Oct. 20 USA: The death penalty and the true measure of Bushs character Individually, these actions have various explanations: a pronounced bias toward supporting the interests of large corporations-from which many in the Administration come and to which it is indebted for massive financial support; a desire to assert more US control over the huge oil reserves of the Middle East (now all but openly treated as a recalcitrant American protectorate); distrust of science, especially when it brings commercial or industrial practices into question; the imperial ideology of "The American Century"; and so forth. Such individual tactical and strategic inclinations, however, do not fully explain the consistency and coherence of the pattern of decisions and actions taken by the current Administration. To account for that pattern we need to look more deeply and to consider what we might call the personality of the G W Bush Administration. Concealment, the desire to "go it alone," and a predisposition to regard difference or dissent as enmity have, from January 2000, characterized this Administration. Since 9/11/2001, numerous arrests and detentions without charges or legal recourse have been executed in the name of the war on terrorism. These actions reflect both the raw exercise of force and the paranoid supposition that others wear the masks and pursue the conspiracies that power knows intimately from its own practices. Consonant with this mind-set is the desire for an enlarged "Patriot Act," in order to uncover the multitude of enemies presumed to be concealed among us. That the US faces serious dangers is indisputable; that the actions of the Bush Administration are effective, safe, or legal responses to that danger is profoundly doubtful. Prominent in the personality of this Administration is its obsession with the power of governments to kill. Discussing "The Ruler as Outliver," Canetti observed that his "first and decisive feature is his legal power over life and death. It is the seal of his power, which is absolute only as long as his right to impose death remains undisputed" (273). The eagerness of the Bush Administration that the death penalty should be more widely and frequently sought in federal courts reflects the Outlivers craving for absolute power. In pursuit of more death-penalty prosecutions, Attorney General Ashcroft has repeatedly overruled recommendations of his own prosecutors; and the executions already accomplished under Ashcrofts urging are the first of federal death row prisoners in thirty-eight years. Equally suggestive is the Administrations fondness, when speaking of foreign enemies, to promise, "They will be captured, or killed." To make the latter more probable, Administration warriors urge development of tactical nuclear weapons designed to inflict lethal American might upon those who try to escape in mountain caves or buried concrete bunkers. Whether such actions violate international law and assumptions of innocence, or re-escalate a nuclear arms race, does not seem to merit discussion. The assassination of Uday and Qusay Hussein offered a vivid example of this Administrations passion for killing. The attack on the home in which they were trapped was simply murderous-overwhelming cannon fire and rockets against a few cornered opponents. As Peter Davis noted in The Nation, there was "no waiting them out, no disabling gas lobbed into the house At the end they were impotent, helpless, and the order of the day-which no one here doubts came from Washington-was Exterminate the Brutes." When given a choice between capture and kill, those in charge evidently hardly considered the former. For the paranoid leader, "every execution for which he is responsible bestows some strength. He obtains the power of the Outliver" (274). Given that no weapons of mass destruction have yet been found in Iraq (as of September, 2004) and that, if they eventually appear, they are unlikely to have posed a substantial threat to the US, Canettis next sentences are especially germane: "His victims may not have actually been lined up against him, but they might have been able to do so. His fear transforms them, at first retrospectively perhaps, into enemies that have struggled against him. He has sentenced them; they have been brought low; he has outlived them" (274). Unself-consciously, Bush gloated in his 2003 State of the Union address, "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Lets put it this way-they is no longer a problem." The implications of the adjective "suspected" for the imprisonment and killing seem to have escaped him (and applauding legislators). Similarly, the regime of Saddam Hussein, whether it had weapons of mass destruction or not, is "no longer a problem." So we have been told; but ongoing casualties render increasingly questionable the famous "mission accomplished" boast. Since declaring that the US is engaged in a global war on terrorism, the President has shown fondness for his alternative title, "Commander-in-Chief." Considering that he evaded the hazards of Vietnam by enrolling in (and perhaps deserting) the Texas Air National Guard, his identification of himself with those who actually bomb and shoot is incongruous. Arriving by fighter jet for his triumphal speech on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, "Bush emerged in a green flight suit, carrying his helmet, and shouted to reporters, 'Yes, I flew it!'" As Commander, Bush can order soldiers to kill the enemy or-almost as satisfying-to die in the attempt. Moreover, soldiers, and such enemy combatants as he chooses to designate, may themselves be sentenced to death through military courts, for which the Bush Administration has shown unambivalent enthusiasm. (source: Lesley Brill, HiPakistan) IOWA: More delays in penalty phase of death penalty trial Scheduling problems are to blame for another delay in the death penalty trial of Dustin Honken in federal court in Sioux City. Testimony is expected to resume later this morning -- 2 hours later than planned. Honken was convicted last week of killing 5 people, including two children, in a drug slaying in 1993. The jury will decide if Honken should be sentenced to death or life in prison. Deliberations could begin as early as tomorrow. The latest timing setback is due to travel complications of an expert witness. The defense may also call to the stand Honken's mother -- Marvea Smidt. (source: Associated Press) VERMONT: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review Fell death penalty case The U-S Supreme Court has refused to review whether the man accused of killing a North Clarendon (Vermont) woman 4 years ago should face the death penalty. The high court rejected a request by attorneys for Donald Fell to declare the federal death penalty statute unconstitutional. The case has been working its way through the federal court system since Fell was charged in the beating death of 53-year-old Teresca King in November 2000. Court records say that King was abducted in a carjacking outside the Rutland Price Chopper by Fell and Robert Lee. Police say the men killed Fell's mother, Debra, and her companion Charles Conway before abducting King. King was driven to New York state where she was beaten to death. Lee hanged himself in his prison cell in 2001. (source: Associated Press) NEW YORK: Death penalty foe to speak In Oneonta, an advocate against the juvenile death penalty will speak at 7 p.m. today at Hartwick College. Joan Jacobs Brumberg will speak in the Eaton Lounge of Bresee Hall on the campus. The talk is free and open to the public. Brumberg is a Stephen H. Weiss presidential fellow and professor of history, human development and gender studies at Cornell University. She has a bachelors degree from the University of Rochester, a masters degree in American civilization from Boston College and a doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. Brumberg will discuss her book, "Kansas Charley: the Story of a 19th-Century Boy Murderer, and her advocacy for the anti-juvenile death penalty cause. She will have just returned from Washington, D.C., where today the Supreme Court was to begin hearing arguments for Roper v. Simmons, a challenge to the juvenile death penalty. (source: The Daily Star)
