In the Atlantic today I found a rather slanted article titled Not Believing in America "Liz Cheney and company tear at the legal system that makes this country free and exceptional by targeting the rights of the accused and their attorneys"
It's about time we let the left professorial elite know that trying to fit a round peg in a square hole to call it a 'fitting historical example' just isn't cutting it with us any more. We know the truth and we will report the truth. I couldn't take it anymore. I wrote the author the following:
Dear Mr. Edwards,
While I agree with the majority of your article and we are of the same generation, I am just not sure I get your point on the “Al Qaeda 7”.
To the overall patriotism of your article, I couldn’t agree more. I am astounded when I hear a 20-something say what a horrible country we are and verbally ponder why anyone would ever want to emigrate here. I wonder what KoolAid their professors are feeding them to cause them to think this way, as we are still the most forgiving and free nation on the face of the earth. The United States of America as a whole with her people and her history is exceptional without a doubt. Aside from the fact that I am watching our government trying to run our “exceptionalism” into the ground and I see them working hard to make us “just another European Nation” with every bit of power they have in their arsenal, while engaging in interference with other nations (such as Honduras and others) where we have no business, we are not yet without exceptionalism.
But to your argument concerning the “Al Qaeda 7”, I am not seeing it the way you do. What exactly is your point about Cheney and Kristol? I think in this case they are correct in what they are saying.
Yes, John Adams defended the British soldiers. What you aren’t remembering is that those soldiers of the Boston Massacre were tried prior to the revolution. They were here by order of the crown, acting as the “policemen”, or if you will, the “tax-enforcers” in the colonies. We were still British Subjects in the eyes of the crown, and they were sent here to quell the growing anger of “taxation without representation”.
The Boston Massacre occurred in 1770, prior to any physical separation between the British government and the colonies, during a time of great unrest. We may have been rebelling, may have declared our intention to separate, but we had not yet won separation. Adams, perhaps to the consternation of many sympathizers, stated he felt it was his duty to defend them, to show our colonies as fair in our justice to the crown.
Your argument is more equal to a modern day analogy of an attorney choosing to defend a National Guardsmen after a riot which had gone so badly that in self defense, he felt rightly or wrongly compelled to kill many rioters. The guardsman would require defense because he fired the first shots killing rioters who he felt threatened him. He has the ability and the right to defend himself with the specific defense that he was threatened in some physical way, and he was acting in defense of his own life or those of his fellow guardsmen. He and the rioters are all citizens of the same nation. There was civil unrest. There was a physical assault. There was an even greater threat by those behind the original attacker and the escalation became a tragedy. He would deserve a defense, although the wounded parties or their sympathizers may not agree and it may be an unpopular defense to them. That was what Adams did.
That’s a bit of a different scenario than Panti-bombers and other war criminals who come here to blow up airplanes full of travelers above cities, or to fly those planes directly into people’s work places, don’t you think?
In this case, it is not our own countrymen we are fighting (unless in a few cases they became citizens prior to deciding to blow us up). We are not subjects of those suicide bombers who believe themselves to be “soldiers”. We are not a nation attempting to reason or to separate from the motherland through which they hail. Moreover, we are currently at war with their countries or at the very least their religious misconceptions which cause them to become fighters for those countries for the sake of jihad. They were not threatened by a mob of people rioting against them. They boarded planes with the strict intent to kill all aboard for reasons of hateful intentions to prove a point without regard to those “unbelievers”.
You are comparing apples and oranges with your argument.
Another key point about Adams is that he didn’t enter the federal government for another 19 years after trying those soldiers, nor did he take any position within the government that had anything to do with continuing to defend the similarly accused leading up to, during, or after the war. These attorney’s came straight from those unfinished cases to Justice. That’s a huge difference.
Overall, this whole war is a deeply complex and difficult issue. That and our agreements or differences as to why we are in it aside, we are in a war. That makes the cards in your argument play quite differently. On the one hand you have the inequality of the comparisons, on the other, the average American’s mindset on the whole deal. I am not talking Harvard or Princeton’s intellectually elite mindset; I am talking the average American’s mindset.
