The Tarnishing of America's Image

America is the land of the free where everyone is innocent until proven guilty -- except if you are “enemy combatants”. If you are deemed to be an “enemy combatant”, then America has all rights to torture you, beat you, and humiliate you. So, who decides which person or persons are "enemy combatants"? Well, our President of course. This is a very disturbing and honest look at the Walker Working Group Report (aka the Torture Memo). This sort of behaviour from our President is shameful to our country -- our country is about freedom and civil liberties, not about torture and robbing people of their liberties. The President and all that support these actions have put America to shame. I am saddened that the leaders of our country have reduced our once mighty country to the level of those who torture in the name of "security". "(It) sets out a view of an unlimited Presidential power to do anything he wants with “enemy combatants”. The bill of rights is nowhere mentioned. There is no principle suggested which limits this purported authority to non-citizens, or to the battlefield. Under this reasoning, it would be perfectly proper to grab any one of us and torture us if the President determined that the war effort required it. I cannot exaggerate how pernicious this argument is, and how incompatible it is with a free society. The Constitution does not make the President a King. This memo does." Both saddening and scary. This is all going to start stinking like a pile of McCarthyism soon -- but instead of fighting Communists, it will be about fighting "terrorists" (hey, Mr. Bush where's that Osama Bin Ladin?). I guess we better all watch what we say or else Mr. Bush will declare us an "enemy combatant" and have us tortured. I hope, I really hope, that Americans are smart enough to see through George W. Bush and vote this weasel out of office this coming November. Because any President who would support the torture of a human is not a President who reflects the beliefs and ideas of the people of this country. Condoning this sort of behaviour, especially from our President, makes us no better than those who behead other countries's citizens.