Lawyer Brent Marks Legal Thriller Series Books 1-3: A legal thriller and courtroom drama collection (Brent Marks Legal Thrillers Series Book 10)Kindle Edition
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. -Guy de Maupassant
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. – Hermann Goering
Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights, which may not be taken, even by a 99% vote. - Marvin Simkin
~~~
After reading A Higher Loyalty by James Comey, I decided to continue my legal reading via my favorite fiction legal author, Kenneth Eade. While reading from a book set, I will be doing an individual review for each of the books as I normally do...
A Patriot's Act is the first book in the set.
 |
| Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. ~~~ |
Exploring the Patriot's Act within a legal thriller would be difficult, I am sure. The author chose to formulate a fictional case which spotlighted Guantanamo, with the capture of an American citizen who was jailed as a terrorist and immediately placed in prison in that secret location outside of the United States.
This is an historical book to some extent but there are still prisoners being kept at Guantanamo. Included in the book's extra materials is a list of the congressional and presidential actions which support what was happening...
I was immediately struck by the quotes that were included on the first page, the first of which struck me the most--noting that patriotism is a kind of religion and that wars are the result. This quote caught me and my first thought was an internal question--how did patriotism come to be before God? And yet this quote provided what could be an explanation to what I have wondered about all my life. Why was patriotism spoken of and responded to more than God in our lives? I've always given God the glory for my life and and the country in which I lived was the luck of the draw...I happened to be in America, which was called the land of the Free...
And then 9/11 happened...
“What do we do?” Catherine started to cry. “It seems to be impossible.” “Of course, you have no obligation to hire me, but what you could do is file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal Court here in the States. If that’s granted, he will have a hearing in a U.S. Court on U.S. soil instead of being held indefinitely in Cuba.”
“Indefinitely?”
“Yes, some suspected terrorists have been there since 2003. If they are accused of being ‘enemy combatants’ they can be held as long as it is deemed fit, without a trial. But they do have a right to challenge whether they are enemy combatants or not.”
“Ahmed is not an enemy of the United States. He loves America. And he’s not a terrorist!”
“The Government thinks he is, and they
think that gives them the ability to foreclose all his rights.”
“Is this expensive, this habeas corpus?”
“Yes, it is. I can give you a very good hourly rate, but I can’t work for free. We’ll be fighting the Government, and they’ll throw everything at us to crush our petition. It’s going to take a lot of hours.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to save Ahmed. I’ve got some savings, and I’ll borrow money if I have to.”
“I’ll see if I can get the Government to admit they have him, and the next step will be to go down there to talk to him.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Let me see what I can do first, then we’ll try to set up visitation for you, okay?”
“You’re my last hope, Mr. Marks. I’ve tried everything and every door closes in my face. The only ones who even tried to help me were that FBI agent and Mr. Penn.
Brent was accustomed to the way tribal bias and prejudice gave way to mistreatment in his native America, his Hispanic looks being mistaken for Mexican more than once.
Brent left Catherine with the assignment of digging up every piece of paper she could on Ahmed: a copy of his passport, his naturalization papers, his work history, even his banking records. Brent would have to present on paper the picture of a good American citizen.
George W. Bush said, “It will take time to restore chaos.” Brent was about to confront Bush’s creation head on.
Catherine, Ahmed's wife, had found Brent Marks after going to many different offices to seek help in finding her husband. Brent Marks is a wonderful fictional lawyer that you would want to have if you needed help. Readers will watch as each legal process was handled, together with much investigation by a private investigator, who was also a personal friend of Brent. What happens is unbelievable, and extremely upsetting since this American citizen had had nobody to act on his behalf until Marks took his case. How, I thought, can Americans talk about other countries who are routinely doing acts against humanity, yet, do the same, in secret, by direction of the President.
Was it at that point when things started to get really bad, and the division started? For those who seek peace versus those who follow leaders into immoral acts have surely initiated actions that by now are beyond secrecy and out in the open... While a disgusting book, if you care about what is happening in America, I recommend this as a must-read...Each of us need to "feel" emotionally what happens to the individual who is caught in acts of our government that have been authorized--but never explained to us what would really be happening.
GABixlerReviews
“What do we do?” Catherine started to cry. “It seems to be impossible.” “Of course, you have no obligation to hire me, but what you could do is file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal Court here in the States. If that’s granted, he will have a hearing in a U.S. Court on U.S. soil instead of being held indefinitely in Cuba.”
“Indefinitely?”
“Yes, some suspected terrorists have been there since 2003. If they are accused of being ‘enemy combatants’ they can be held as long as it is deemed fit, without a trial. But they do have a right to challenge whether they are enemy combatants or not.”
“Ahmed is not an enemy of the United States. He loves America. And he’s not a terrorist!”
“The Government thinks he is, and they
think that gives them the ability to foreclose all his rights.”
“Is this expensive, this habeas corpus?”
“Yes, it is. I can give you a very good hourly rate, but I can’t work for free. We’ll be fighting the Government, and they’ll throw everything at us to crush our petition. It’s going to take a lot of hours.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to save Ahmed. I’ve got some savings, and I’ll borrow money if I have to.”
“I’ll see if I can get the Government to admit they have him, and the next step will be to go down there to talk to him.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Let me see what I can do first, then we’ll try to set up visitation for you, okay?”
“You’re my last hope, Mr. Marks. I’ve tried everything and every door closes in my face. The only ones who even tried to help me were that FBI agent and Mr. Penn.
Brent was accustomed to the way tribal bias and prejudice gave way to mistreatment in his native America, his Hispanic looks being mistaken for Mexican more than once.
Brent left Catherine with the assignment of digging up every piece of paper she could on Ahmed: a copy of his passport, his naturalization papers, his work history, even his banking records. Brent would have to present on paper the picture of a good American citizen.
George W. Bush said, “It will take time to restore chaos.” Brent was about to confront Bush’s creation head on.
~~~
President Bush and apparently many who lived in America seemed to think that an attack on America was totally unexpected and unwarranted, yet we had traveled all over the world, fighting many wars in other countries. I was not even surprised when 9/11, a most horrible event, occurred. Thereafter I watched as the Patriot's Act almost immediately was put into effect and "potential" terrorists were arrested and acted on under a special military court rather than through our standard system. Torture was implemented, although nothing they were doing was placed under the definition, which was created for torture... Water Boarding, Dry Boarding, physical abuse of all kinds, mental abuse of various kinds were implemented routinely and handled by the officers at Guantanamo with oversight only by the military.
Ahmed, an American citizen, had gone to his home country when his brother called him and told him he needed help. He knew nothing about his brother's involvement in terrorism, if indeed he had been... Ahmed never knew what happened to him. Ahmed was stripped naked and taken to Guantanamo and immediately placed in isolation for weeks...then moved to another location where he was in bright lights all the time and rock music blared 24/7... and much more. This book is not easy to read for those who care about God's people... The video below is an illustration, but it was during this process that Ahmed was most affected...
Was it at that point when things started to get really bad, and the division started? For those who seek peace versus those who follow leaders into immoral acts have surely initiated actions that by now are beyond secrecy and out in the open... While a disgusting book, if you care about what is happening in America, I recommend this as a must-read...Each of us need to "feel" emotionally what happens to the individual who is caught in acts of our government that have been authorized--but never explained to us what would really be happening.
GABixlerReviews
Now Reading Predatory Kill, the Second in Set
Review Coming
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