The American public is typically of the “You want to fight us? Bring it on” mindset when somebody brings acts of war to our shores. Blowing up planeloads of regular folks is an act of war. Our intent is to make war fair and square, military to military and we will fight it. There are accepted Rules of Engagement. Don’t be setting off bombs in your panties on a Christmas Day flight full of regular families who are just going to observe their familial traditions, and certainly don’t take plane loads of workers, children and women hostage and fly them into tall buildings on a bright blue day, and expect us to feel sorry for you if you get caught before you succeed in blowing us all up. You deserve trial, but in a military tribunal if you are caught. If you are guilty, then you deserve to be incarcerated for life in a military prison or sentenced to death.
American citizens culturally loathe unfair fights, especially when it involves killing innocent citizens in acts of mass murder, whether or not you take yourself with you, rather than engaging our trained and paid military. We have words and phrases for acts like that, one of which is baby killers. Just like our decades of fighting the similar war of Barbary Bay where they would take hostage our shipments overseas or our transits, holding innocent Americans hostage for ransom, we cannot continue to pay bribes, do business with, or to use these murderous fanatics with the one hand and fight them with the other. Thomas Jefferson had it right – cut them off financially, realize our mistakes, don’t repeat those mistakes, fight to win the war fair and square – battle by battle – and get back to the business of America. On the Shores of Tripoli and all that.
In reality, what you are saying is nothing new under the sun. Every young attorney truly covets a high profile cases such as these. It makes those 100 hour weeks go by quickly. It assures them stature in all the right places to further their careers and make the big bucks, just like the shining stars they believe themselves to be. It catapults them into partner like nothing else. It garners those awards, promotions, the visibility, and accolades at every turn. But it should not catapult them into a governmental position so powerful as to ensure justice for Americans against the very ones they just finished defending or were hired away from defending!
It is a conflict of interest to come off a defense team and turn around to take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States while agreeing to serve as US prosecutors to those very cases of which you are intimately familiar. The Al Qaeda 7 attorney’s obviously have a soft spot for these prisoners (or a keen eye for the fast track) or they wouldn’t have agreed to defend them in the first place. A Dept of Justice attorney’s job is to ensuring Justice first and foremost to those very same work-a-day folks who died that day and to defend the constitution, not provide civilian criminal trials to war criminals when we are at war. They aren’t citizens; they are jihadists who would no sooner look at you and me than kill us. In the case of KSM, he had already admitted guilt. He was on his way to court and Obama stopped it. Imagine how those families of the USS Cole feel. Just imagine had it been your son or daughter.
Let’s look at it another way. Let’s say I am a business who is entangled in a patent case. I am being accused of stealing a patent. You are one of the young attorney’s at my defense teams firm. Let’s say you have prepared briefs for my attorney’s, doing what young and bright attorney’s do. Later, while the case is still active, but long and drawn out, you quit the firm I hired to defend me, and go to work for the firm who is working for my accusers, or even another firm who is later brought in as 2nd chair to my accuser’s firm.
Is it a conflict of interest for them to hire you? Would my defense team think it would be a conflict, knowing that you know a goodly amount of the defense that I am bringing? Could you potentially build a case around all that known evidence in my defense to help my accuser’s team win the case? What kind of fight would ensue from my defense team against you and your new firm? I would venture to say huge, even if only hired by the newly appointed 2nd chair firm. I would venture to say they would be at that bench for hours convincing the judge that you cannot be anywhere near my case – they would fight that your new firm cannot be anywhere near my case regardless of whether you are officially on the case or not. Who knows what pay off you may have received. Who knows what damage you may cause my case in back door deals, or even how much damage you may cause to the other side if you were so inclined to subvert their case against me. Who’s to know you aren’t playing both sides for some unknown third party interest?
Am I wrong?
So why is this any different? Is it because it is an “unpopular” defense? Not really, because those attorneys became shining stars to the far left’s ideology. Is it because of liberal bias that this case is somehow different? Is it because it is the popular thing to think that jihadists are somehow different than other war criminals? Is it because CAIR is mixed up in here somehow as an interested third party? The same questions my defense team would be raising are the very questions that are arising in the minds of the American people - and frankly, it is pi$$ing us off.
Justice may be blind sir, but she isn’t stupid. She knows when a conflict of interest exists. From my perspective, it is these “Al Qaeda 7” that represent the very definition of a conflict of interest. Our family was fortunate on 9/11, in two cases, with my husband in the air on a different flight (which we thought was flight 93 due to a misstatement made by a reporter) and my brother in law at the Pentagon (who went dark and we didn’t hear from for 2 weeks), we thought we had lost our loved ones and in both cases, thankfully, we hadn’t. But not losing anyone doesn’t make it much better. We still watched those planes loaded with innocents turned into bombs that killed thousands more innocents.
