Civil Rights Is Not A Laughing Matter

Karl Rove and Bill Kristol literally laugh off serious claims that the Bush administration profiled and violated the civil rights of American Muslims. Even if you agree with the Bush administration's detainment policy (which I don't), Kristol and Rove show a childish lack of sensitivity.

KRISTOL: What have we done to Muslims in America? What has happened?

JENKINS: Arrested them.

KRISTOL: We’ve arrested Muslims in America? [LAUGHTER]

JENKINS: Incarcerated them without trial.

KRISTOL: We’ve incarcerated Muslims in America without trial?

ROVE: Rounded them up? Rounded, rounded them up? Name one?

KRISTOL: Nonsense.

ROVE: Name one instance.

JENKINS: The, [UNCLEAR] belabor me all day with lists of people who have vanished. Vanished.

ROVE: You know-

KRISTOL: Well, that-

ROVE: This is on the border of lunacy, with all due respect.

JENKINS: But you didn’t need to do it, you didn’t need to do it-

ROVE: We didn’t do it!

The United States just aren't detaining American citizens. Canadian Maher Arar was detained during a JFK International Airport layover. He was rendition to Syria and tortured. The Canadian government has cleared Arar. The Bush administration will not talk publicly about Arar's case.

"The information is also significant because it shows that the CIA was involved, and that two days after Maher was jetted out of the U.S., before anyone knew where he was, CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) officials thought the U.S. wanted to send him to a country that 'could have their way with him' -- confirming that the U.S. officials who sent Maher to Syria did so to have him interrogated under torture," she said.

"The revelations from last week about complicity and torture confirm our worst suspicions of the dangers of unchecked executive power in a democracy," Jason Gratl, president of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, told IPS in an interview.

"The willingness of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) to mislead the judiciary with respect to the origins of the information derived from torture demonstrates once again that balance of power must be rectified."

Kristol and Rove are delusional. They are less scary than torture architects Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The latter felt the United States was too timid and wanted even harsher torture.