Confirming Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court judge would be a blow to the security of the United States.
Whereas Sandra Day O’Connor, as the Court’s so-called “swing” vote has exercised checks and balances over presidential powers, Alito makes no secret of thinking those powers should be expanded.
That is, at this juncture, particularly problematic as regards Bush’s desire to arrest and then hold imprisoned without due process and indefinitely anyone at all that Bush declares an “unlawful enemy combatant.”
The overall fight against Al Qaeda is not restricted to a few hundred militant Muslims hiding in caves on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It further extends to the attitudes of Muslim populations generally, not because they are all terrorists but because the extent to which their sentiments can influence their governments’ attitudes towards the U.S. is considerable. No leader of a Muslim country can effectively discourage anti-U.S. activity if his people perceive that the U.S. is mistreating Muslims. To win those people over, the U.S. must have as fair a record towards Muslims as is possible. I’m not mentioning that even if there were no terrorist threat, the U.S. and everybody else would still have a moral imperative to treat everybody fairly.
Think of it this way. If you were a Muslim undecided about whether your sympathies should lie with the U.S. or with Al Qaeda, and you heard that Al Qaeda first killed 3,000 some in attacks on the U.S., and that subsequently the U.S. killed more than 30,000 Muslims in Iraq who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, which side would you think more monstrous?
If on top of that you heard that the U.S. was holding Muslims prisoner on just suspicions that they were involved with terrorism, never actually charging them or giving them their days in court, what would you think of the U.S.? Compound that information with cases such as that of the Lebanese-born German citizen kidnapped in Europe and then sent to Afghanistan to be tortured for months, only to have it turn out that the CIA had him confused with somebody else with a similar name.
Do you think any Muslim is going to trust the Bush administration to be capturing and holding only those definitely involved in terrorism? I am not Muslim and I do not trust the Bush administration in that manner.
Tilting the Supreme Court in Bush’s favor at this time is certain to leave the United States more, not less vulnerable to the terrorist threat. Contact your state Senators, let them know they must veto Alito.