To us, these attorney’s pictures could be laid right beside the word listing “Conflict of Interest” and the definition would speak for itself. I believe that nearly every red-blooded American feels the same as well.
Taxpayers already pay for the war, we already give untold monies to feed the jihadists, Hamas, and the Taliban themselves, and we repatriate them here. To know this, all we must do is to remember the storehouses of undistributed goods and foods we sent to the Iraqi’s during Saddam’s reign. We are losing our special relationships with Israel and the UK. That’s quite enough of the right hand playing the left, don’t you think? We don’t want to add paying for public trials that will give these self-admitted murderers (who call themselves righteous warriors) a pulpit to sound the battle cry anew. The majority of us don’t want them in our prisons proselytizing and recruiting our prisoners. We want them separate and we want them prosecuted by military tribunals. Don’t you get that?
It isn’t undoing what made this a great country, it is doing governments #1 job, protecting the citizens of the United States against all known or perceived threats from inside or outside the Union.
Somehow, I think both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would agree.
Showing posts with label trials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trials. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Creeping Gradualism
I am so shocked by the following series of articles, yet I have heard barely a ripple of conversation, news reports or pundit discussion concerning its content.
It feels very much like a deep black hole in the information age.
The below articles provides the missing pieces to a very complex puzzle that causes one pause.
Presidential Assassinations of U.S. Citizens
Last week, Glen Greenwald of Salon.com wrote about a shocking revelation buried in a Washington Post article by Dana Priest which described how the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed by the President to be "terrorists". As The Washington Times' Eli Lake reports, Adm. Dennis Blair was asked about this program at a Congressional hearing Tuesday and he acknowledged its existence:
The U.S. intelligence community policy on killing American citizens who have joined al Qaeda requires first obtaining high-level government approval, a senior official disclosed to Congress on Wednesday.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said in each case a decision to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen must get special permission. . . .He also said there are criteria that must be met to authorize the killing of a U.S. citizen that include "whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved."
Where have we heard words like those before?
It is quite a dangerous situation the American people find themselves in, although as a whole, we just don’t know it yet. I am going to do my best attempt to explain why.
It's bringing the frog to a slow boil.
In 1930’s Austria they called it "Creeping Gradualism".
We used to be against tyranny in this country. We fought and won World Wars against it. We fought and won the Revolutionary War for the same reason.
We are a nation completely blind to what is to become of us, what danger awaits us, but I believe that before we know it we are all in danger of being deemed "a threat to other Americans" simply because we don't like the loss of our freedoms and we are organizing to push against this monolithic governmental empire they are creating.
Flashback: We were already identified as potential terrorists in the DHS directive last April. The (U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment document clearly states " the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization."
My concerns run deep on this issue and although it has constantly nagged me for nearly a year, I just couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me so deeply - besides the obvious, of course. I knew something was drastically wrong, but I didn’t have all the pieces.
Adding the revelation of presidential directive to the puzzle last week and this newest article today, “Obama Admin wants to track cellphones; 'Americans enjoy NO reasonable expectation of privacy', I feel a chill so deep that no Florida sun can penetrate. All the pieces have tumbled into place in my mind.
This President will try Abdulmutallab the pantibomber, KSM of USS Cole fame (whose tribunal he stopped after his admission of guilt at the military trial), and Hasan the infamous soldier slayer in US Civilian Courts.
Obama via Holder will afford them constitutional protection. He has mirandized them. They have just finished trying Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui and found her guilty of two counts of attempted murder of US Soldiers in Civilian Criminal Courts - yet he ORDERS assassinations on US Citizens without benefit of trial?
At least Bush was consistent in his directive (if that can be considered a plus at all) - but this president acts without the equality of the thing and orders the murder of Americans at the same time he fiercely protects terrorists. Not only that, but he calls it racism to do otherwise.
Do we at all understand what this means to those of us born and raised in America? To the everyday natural citizens of these United States?
Do we know what criteria they are using to determine these American citizens are "terrorists"?
Is it just the newly granted citizens, those who are now known to be terrorists but who somehow made it through citizenship without detection - or is it something far more insidious, something that we only got a whiff of in last April’s DHS missive?
What are the criteria Mr. President? List it out for us, please.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Is it simply okay to give admitted terrorists access to our Constitutional Rights, yet not afford our own citizens those same rights?
Apparently that is our brave new world of hope and change.
