Due Process, Bulldozed By BOB HERBERT

[jbfam4]

Monday, September 25, 2006
Due Process, Bulldozed http://wealthyfrenchman.blogspot.com/

By BOB HERBERT

Until five months ago, Bilal Hussein was part of a team of Associated Press photographers that had won a Pulitzer Prize for photos documenting the fighting and carnage in Iraq.

Now he’s a prisoner, having been seized by the U.S. government.

You might ask: What’s he been charged with?

The answer: Nothing.


American officials were telling reporters, without offering any evidence, that Mr. Hussein had been collaborating with insurgents. He hadn’t been. It turned out he was completely innocent. In fact, he was a kind of timid guy who was less than thrilled about having a job that required him to shoot combat footage.

This is a spooky time in history. It’s one thing for tyrannical regimes like the old Soviet Union and Communist China to bulldoze the very idea of human rights and human decency by engaging in such atrocities as detention without trial, torture and other forms of state terror. It’s something else completely when the United States, the greatest symbol of liberty that the world has ever known, begins to head down that hellish road.

[ellenfl]

1. now that's just a flat out lie! we don't arrest

innocent people! :sarcasm: this needs to get wider distribution . . . not that it's really news. btw, :kick:

ellen fl