Road to legal torture must be blocked

It’s the beginning of the academic year, and students have
a lot on their minds. Will I get the classes I want? Will I break
the bank buying textbooks? Am I settled into my new home?

Still, I was surprised to see no mention of the passage of the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 in the Daily Bruin. There was a
three paragraph news item, “House approved warrantless
wiretapping” (Sept. 29, News), that mostly echoed Republican
propaganda that Democrats must choose whether they want to
“fight or coddle terrorists.”

But not one word could be found about a move that essentially
legalizes torture.

Make no mistake: This legislation, which Bush will likely sign
this week, represents not only the erasure of standard protections
for detainees such as habeas corpus, but it enshrines into law a
fundamental shift of power to the executive branch.

According to The New York Times, the bill “does not just
allow the president to determine the meaning and application of the
Geneva Conventions; it also strips the courts of jurisdiction to
hear challenges to his interpretation.” The bill goes further
to legalize forms of torture, indefinite detentions and military
tribunals.

Many students will say that while this law sounds bad, it does
not impact their lives right now ““ they’ve got other
things to worry about. Some will even argue that measures such as
this make them feel safer.

But this is not a time to say “I didn’t know.”
As Ariel Dorfman so eloquently wrote in the Washington Post last
week: “Can’t the United States see that when we allow
someone to be tortured by our agents, it is not only the victim and
the perpetrator who are corrupted, not only the
“˜intelligence’ that is contaminated, but also everyone
who looked away and said they did not know, everyone who consented
tacitly to that outrage so they could sleep a little safer at
night, all the citizens who did not march in the streets by the
millions to demand the resignation of whoever suggested, even
whispered, that torture is inevitable in our day and age, that we
must embrace its darkness?”

Many who oppose the agenda of the Bush regime believe that the
answer is to work to elect Democrats during the upcoming midterm
elections and in 2008. There are two reasons why this approach will
not be successful.

First, the Democrats have shown themselves time and again to
lack the courage needed to do what is right in these times. One
need only look at the concession of John Kerry in 2004 before all
the votes were even counted; the “compromise” on the
filibuster when the Democrats pretty much promised never to use it;
and the lack of an actual opposition position to the Iraq war on
Capitol Hill to see the clear pattern of Democratic
capitulation.

Secondly, and more importantly, we cannot afford to wait for
some future date to put up stop signs on this dangerous road that
Bush is taking us down because 2008 will be too late.

We must heed Dorfman’s words and act now ““ the
world’s future is in our hands.

Candelario is a world arts and cultures graduate
student.