WASHINGTON -- A human rights group is asking President Bush to disclose the fates of all terror suspects held since 2001, including 16 it believes have been locked up in secret CIA facilities.
Human Rights Watch said it compiled a report about the 16, whose whereabouts are unknown, along with 22 others possibly held by the CIA, based on interviews with former detainees, news reports, and other sources.
You know, for an administration that likes to claim that anyone who opposes the war in Iraq is similar to Nazi appeasers, they sure like to use Nazi-like tactics. This tactic of disappearing people was something Nazis did all the time. The Bush administration is engaging in a disgusting hypocrisy by saying that disagreeing with them is as bad as appeasing the evil Nazis while using the same tactics that made the Nazis evil. They may not be using these tactics to the same extent as the Nazis or even using all of the Nazi tactics, but these tactics, like disappearing people, are inherently wrong and evil regardless of the reasons or the extent.
Chipping away at Constitutional and human rights is another Nazi tactic the Bush administation is using. Getting the legislature to turn over some of its power and usurping other powers from the other branches of government are also tactics the Bush administration shares with the Nazis. Torture was definitely a Nazi tactic that, while he may claim not to use it, Bush considers "torture" to have a flexible definition. Doing these things in the name of "national security" so that anyone who argues against it is a "traitor" is a Nazi tactic that has been used by Bush.
Again, they may not be using these tactics to the same extent, but these tactics are WRONG, and they should not be used on any level.
Last fall, while the Republicans still had control of Congress, the Republicans actually voted to trash the basic human and Constitutional right of habeas corpus. If that does not prove that Republicans do not really care about our freedoms, then I don't know what does. Bush always goes around claiming the terrorists hate us for our freedoms while he signed the legislation that takes our freedoms away. He is doing more to take away our freedoms then the terrorists ever could do.
If the Bush administration truly felt that they were doing the right thing, they would not have to operate detentions and trials in secret like the Nazis. They could conduct trials out in the open the way America and its allies conducted trials for the Nazis after World War II. That is the American way. That is the American ideal. Bush is doing things the Nazi way. Whether he knows it or not, Bush is following a Nazi ideal.
The ends do not justify the means. A part of me wants to believe that, deep down, Bush thinks he is doing the right thing, but regardless of how good one's intentions may be, evil tactics are still evil.
Update: I found another article on the same topic:
U.S. blasted for treatment of detainees
UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. human rights chief expressed concern Wednesday at recent U.S. legislative and judicial actions that she said leave hundreds of detainees without any way to challenge their indefinite imprisonment.
Louise Arbour referred to the Military Commissions Act approved by Congress last year and last month's federal appeals court ruling that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot use the U.S. court system to challenge their detention. The case is likely to go to the Supreme Court.
[...]The act grants suspects at Guantanamo Bay the right to confront the evidence against them and have a lawyer present at specially created "military commissions." But it does not require that any of them be granted legal counsel and specifically bars detainees from filing habeas corpus petitions challenging their detentions in federal courts.
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