The Lessons of History and Guantánamo

As I mentioned a while back, the Dreyfus case has had repercussions extending into the present.

Scott Horton brings this around to the prisoners at Guantánamo and justice.

But outside of a handful of lawyers and human rights activists, now themselves the targets of a McCarthyite smear campaign, no actors on the political stage in Washington see any advantage in rallying to the cause of the Gitmo prisoners. This is demonstrated by the infamous 90-6 vote in an overwhelmingly Democratic senate to block funding for the Obama initiative to close Guantánamo. America does not want to confront the reality of its own conduct. Where today is the voice of a Clemenceau or Zola on the American political stage?

One of the key lessons of the Dreyfus experience is that in times of perceived national security crisis, the justice process often suffers in the face of perceived political exigency, and few political leaders have the fortitude to defend it. Justice too often is itself denounced as a weakness or luxury that the state cannot afford in such circumstances. History teaches another lesson: true justice, wielded forcefully, is no liability, but rather a powerful weapon in the hands of any democratic state.

This needs to be called out, over and over again.