The Freedom Stealing Trifecta and One Party Rule
4 Patriot Act
4 Executive Decisions/Directives
4 Congressional Pseudo-Wars
The Patriot Act has effectively suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus for American Citizens.
It allows them to search us at will and detain us indefinitely under "suspicion".
It affords us NO access to speedy trials or even an attorney on the "assumption" that we are a threat.
Apparently it also allows them to assassinate us.
Yet they afford admitted terrorists fair trials with our tax dollars even when they are caught trying to set off a bomb in their panties on a planeload of Christmas Vacationers! SCOTUS stripped us of our right to have an attorney present in May of last year, but this apparently doesn’t apply to terrorists.
The entire purpose of habeas is to say, “Look at me! I’m being detained/abused/disenfranchised contrary to law”. If there’s no writ available, the result is that the government can hold you “against the law”. Since the writ encompasses the full scope of our Constitutional rights, it’s a logical conclusion is to say that while it’s suspended, Americans currently have NO exercisable constitutional rights.
My heart is heavy and my mind is boggled by this as I witness and hear of case after case against our Constitutional and God given rights. Fathers denied their children, children on no fly lists who cannot find recourse to be removed, citizens who are subjected to unlawful search and seizures, and the list goes on and on.
Effectively, they are saying they have all power to do all things because Congress has given the powers of Military License and Force to "protect" citizens, while in reality they take away ALL our liberties in the Patriot Act.
The President, by saying “I can kill you at will because I am the President of the United States and I believe you to be a "terrorist" threat.”, literally means you have a "free for all" from the government’s perspective.
The door has slammed shut on your freedoms.
Creeping gradualism is no longer creeping, my friends, the serfdom has arrived.
What is considered our most basic liberty, our writ of habeas corpus, was finally and completely removed between the trifecta of the AUMF of 2001, the Executive Directive of assassination, and The Patriot Act. All of this because of the very terrorists we are mirandizing right now.
We The People vs The Machine
The Constitution of the United States very clearly states:
1) Congress has the power to declare war.
2) Constitutional provisions cannot be altered by statute.
Based on those 2 points, it is interesting to note that Congress has not actually declared war since Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania on June 5, 1942. They have however, declared many Military Engagements and AUMF's (Authorizations of Use of Military Force) as the functional equivalent of a declaration of war.
In Point 2, nothing in the Constitution can be reasonably construed to allow Congress to reallocate powers to themselves in a more palatable or politically expedient manner. Yet that is precisely the effect the War Powers Resolution, by which "AUMFs" are passed, has done.
It has given them all encompassing political power.
In a time such as this with One Party Rule, this use becomes especially apparent as it did in the late 70’s, the early 90’s, the early to mid 00’s and now again this past year. The problem is that without the checks and balances, soon you become a single party system as seen in the 30’s and 40’s Austria, Germany, China, and are witnessing in Venezuela today through Chavez and his "istas".
Additionally, that is exactly how those currently in Congress intend to continue to use it to order to remain in power with the recent (Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey and the rise of the TEA Party) threats to their One Party Rule status. See Will Obama Play the War Card?
The War Powers Resolution limits Presidential authority in the use of force without an official resolution or declaration of war by Congress.
The controversial question then becomes, "Where the provisions therein are consistent with the Constitution". According to Wikipedia, in an argument for the unconstitutionality of the War Powers Resolution by Philip Bobbitt, it states that
"The power to make war is not an enumerated power" and the notion that to declare" war is to "commence" war is a "contemporary textual preconception". The Framers of the Constitution believed that statutory authorization was the route by which the United States would be committed to war, and that 'declaration' was meant for only total wars, as shown by the history of the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800); in general, constitutional powers are not so much separated as "linked and sequenced"; Congress's control over the armed forces is "structured" by propriation, while the president commands; thus the act of declaring war should not be fetishized."
Bobbitt also argues that "A democracy cannot ... tolerate secret policies" because they undermine the legitimacy of governmental action.”
Based on the in depth analysis of this explanation, the Constitution authorizes Congress to declare war, but it does not authorize Congress to declare Military Force, License or pseudo-wars whether or not they are politically expedient. The “preconception” is actually a misconception and a severe one at that.
3) In light of points 1 and 2, regardless of what Congress may have done, purposed or purports to do in the way of authorizing force, the AUMF is constitutionally a “brick short” of a war declaration.
