supporters out there who are claiming that they’re going to do everything in their power to get McCain elected, some going so far as to say that a McCain-Clinton ticket would be the real dream ticket at this point. This is something we’re going to have to prepare to fight against for the next four and half months. This is something that we are going to have to counter-act, and we’re going to need Hillary Clinton to follow up on her endorsement by truly doing everything in her power to get her voters to follow her to Obama, and to a Democratic White House. She has to do everything she can to make sure that come January we’re not singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”. She had created a mess out of the primary and it is now her responsibility to this nation to clean it up before we end up turning the Middle East in to a field of radioactive glass.

Again, thank you for ending the election on this note Hillary. Now please, make things right with your supporters.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 06/09 at 08:54 AM  •   •  permalink

As some of you may know, one of the “masterminds” behind the September 11th attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, went to military tribunal yesterday. He may be charged with war crimes, for which his penalty would be the death sentence.

Now, I realize this man most likely had an involvement in an attack that resulted in the death of some three thousand plus Americans (if you’re not counting the war in Iraq that somehow resulted from the attack). However, I think in this particular case we should consider staying the death penalty, and should do the same in any cases where a terrorist is convicted. Death is the last thing you want to give someone who believes they are fighting in the name of God, Allah, or whoever else may have a following of extremists. When you give a man like this death, his death will be celebrated as a victory by his brothers-in-arms, and he will welcome his death with open arms, as Mohammed has stated. To give these men the martyrdom they seek will not be a victory for America, but just another reason to give their comrades a reason not to fear any punishment they may meet an American hands. To give them a life sentence would be to make their efforts more in vain. If they can’t even die for their god, what’s the bother in trying? Maybe this would just cause an increase in suicide attacks. Maybe it would result in less attacks overall. How could we measure the effect of letting these men live a life that’s wasted by rotting away in prison? Who knows. The point is, we can’t just send these men to their deaths if that’s what they’re asking for, it’s not a punishment for them.

Also, I have to bring up the fact that Mohammed made a comment about his nose being drawn too big by a courtroom artist. Are you fucking kidding me? Why are we reporting on that?! We’re prosecuting a “terrorist mastermind” and you’re reporting on a comment about a courtroom drawing?

You people are hacks.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 06/06 at 12:00 AM  •   •  permalink

Here we are, finally down to the end of the Primary elections. We have Clinton down by more than 100 delegates with only 48 left up for grabs, and about half of those are likely to go to Obama. We’re nearing the end, my friends, of a long circus of an election. We knew who would be winning this election from the day that Obama won 11 straight primaries. We knew who would be winning this election when Obama over took Clinton in pledged delegates. We knew who would be winning this election when Clinton started losing super delegates to Obama. We’ve seen this coming for a long time now. Because of this, I just can’t help but ask the question: Why didn’t Clinton see this coming? Why is Clinton still fighting for this? The actions Clinton has been taking have hurt our chances of dodging another four to eight years of having a Republican president. McCain has been able to start on his general election campaign without the distractions of the Republican primary while we’ve got Clinton trying to grasp at straws claiming that the super delegates will tell the voters that she’s the only real choice for the Democrat presidential candidate. We knew in April that she would lose the election, and her insistence on staying in the election has allowed McCain to run unopposed for the three months to define himself to the voters of the nation. It’s only been very recently that Obama has started his general election campaign by shifting the focus from his campaign against Clinton to his campaign against McCain. How long ago could we have shifted this focus if we didn’t have a fly buzzing in our ear? How long ago could we have begun the fight to drive the Republicans out of the White House and give ourselves a chance for some change in the way politics work?

At this point, Clinton’s aides have let us know that she is not planning on ceding the election to Obama, that she is not going to withdraw from the race. She may have headed back to New York, Bill Clinton may have said that this was the last race he would campaign in, but she is still not giving up her fight to be back in the White House. Will we have to wait until the Democratic National Convention in August before we can start the campaign against McCain? Clinton needs to realize the damage that she’s causing her party by staying in the race, and that McCain is going to use that to his advantage. Let’s get this over with before we have troops going into Iran. Let’s get this over with before we’re bombing Syria. Let’s end this primary election and move on to defeating the greatest threat currently posed against American freedom: Four more years of Republicans in the White House.

Posted by Wes Mueller on 06/04 at 12:00 AM  •   •  permalink