An Open Letter to Senators Menendez and Lautenberg

by: Hopeful

Mon Jun 04, 2007 at 10:42:02 PM EDT

Last year many Americans -- especially here at Blue Jersey -- were dismayed by your vote last year on the detainee law.  Senator Menendez's own 2007 press release title says it: MENENDEZ CO-SPONSORS BILL CORRECTING FLAWED MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT: Restoring Constitution Act bans torture, restores habeas corpus rights, and upholds the Geneva Conventions.  But given that Republicans now can filibuster or veto the bill, that "correction" has gone nowhere. 

Why then did you -- our trusted senators -- vote for a bill that by your own admission allows torture, violates the Geneva convetion and the U.S. Constitution?  Here's what you had to say last year:

[Menendez:] "In view of the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled the existing process unconstitutional, it leaves us without anything. It seems to me while it is not the bill I wanted - as evidenced by the way I voted on the amendments - I think there has to be a process in place. In the end, with the choice of passing an imperfect bill, or allowing the terrorists to go free and the Bush administration to operate without any oversight, I took a stand to protect the American people. I look forward to returning to the Senate with a Democratic majority to make necessary improvements to this legislation to protect the civil liberties of all Americans."

[Lautenberg:]"While aspects of this plan that will need to be reviewed by the courts, the bottom line is that we need to move forward and prosecute these accused terrorists.  With the loss of 700 people on 9/11, the victims of terrorism in New Jersey have waited too long to see people involved in the worst terror attack in our nation's history brought to justice."

So getting trials for accused terrorists was worth selling out our principles.  And what did we get? As the AP reports that the accused terrorists cannot be tried under the law!:

The judges agreed that there was one problem they could not resolve -- the new legislation says only "unlawful enemy combatants" can be tried by the military trials, known as commissions. But Khadr and Hamdan had previously been identified by military panels only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical "unlawful" designation.

The New York Times observes that this may affect every war-crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay. 

So, you legalized torture and gave up habeas corpus for nothing.  And by the way, you will never, ever convince me that bin Laden's aides and Khalid Sheik Mohammed in particular cannot be tried for murder in New York (and Virginia, and Pennsylvania) under existing law, and should have been already. 

Sincerely,

Hopeful.