This leaves the question of whether we have a need to consider or obey the war-time powers of the President - as they have not actually been constitutionally activated.
Logic dictates that the Executive Decision of the President to Assassinate US Citizens is then simply a legal loophole to authorize sending out “hit men” on American Citizens because he (or any of the organizations that he may empower) arbitrarily deem them to be terrorists.
In light of the DHS directive, secret watch lists and any number of things the American public cannot possibly know about, this indeed is a very dangerous position to find ourselves in as average Americans.
4) The Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment states quite clearly that government shall not deprive any person of life without due process of law.
A secret, unilateral, unreviewable determination that an individual is a “terrorist” by the President doesn't in any way, shape or form constitute "due process".
The Door Slamming Shut
The problem we face with this directive doesn't lie with shooting an enemy combatant who is shooting at us, regardless of whether that person is a US Citizen, nor does it include fighting true terrorists. It certainly doesn't concern capturing them, imprisoning them, interrogating them, or killing them before they kill us as those are all "normal" war time activities.
No, the problem lies with effectively calling out a "hit" on an American Citizen whom they arbitrarily determine is a risk, without due process, without a jury of our peers, without known proof or warning, while at the same time securing those same constitutional rights to known enemy combatants and war criminals they have just denied the newly declared American citizen “terrorist”.
Here are two very specific stances of our most recent President's:
1) Targeting specific individual citizens whom they believe have ill intent and ordering them shot on sight, presumably “in other countries”, although Blair didn’t actually use those parameters in his description of the directive.
2) The fact is that they view the world as their battlefield in this AUMF, including hits on citizens of the US, sending drones, secret or pseudo secret actions in Yemen, Pakistan and any other country they damn well please, without concern to collateral damage or definitive proof.
There is war, then there is just playing dirty. I understand that sometimes during war, playing dirty is collateral - it's called strategy - but this is beyond that. This is simply playing dirty most of the time, more so on American Citizens than on the actual enemy. An enemy who consistently breaks the rules of engagement no less: who has no uniforms, no marching orders, just murderous intent regardless of the collateral damage it may cause. In fact, they delight in murdering innocent citizens on their way to work or home for the holidays.
In reality, what highlights an American Citizen as a "terrorist"? Do we know?
We have no idea their criteria, but we have hints to what it might be that constitutes a "terrorist".
4 We have the Terrorist Watch list. Many of us left-titled "right wing extremists" (who are actually just natural and patriotic citizens) are probably teetering on the brink of being on that one because this president doesn't like dissent for his policies. In fact the DHS report says as much.
We may very well reside there simply because we are either Veterans, don't believe in abortion, do believe in the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms, or we “cling” to our bibles. What of those who act as recruiters to community organizing conservatives, are bloggers, tea partiers, or any other ludicrous thing they can think of to include to marginalize and attack us?
4 We have the "No Fly List" (which houses untold natural US citizens), and
4 We have recent “questionable” citizenships they examine – unless, of course, they are Muslim – for that would be racist profiling.
4 Furthermore we have no access to any of the above lists, nor do we know if we, as an individual sit on either of the first two “lists”, and if we do, why we are there. We apparently can't find recourse to be removed from said list as recent revelations by those who find themselves on said list can attest.
This leads to the very real conclusion that anyone on a no fly list, a government deemed “right wing extremist” or virtually anyone the government targets could realistically be shot on sight or meet some other fatal event, even though he may have no prior knowledge of being on some list somewhere. The question that follows this conclusion then is: would that include his or her traveling companions as well? What if there are children around this big bad townhall attendee, veteran or tea partier?
Who’s to say since the world is the administrations battlefield, that regular people couldn’t meet with some “unfortunate accident” in their own backyard or driving to work one day? Who’s to say it couldn’t be one of us? Will we be shocked then?
The meaning of this executive directive is simply too broad, too secret, too arbitrary and far too outside the confines of the Constitutional boundaries under which our leaders rule. When considering we have 8 year olds who have been battling to be removed from the no fly list for 3 years, who are surely no danger to the US, it is highly likely there are other innocents who have been deemed dangerous to the US. I can easily extrapolate that list could include those of us who disagree with this president’s policies, whom he has already called out as “extremists”, and of which the DHS has further extrapolated the term to mean “terrorists” - or at the very least “terrorists in the making”.
The fact is that individual citizens have no chance to defend themselves against such a charge and it is a charge unbeknownst to them in most cases. They are a target and the President can simply say “just take them out”. That quickly. POOF! You are no more.
