What can they be thinking?

Senator Lindsey Graham, he of bring down Clinton fame, has sponsored an amendment that would do away with habeas corpus for the inmates of Guantanamo. This passed on a partisan basis with 5 democrats also voting in support, including, of course, Lieberman, the true wolf in sheep's clothing. How anyone can continue to believe Lieberman is a democrat is a genuine mystery to me. There were 4 other Democrats who voted with the Republicans on this totally unprecedented and unconstitutional amendment.

What this does is essentially say that the prisoners held at Guantanamo have no right to appeal their plight. That is, they can be held forever with no charges against them, no lawyers to defend them, all at the whim of the President of the United States. He, and he alone, has the power to incarcerate whoever he wishes and they are to have no recourse whatsoever. In other words he is to have absolute imperial power such that he could, if he wished, order them to be executed. They would have no right to appeal, no right to a lawyer, nothing.

What in the hell are these Senators thinking? The right to habeas corpus goes all the way back to the Magna Carta in 12l5! It is one of the most basic of principles of English and American justice. It has served us well for almost 800 years. The Supreme Court has already defended it in the case of Guantanamo prisoners. So what on earth are these Senators doing? Can they really believe that the President has the power and the right to incarcerate anyone he designates as an "enemy" for the rest of their life with absolutely no recourse to justice? None? Are these Senators actually sentient human beings or people placed on earth from other planets with no sense of justice or fair play whatsoever? If this manages to become law or precedent or whatever it will be the darkest day of our democracy. This is an absolutely vile and disgusting and unprincipled act. It simply cannot be allowed. Quite frankly, those who voted for this should be ostracized and certainly never re-elected.

And what can be their motives? What is the point of this? Why would anyone support such a terrible and unprecedented amendment? What do they gain by it? It strikes me as nothing short of ghoulish. It is well known that many, if not most, of the prisoners being held were not terrorists in the first place but simply people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, some of them accused simply for money. There are no charges. There is no reason they should be there. No one knows if any of them are guilty or not. So we are supposed to keep them in prison forever with no chance whatsoever of trying to clear themselves? If you think this is the "American way" there is something terribly wrong with you. And there is something terribly wrong with these Senators. Maybe they can plead stupidity. But I fear this goes far beyond stupidity. I simply cannot understand it, see no reason for it, know that it is entirely unfair, violates our constitution, overrides our Supreme Court, and is, in short, completely disgusting. Maybe Graham, having failed to bring down Clinton, has decided to take it out on the helpless.