Essay

Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror

Introduction

Terrorism can also occur in Western democracies, committed by the State, through military action in other countries. It has been practiced currently by the U.S. and supported by other countries, which, using substantial economic resources and high technology, direct their decisions of war and military interventions in the name of fighting terror, on the sidelines of international institutions such as the UN, and manipulating public opinion with false motives. The methods used, in turn, have been the awards per head, violation of privacy, illegal arrests, torture and brutal killing of innocent civilians in their military actions (Fallon Jr, 2006).

The United States used the national and international commotion caused by the attacks of 11 September to act on all possible fronts. Nationally, the U.S. government created the Patriot Act, which gives sweeping powers to the U.S. government to hold indefinitely without the right to visit any suspicious acts or links with terrorist groups and create military tribunals to judge immigrants without evidence (the evidence is secret), the right to habeas corpus and other rights and safeguards existing in the U.S. Criminal System (Ekeland, 2005). The military trials are not public, the courts may order the defendant to the death penalty and there is no possibility to appeal the sentence. Moreover, the police and the CIA do not need permission to install wiretaps or to violate the correspondence and communications over the Internet, eliminating the most basic civil rights of a democracy.

After the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of prisoners incarcerated in the U.S. military bases in Guantanamo (Cuba) and Bagram (Afghanistan) and in prisons in the United States, remained incommunicado, with restrictions on the right of defense. After the war against Iraq, prisoners of Abu Ghraib (prison in Iraq controlled by the U.S.) were subjected to torture, revealing another face of terrible attitudes terrorist action committed on behalf of the State (Ignatieff, 2004).

Discussion

After the attacks of September 11, the United States launched the war doctrine preventive in the fight against terrorism. The war, which is already an act of terror, began to be used in violation of any international treaty. The attack of U.S. forces began to be justified by a threat and not a probable right of defense against an enemy attack. The war against Iraq proved that the arguments for the US-led invasion to the country were based on unproven assumptions and information (Lewis, 2003).

Right of Habeas Corpus in the U.S. Constitution and Other Civil Liberties

In the shadow of Christmas trees and New Year firecrackers So U.S. President Barack Obama so the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year signed the 2012th, this is a hodgepodge of laws that affect all the defense of the United States. While legislation to health care of the soldiers can be found here and the controversial sections 1021 and 1022nd Section 1021 permits the arrest of persons, “the member of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, or support, or support forces associated with ...