American justice is dying
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Editor,
It has been just a few months short of a decade since the penultimate attack on our country occurred on Sept. 11. The admitted leader and global spokesman of that most criminal of organizations is now dead by the hands of our American military. This result is the accomplishment of a primary goal of the official policy of two successive U.S. Presidents; two men of purportedly different ideology. Thus, official assassination sanctioned only by our president is now the accomplished, and largely undisputed, official policy of the United States of America; a purported victory in our war against “terror.”
The consolidated global mainstream media is leading the celebration. It is a celebration marketed and promoted with published images of euphoric youth marching in the streets of New York and Washington demonstrating their patriotism and love of country. So why, at this moment of national triumph, do I feel such shame? I do not regret the death of Osama bin Laden. As much as anybody on earth, he evidently earned the obligation to pay for his crimes with his life. Unfortunately, he reportedly died resisting arrest in a last act intended by him to fulfill the martyrdom he spent his life crafting. The American role, which is our crime that is now being celebrated, was to grant him that martyrdom before first requiring that he stand before the bar of justice to answer for his crimes.
What I mourn is the death of American justice itself; the bedrock principle that all are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law as judged by a jury of peers. I mourn perpetual war upon an amorphously defined foe; a war that is undeclared under our system of constitutional law and in which we can never expect to prevail or realize anything but tragic loss. I despair for us who have voluntarily subjected ourselves to those who aspire for and then accumulate a global power sufficient to annihilate life as we know it on this precious earth.
And finally, I mourn the imminent death of the sacred idea and hope that people can live in peace. It is a truism, and I believe it to be true, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I challenge all to rise up and collectively take back our individual power, power that has been concentrated by and that benefits a very few to the detriment of the many.
Sincerely,
Jay Wilson Preston
Charlo
