The Military Commissions Act; A Different Look

I have started this piece numerous times, and on each occasion I’ve been unable to keep the momentum going. This subject matter is so vitally important to me, to you, and to all Americans, that it must be dealt with carefully and thoroughly. I thought of doing what I usually do, toss out some facts and surround it with my opinion and interpretation of whatever the subject matter was about. In this case, the facts would be that Habeus Corpus has always been a mainstay of our judicial system, a last bastion for those who are facing less than credible charges. Or, that I began to see the impact of the erosion of these rights soon after the Republicans took office in 1994, as avenues of appeal disappeared for those who could least afford their absence, those being Death Row inmates. Done with the simple goal in mind of speeding up the death machine, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused or convicted. Or that now, the destruction of this once standard of American jurisprudence, has unalterably changed all of our lives. All of that would have been true, make no mistake about it.

The new Military Commissions Act, recently signed into law by George W. Boosh does just that, changes all of our lives. It erases the line between “us and them,” in more ways than one. It hurts us morally and in world standing by allowing us to detain and torture whoever we want to without regard to any law, either international or domestic. At least as, if not more importantly, it allows the US government, OUR government, to treat any of the thousands of Muslims or would be Muslims, Al Qaeda operatives or would be Al Qaeda operatives, or ANY ONE OF US who happen to fall within the bizarre fantasy world definition by Boosh or one of his thugs, as an “enemy combatant.” We could end up in Gitmo or any other CIA hellhole at the whim of a madman, without recourse. Yes, this act allows for all of that. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, you can be simply whisked away without notice to anyone nor access to any court for however long they choose to keep you. This possibility is now indisputable. Yes, that is what I could have done, but in this case it just wasn’t working. I don't know, maybe later I will come back and cover this topic in a more conventional manner. But for now, I decided not to “stay the course,” but to change direction entirely and look at this from a different angle, an angle that allows me to use my father as Exhibit A. This is not an easy thing for me to do, and may well be why I have struggled with it so much. Any of you who had a father, grandfather, uncle, or anyone close to you who fought in WWII might to be able to relate.

Fighting For Your Country

In my view, the last war that was fought under the grand old US notion of “fighting for your country” was WWII. Since then, each and every war we have entered into has had nothing to do with actually protecting America or the American people, but has always had some hidden agenda that would allow for us to gain something that we needed at the time. Sometimes that agenda is obvious, such as the current Iraq fiasco and its connection to Oil, other times the agenda has not been so obvious. Some to this day are inexplicable, at least to me. Regardless, they have not been fought for the right reasons. But, back to my father.

My Father and WWII

My father was an Army soldier in WWII, a “grunt” if you will. He also became a Prisoner of War, held on a German Hospital ship for a few months. His “company” was attacking a wooded position held by the Germans outside of Woelfling, France. Specifically, according to letters received by my grandfather from the Adjutant General’s Office of the War Department, his “point of departure” was: FIFTY YARDS OF RAILROAD, 1 ¼ MILES NORTH OF WOELFLING, FRANCE. There my father dove into what he thought was an empty machine gun nest, only to find that it was not empty. He was shot five to seven times in the neck, jaw and face. It was only when his “company” regrouped that it was realized that he was not with them, along with an unknown number (to me at least) of other soldiers. This event occurred on January 6, 1945. Using today’s terminology that is when he officially “went missing.” After spending 90+ days on a German hospital ship, then in a land based hospital, he was eventually located by American Military Officials on April 8, 1945. The Army, in a telegram, notified my grandfather that he had been found, hospitalized “IN EUROPEAN AREA PERIIOD (sic) HOSPITAL.” My father was released to the US Army shortly thereafter, and eventually returned to the United States where the long process of rebuilding his face began. Thankfully, he recovered for the most part, physically at least. Mentally, I’m not sure he ever left that machine gun nest FIFTY YARDS OF RAILROAD, 1 ¼ MILES NORTH OF WOELFLING, FRANCE.

This all happened many wars ago, and 11 years before my birth. I only knew that I grew up with a father who had been wounded in WWII, an obvious thing when one looked at his face and tried to dig into his tortured soul. I wish that I could tell you that you would know who my father was, that he was some Great War hero whose name you would recognize, but I can’t. He was merely a man who entered the military to fight for his country, at a time when his country and the rest of the world were in grave danger and truly needed his service.

My father returned home, married my mother and immediately became a functional alcoholic. His alcoholism was not noticeable to me until I became an adult, or close to it, because he hid it well, and quite frankly I wasn’t paying much attention. I had a life to live, sports to be played, girls to chase and growing up to do. As I became older, I asked him on several occasions about the war. He would never speak of it, at least not until one of the last civil conversations I ever recall having with him. During that conversation he told me that “war was hell,” that he had “killed many people,” and that “had the Germans not run out of gasoline they would have won the war.” That was pretty much the extent of it, as near as I can recall today.

You see, my father and I didn’t get along too well near the end. His alcoholism was too much for me to deal with, I didn’t understand how, or why one would “choose” to be the way he turned out to be. I didn’t understand the complexities of what forms a human being and alters their conduct, nor should I have been expected to. I was simply too young. Now I do understand that he did not “choose” to be what he was, or became, but was simply escaping the “hell” that lived inside his mind. My father could have been the poster child for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. That phraseology didn’t exist back then, it was simply known as shell shock. Whatever you call it, I witnessed and lived it up close and personal. Now that I better understand it, I can forgive him for all that happened.

What does any of this have to do with the Military Commissions Act, you must be asking by now? To me, it has everything to do with it. My father, who by the way I am now proud of, was a prisoner of war during a brutal engagement with perhaps the future of the entire world at stake. Yet, he wasn’t tortured. My father was “fighting for his country” in the truest sense of the phrase, against perhaps the most brutal dictator the world has yet to produce, and still he wasn’t tortured. I guess even Adolph Hitler believed in and played by a few rules. My father gave his life for this country, for the freedoms we have or at least had. No, he didn’t die in combat, like over 3000 of our young men and women have during this version of the Iraq war. But, he gave his life nonetheless. Because he never recovered from the horrors of the war. Though functional, he was not far from the Vets that you see on the street these days mumbling to themselves. I would venture to guess that he would have been died a happier man had he not survived the incident FIFTY YARDS OF RAILROAD, 1 ¼ MILES NORTH OF WOELFLING, FRANCE. That is a sad statement, but one I believe to be true.

The stroke of a Pen

A short time ago, with one stroke of a pen, George W. Boosh made folly of the price that my father and thousands just like him paid for our freedoms, freedoms including the protections of the Geneva Conventions and Habeus Corpus. A man chosen to lead this nation; a dimwit cowboy who would make a poor used car salesman; a coward who could not manage to fulfill the minimum requirements of service to keep himself out of a later war so that he had to be bailed out by Daddy and his name; a man so desperate to hold onto power for his political party that he is willing to do anything to cover up his lies and deceit; a man who in pursuit of OIL is willing to send our children and fathers and mothers and husbands and wives, but not his own, into the abyss called Iraq; a man who without hesitation feeds the rich and starves the poor and laughs about it along the way while calling the rich his “base,”; a man who I despise more than any on the face of this earth; with one stroke of his pen, spit on the grave of my father. He also spit on the graves or in the faces of all others who fought in the last legitimate war this country has been involved in. He lied before he did it, lied while he did it, continues to lie afterwards, and will undoubtedly continue with his lies until he carries his smirk to his grave. George W. Boosh has crossed a line that has never before been crossed, not even by the likes of a monster like Adolph Hitler. I hope that I can someday learn to forgive him, like I learned to forgive my father.

Cyclone