Combine those facts with the newly revealed adjacent "policy" that tells us the government has purposely allowed known terrorists into the US for Surveillance purposes. A policy which obviously has the potential to foment war upon the citizens of these United States, since such a one could escape surveillance easily enough in order to do the dirty deed they came here to do.
For good measure add in the loss of our economic freedoms that has been proven to have been brought upon us through a combination of congress, President’s (CFR and redistribution initiatives), cabinet appointees (deregulation of SEC trading rules), and the purposeful, proven “negligence” of the Federal Reserve. It becomes clear that we now have quite a dangerous stew of policies going on in this country today. Policies that should deeply disturb all of us.
We can’t fight it, we don't know exactly what it is. Even if we did, they won’t listen because it contains their belief in superiority, their political expediency to remain in control, and entitled elitism. Nor do we have the funds left to flee or to protect ourselves against it, which is exactly the definition of our "economic freedoms".
They are playing quite dangerously with the rights afforded us by our constitution: our safety, security, privacy, redress, petition, protest, due process, economic freedom, and our personhood rights - those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are manipulating with their pseudo-war time activities. They are playing in such a way as to endanger ALL US Citizens, not just those deemed “bad seed” - and they dare say we the people are the threat to this country?
Are we a threat to their policies through peaceful resistance? I certainly hope we are.
Are we a threat to their plans to stay in power through the web of campaign contributions, States of Emergencies and further pseudo-war actions they themselves have built? We had better be.
Are we a threat to their ever increasing credit lines and their license to makes us all serfs?
If we aren’t, we might as well hand over our property and simply lie down in the coffin now, for we can all be labeled “terrorist serfs” now.
Additional Recommended Reading: "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer. A study of the takeover of a people by Nazi Germany.
It feels very much like a deep black hole in the information age.
The below articles provides the missing pieces to a very complex puzzle that causes one pause.
Presidential Assassinations of U.S. Citizens
Last week, Glen Greenwald of Salon.com wrote about a shocking revelation buried in a Washington Post article by Dana Priest which described how the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed by the President to be "terrorists". As The Washington Times' Eli Lake reports, Adm. Dennis Blair was asked about this program at a Congressional hearing Tuesday and he acknowledged its existence:
The U.S. intelligence community policy on killing American citizens who have joined al Qaeda requires first obtaining high-level government approval, a senior official disclosed to Congress on Wednesday.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said in each case a decision to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen must get special permission. . . .He also said there are criteria that must be met to authorize the killing of a U.S. citizen that include "whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved."
Where have we heard words like those before?
It is quite a dangerous situation the American people find themselves in, although as a whole, we just don’t know it yet. I am going to do my best attempt to explain why.
It's bringing the frog to a slow boil.
In 1930’s Austria they called it "Creeping Gradualism".
We used to be against tyranny in this country. We fought and won World Wars against it. We fought and won the Revolutionary War for the same reason.
We are a nation completely blind to what is to become of us, what danger awaits us, but I believe that before we know it we are all in danger of being deemed "a threat to other Americans" simply because we don't like the loss of our freedoms and we are organizing to push against this monolithic governmental empire they are creating.
Flashback: We were already identified as potential terrorists in the DHS directive last April. The (U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment document clearly states " the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization."
My concerns run deep on this issue and although it has constantly nagged me for nearly a year, I just couldn’t put my finger on what was bothering me so deeply - besides the obvious, of course. I knew something was drastically wrong, but I didn’t have all the pieces.
Adding the revelation of presidential directive to the puzzle last week and this newest article today, “Obama Admin wants to track cellphones; 'Americans enjoy NO reasonable expectation of privacy', I feel a chill so deep that no Florida sun can penetrate. All the pieces have tumbled into place in my mind.
This President will try Abdulmutallab the pantibomber, KSM of USS Cole fame (whose tribunal he stopped after his admission of guilt at the military trial), and Hasan the infamous soldier slayer in US Civilian Courts.
Obama via Holder will afford them constitutional protection. He has mirandized them. They have just finished trying Pakistani Scientist Aafia Siddiqui and found her guilty of two counts of attempted murder of US Soldiers in Civilian Criminal Courts - yet he ORDERS assassinations on US Citizens without benefit of trial?
At least Bush was consistent in his directive (if that can be considered a plus at all) - but this president acts without the equality of the thing and orders the murder of Americans at the same time he fiercely protects terrorists. Not only that, but he calls it racism to do otherwise.
