Bush Creates His Star Chamber
Bush’s Police State continues to develop – now he has a Star Chamber to eliminate his opponents. I see from this that the Bush Gang are getting ready to chop off some Arab heads. Bush has bypassed Congress to create a new military tribunal that can try and execute non-US citizens. The alluring thing about these trials is that the prosecutors don’t have to produce evidence or witness to anything like the standard required by normal law. Basically, they can drag anyone in and have them killed without a great burden of proof. More importantly, the mere existence of such a threatening court is itself a weapon of terror and likely to produce confessions on a quality par with torture or other barbaric methods.
Of course, the White House assures US citizens that these kangaroo courts will only be used on Johnny Foreigners. But these things have a weird way of running away from you. Just ask the French – when their Glorious Revolution turned into a Reign of Terror and the summary execution of many people deemed to be Enemies of the State.
In desperate measures the British and Irish Government in the 1970s established secretive, jury-less courts where suspected “terrorists” could be tried and sentenced by Judges with minimal evidentiary or jurisprudent oversight. Although condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, these “Special Criminal Courts” have inevitably extended their reach to try alleged drug barons and other Enemies of the State.