Ratner and Ray:� Bay and Rule by Executive Fiat

January 31, 2005
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Colleague:

Today we publish "Guantanamo Bay and Rule by Executive Fiat," the first chapter of "Guantánamo Bay: What the World Should Know," a book-long interview of Michael Ratner by Ellen Ray that we are publishing serially on Narco News. The chapter starts of with human rights lawyer Michael Ratner giving a brief history of the U.S. naval base-turned-interrogation-camp on the shores of the Republic of Cuba, perhaps the most potent and symbolic remnant of U.S. turn-of-the-century military imperialism.

Authentic Journalist Ellen Ray soon jumps into the heart of the legal questions surrounding Guantánamo and its use for holding suspected "terrorists" for unlimited amounts of time without any rights to trial and other elements of due process.

"Ray: Why should American citizens be concerned about Guantánamo and what is taking place there? "Ratner: A ...reason we should care is what this all means for the future of the rule of law, and for the building of societies that are based upon the rule of law and not on the dictates of kings or presidents. For nearly eight hundred years, since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, our laws have insisted that every single human being is entitled to some kind of judicial process before he or she can be thrown in jail. The United States is trying to overturn one of the most fundamental principles of Anglo-American jurisprudence and international law. This is a principle that is found in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Read the full chapter, with many more insights and concrete examples of these abuses, at:

http://www.narconews.com