Dreyfus in Guantanamo

The Dreyfus Affair, in which a young French military officer of Jewish descent named Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason, still stands as a marker of the danger in accepting government proof as absolute in a political trial. Conviction largely centered around fabricated documents produced by military counter-intelligence. However, due to public outcry and later re-examination of the evidence, Alfred Dreyfus was acquitted.

Lucky for Dreyfus that he was in France in the 1890's rather than a prisoner of America during the early part of the 21st century. Prisoners held by America in Guantanamo have no expectation that there is any possibility that a miscarriage of justice will be overturned. Even the defendants attorneys are not allowed to see all of the evidence against them. How can any possible trial be fair under these conditions.?

Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, has just received a split verdict in his trial at Guantanamo. Even with secret testimony, coerced evidence and a trial where even full acquittal would have resulted in his continued imprisonment was labeled a "fair trial" by White House Spokesman Tony Fratto.

The FBI now assures us that Bruce Ivins was responsible for the anthrax attacks. Of course, they were also pretty sure when they closed in on his colleague Mark Hatfill. Most of the condemnation of Ivins seem to rely on the idea that he was mentally unstable. If so, why was a man this unstable given access and permitted to work with biological agents?

As I write this, it was just reported on MSNBC at approximately 9:40 am that a woman believed to be assisting al-Qaeda has just been taken into custody and is being brought to the U.S. Her family denies she has any connection to terrorism. Will we ever see the evidence?

France had the one Dreyfus. With have at least three good contenders at the moment and that's if we don't count the hundreds of others held in Guantanamo or spirited around the world in our secret prisons. History condemned France for the Dreyfus Affair. What will history say of this period in American history?

How much longer will we let our country commit atrocities and ignore our own laws and Constitution? As the Dreyfus Affair illustrates, subverting your own values serves no purpose other than gaining a badge of humiliation.