Must-Read: : Solidarity Squandered: "But the squandering had already begun...
...and precisely on the terms the president [George W. Bush] said he refused. The Justice Department had already started secretly detaining nationals from Islamic countries on minor immigration charges or no charges at all. In press conferences, Attorney General John Ashcroft called them 'suspected terrorists.' More than 600 were tried in secret immigration proceedings closed even to members of Congress. When critics complained, Ashcroft responded (in his December 2001 testimony to Congress), 'To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens against noncitizens, those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.' Not a single one of the detainees would be convicted of a terror-related offense...
