Pirates of the Revolution
Jun. 11th, 2007 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Scott Horton has an article in Harper's about Guantanamo -- particularly about the two recent judicial rulings dismissing two cases brought by the government -- which raises again the comparison of terrorists to pirates. He discusses Edmund Burke's "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol" of 1777 in this connection:
"The Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol is a simple document -- the transmission to two law-enforcement officers of his constituency of an act that the government of Lord North has put to Parliament. The act suspended the great writ of habeas corpus -- not for the good burghers of Bristol, of course, but only for a group of murderous insurrectionists who then stood in open and bloody revolt against their lawful sovereign. And the act went further, namely, it provided that these miserable wretches, whose insolence and defiance now extended to the seas, could be labeled pirates at the King’s discretion, and thus robbed of the right to be tried in courts. They would be dealt with in a summary fashion by the King’s military. And the act also provided that these miscreants could be transported across the ocean to England and held there to await their summary disposition -- a step which justified the suspension of habeas corpus, since otherwise an English court might demand an accounting for their brutal treatment and incarceration."
This is a powerful, short piece about liberty and how America's current policy abuses it. The punchline is a corker.
Via digby.
"The Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol is a simple document -- the transmission to two law-enforcement officers of his constituency of an act that the government of Lord North has put to Parliament. The act suspended the great writ of habeas corpus -- not for the good burghers of Bristol, of course, but only for a group of murderous insurrectionists who then stood in open and bloody revolt against their lawful sovereign. And the act went further, namely, it provided that these miserable wretches, whose insolence and defiance now extended to the seas, could be labeled pirates at the King’s discretion, and thus robbed of the right to be tried in courts. They would be dealt with in a summary fashion by the King’s military. And the act also provided that these miscreants could be transported across the ocean to England and held there to await their summary disposition -- a step which justified the suspension of habeas corpus, since otherwise an English court might demand an accounting for their brutal treatment and incarceration."
This is a powerful, short piece about liberty and how America's current policy abuses it. The punchline is a corker.
Via digby.