Do we at all understand what this means to those of us born and raised in America? To the everyday natural citizens of these United States?
Do we know what criteria they are using to determine these American citizens are "terrorists"?
Is it just the newly granted citizens, those who are now known to be terrorists but who somehow made it through citizenship without detection - or is it something far more insidious, something that we only got a whiff of in last April’s DHS missive?
What are the criteria Mr. President? List it out for us, please.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Is it simply okay to give admitted terrorists access to our Constitutional Rights, yet not afford our own citizens those same rights?
Apparently that is our brave new world of hope and change.
The Freedom Stealing Trifecta and One Party Rule
4 Patriot Act
4 Executive Decisions/Directives
4 Congressional Pseudo-Wars
The Patriot Act has effectively suspended the Writ of Habeus Corpus for American Citizens.
It allows them to search us at will and detain us indefinitely under "suspicion".
It affords us NO access to speedy trials or even an attorney on the "assumption" that we are a threat.
Apparently it also allows them to assassinate us.
Yet they afford admitted terrorists fair trials with our tax dollars even when they are caught trying to set off a bomb in their panties on a planeload of Christmas Vacationers! SCOTUS stripped us of our right to have an attorney present in May of last year, but this apparently doesn’t apply to terrorists.
The entire purpose of habeas is to say, “Look at me! I’m being detained/abused/disenfranchised contrary to law”. If there’s no writ available, the result is that the government can hold you “against the law”. Since the writ encompasses the full scope of our Constitutional rights, it’s a logical conclusion is to say that while it’s suspended, Americans currently have NO exercisable constitutional rights.
My heart is heavy and my mind is boggled by this as I witness and hear of case after case against our Constitutional and God given rights. Fathers denied their children, children on no fly lists who cannot find recourse to be removed, citizens who are subjected to unlawful search and seizures, and the list goes on and on.
Effectively, they are saying they have all power to do all things because Congress has given the powers of Military License and Force to "protect" citizens, while in reality they take away ALL our liberties in the Patriot Act.
The President, by saying “I can kill you at will because I am the President of the United States and I believe you to be a "terrorist" threat.”, literally means you have a "free for all" from the government’s perspective.
The door has slammed shut on your freedoms.
Creeping gradualism is no longer creeping, my friends, the serfdom has arrived.
What is considered our most basic liberty, our writ of habeas corpus, was finally and completely removed between the trifecta of the AUMF of 2001, the Executive Directive of assassination, and The Patriot Act. All of this because of the very terrorists we are mirandizing right now.
We The People vs The Machine
The Constitution of the United States very clearly states:
1) Congress has the power to declare war.
2) Constitutional provisions cannot be altered by statute.
Based on those 2 points, it is interesting to note that Congress has not actually declared war since Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania on June 5, 1942. They have however, declared many Military Engagements and AUMF's (Authorizations of Use of Military Force) as the functional equivalent of a declaration of war.
In Point 2, nothing in the Constitution can be reasonably construed to allow Congress to reallocate powers to themselves in a more palatable or politically expedient manner. Yet that is precisely the effect the War Powers Resolution, by which "AUMFs" are passed, has done.
It has given them all encompassing political power.
In a time such as this with One Party Rule, this use becomes especially apparent as it did in the late 70’s, the early 90’s, the early to mid 00’s and now again this past year. The problem is that without the checks and balances, soon you become a single party system as seen in the 30’s and 40’s Austria, Germany, China, and are witnessing in Venezuela today through Chavez and his "istas".
Additionally, that is exactly how those currently in Congress intend to continue to use it to order to remain in power with the recent (Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey and the rise of the TEA Party) threats to their One Party Rule status. See Will Obama Play the War Card?
The War Powers Resolution limits Presidential authority in the use of force without an official resolution or declaration of war by Congress.
The controversial question then becomes, "Where the provisions therein are consistent with the Constitution". According to Wikipedia, in an argument for the unconstitutionality of the War Powers Resolution by Philip Bobbitt, it states that
"The power to make war is not an enumerated power" and the notion that to declare" war is to "commence" war is a "contemporary textual preconception". The Framers of the Constitution believed that statutory authorization was the route by which the United States would be committed to war, and that 'declaration' was meant for only total wars, as shown by the history of the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800); in general, constitutional powers are not so much separated as "linked and sequenced"; Congress's control over the armed forces is "structured" by propriation, while the president commands; thus the act of declaring war should not be fetishized."
