MALIGNING THE KANGAROO

There is no reason for us to insult the kangaroo by talking about the way justice is administered in the United States. It was in the United States some one hundred and fifty or sixty years ago that the "kangaroo court" came into the English language, and it referred to sham legal proceedings. Such travesties of justice were also called "mustang courts." There's no reason to insult horses, either. Let's just call them American courts.
The United States has a rather full history of sham legal proceedings--as do many other countries. But that doesn't make ours the less shameful or despicable. Indeed: since vanity (or is it insecurity?) makes Americans boast constantly about the glories of our form of government, our sham justice is all the more hideous and disgusting. American injustice has become a model of perversion.
The CIA has for many years now operated outside the law, murdering and kidnapping and torturing. Presidents since Eisenhower have all condoned such: have known what the CIA was doing, and have sanctioned it.
Our government acknowledges that since 2001 the CIA has run secret torture camps all over the world. Men are kidnapped and taken to these illegal torture camps. Many of them die there: are murdered there.
In 2004 Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was captured, and held for two years in one of these secret torture camps. Then he was transferred to the US-run concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. He has been in the Guantanamo torture facility for six years.
Now the US government has decided to bring Mr. Ghailani to trial. It would be worse than naive to expect that his trial will be anything but a sham.
Lewis A. Kaplan, judge of a Federal District Court in Manhattan, was asked by Mr. Ghailani's lawyers to dismiss the charges against him because of his illegal torture--and because he has been held captive for eight years in concentration camps, not charged with any crime.
Judge Kaplan ruled that the US government's illegal treatment of Mr. Ghailani has no relation to the charges brought against him.
I know I shouldn't complain. I should accept this the same way I should accept everything else that's wrong with the United States, from our wars to our racism and our violence and our poverty and our ignorance--and our hypocrisy.
I should be ashamed of myself for complaining, not ashamed of my country.