NY TIMES - BUSH "SEIZING DICTATORIAL POWER"

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." - Bush describing life as the governor of Texas. (Governing Magazine 7/98)

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked. (CNN 12/18/00) Download video - 216KB MPEG

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it," [Bush] said.
(Business Week 7/30/01)

BUSH "SEIZING DICTATORIAL POWER"

EXCERPT:

Seizing Dictatorial Power
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON -- Misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney general, a president of the United States has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. Intimidated by terrorists and inflamed by a passion for rough justice, we are letting George W. Bush get away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts.

In his infamous emergency order, Bush admits to dismissing "the principles of law and the rules of evidence" that undergird America's system of justice. He seizes the power to circumvent the courts and set up his own drumhead tribunals — panels of officers who will sit in judgment of non-citizens who the president need only claim "reason to believe" are members of terrorist organizations.

Not content with his previous decision to permit police to eavesdrop on a suspect's conversations with an attorney, Bush now strips the alien accused of even the limited rights afforded by a court-martial.

His kangaroo court can conceal evidence by citing national security, make up its own rules, find a defendant guilty even if a third of the officers disagree, and execute the alien with no review by any civilian court.

No longer does the judicial branch and an independent jury stand between the government and the accused. In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination "a full and fair trial."

END EXCERPT:

In 1487, King Henry VIII created a special private court in which he sat as judge, hearing petitions of redress. The court met in a room in Westminster Palace which had stars painted on the ceiling, and from this mundane decoration the special private King's court drew the name "Star Chamber". The Star Chamber, initially sold to Parliament as a necessity to speed justice along in certain extreme and complex cases, and to try nobles who were, by law, immune from prosecution by the lower courts, the Star Chamber was actually a tool for political repression. Inside the walls of the Star Chamber the law was what the King sad it was. The proceedings were secret, because the nature of the crimes which had been committed could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire government. While not legally able to issue a death sentence, the Star Chamber could and often did sentence the accused to torture and mutilation. Parliament finally banned the Star Chamber in 1641.

Once England had "legitimized" the idea of a King's court which could operate above the common laws, other despots and tyrants copied the idea. The Court of France had their own version of the Star Chamber, again secret, again able to met out unusual and cruel sentences (the "Man in the black silk mask", inspiration for the story of the "Man in the iron mask", was thought to have been one such sentence).

And now, President Bush has created his own version of the Star Chamber, able to meet in secret, able to decide for itself what the law is, able to meet out sentences away from public scrutiny, able to keep the accused from admitting to a crime more embarrassing to the prosecution than to the defense (as almost happened with the Noriega "trial"), silent, secret, and above the common law of the Bill Of Rights and the Constitution.

Bush to Subject Terrorism Suspects to Military Trials
NY Times November 14, 2001

Excerpts from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/national/14DETA.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 - President Bush signed an order today allowing special military tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism. A senior administration official said that any such trials would "not necessarily" be public and that the American tribunals might operate in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

At the same time, the Justice Department has asked law enforcement authorities across the country to pick up and question 5,000 men, most from Middle Eastern countries, who entered the country legally in the last two years.

...

Under the order, the president himself is to determine who is an accused terrorist and therefore subject to trial by the tribunal.