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Give up your grudges! It’s time to forget President Bush’s many blunders (Katrina, for starters) and bad policies (invading Iraq instead of building up Afghanistan). There is much worse afoot. Although it sounds like a bad role-playing-game scenario, Bush is now at the point of obtaining what can only be described as despotic powers, through what’s called the “detainee measure” or the “law on military commissions.” The Washington Post story is here, and today’s update is here.
“The changes that the administration reportedly secured over the weekend for this ‘compromise’ legislation [negotiating with John McCain and other “independent” Republicans] make an already dangerous bill much worse. Specifically, the changes expand the definition of who can be declared an ‘enemy combatant’ (and therefore permanently detained and tortured) from someone who has ‘engaged in hostilities against the United States’ (meaning actually participated in war on a battlefield) to someone who has merely ‘purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.’ . . .