Bobbitt also argues that "A democracy cannot ... tolerate secret policies" because they undermine the legitimacy of governmental action.”
Based on the in depth analysis of this explanation, the Constitution authorizes Congress to declare war, but it does not authorize Congress to declare Military Force, License or pseudo-wars whether or not they are politically expedient. The “preconception” is actually a misconception and a severe one at that.
3) In light of points 1 and 2, regardless of what Congress may have done, purposed or purports to do in the way of authorizing force, the AUMF is constitutionally a “brick short” of a war declaration.
This leaves the question of whether we have a need to consider or obey the war-time powers of the President - as they have not actually been constitutionally activated.
Logic dictates that the Executive Decision of the President to Assassinate US Citizens is then simply a legal loophole to authorize sending out “hit men” on American Citizens because he (or any of the organizations that he may empower) arbitrarily deem them to be terrorists.
In light of the DHS directive, secret watch lists and any number of things the American public cannot possibly know about, this indeed is a very dangerous position to find ourselves in as average Americans.
4) The Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment states quite clearly that government shall not deprive any person of life without due process of law.
A secret, unilateral, unreviewable determination that an individual is a “terrorist” by the President doesn't in any way, shape or form constitute "due process".
The Door Slamming Shut
The problem we face with this directive doesn't lie with shooting an enemy combatant who is shooting at us, regardless of whether that person is a US Citizen, nor does it include fighting true terrorists. It certainly doesn't concern capturing them, imprisoning them, interrogating them, or killing them before they kill us as those are all "normal" war time activities.
No, the problem lies with effectively calling out a "hit" on an American Citizen whom they arbitrarily determine is a risk, without due process, without a jury of our peers, without known proof or warning, while at the same time securing those same constitutional rights to known enemy combatants and war criminals they have just denied the newly declared American citizen “terrorist”.
Here are two very specific stances of our most recent President's:
1) Targeting specific individual citizens whom they believe have ill intent and ordering them shot on sight, presumably “in other countries”, although Blair didn’t actually use those parameters in his description of the directive.
2) The fact is that they view the world as their battlefield in this AUMF, including hits on citizens of the US, sending drones, secret or pseudo secret actions in Yemen, Pakistan and any other country they damn well please, without concern to collateral damage or definitive proof.
There is war, then there is just playing dirty. I understand that sometimes during war, playing dirty is collateral - it's called strategy - but this is beyond that. This is simply playing dirty most of the time, more so on American Citizens than on the actual enemy. An enemy who consistently breaks the rules of engagement no less: who has no uniforms, no marching orders, just murderous intent regardless of the collateral damage it may cause. In fact, they delight in murdering innocent citizens on their way to work or home for the holidays.
In reality, what highlights an American Citizen as a "terrorist"? Do we know?
We have no idea their criteria, but we have hints to what it might be that constitutes a "terrorist".
4 We have the Terrorist Watch list. Many of us left-titled "right wing extremists" (who are actually just natural and patriotic citizens) are probably teetering on the brink of being on that one because this president doesn't like dissent for his policies. In fact the DHS report says as much.
We may very well reside there simply because we are either Veterans, don't believe in abortion, do believe in the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms, or we “cling” to our bibles. What of those who act as recruiters to community organizing conservatives, are bloggers, tea partiers, or any other ludicrous thing they can think of to include to marginalize and attack us?
4 We have the "No Fly List" (which houses untold natural US citizens), and
4 We have recent “questionable” citizenships they examine – unless, of course, they are Muslim – for that would be racist profiling.
4 Furthermore we have no access to any of the above lists, nor do we know if we, as an individual sit on either of the first two “lists”, and if we do, why we are there. We apparently can't find recourse to be removed from said list as recent revelations by those who find themselves on said list can attest.
This leads to the very real conclusion that anyone on a no fly list, a government deemed “right wing extremist” or virtually anyone the government targets could realistically be shot on sight or meet some other fatal event, even though he may have no prior knowledge of being on some list somewhere. The question that follows this conclusion then is: would that include his or her traveling companions as well? What if there are children around this big bad townhall attendee, veteran or tea partier?
Who’s to say since the world is the administrations battlefield, that regular people couldn’t meet with some “unfortunate accident” in their own backyard or driving to work one day? Who’s to say it couldn’t be one of us? Will we be shocked then?
The meaning of this executive directive is simply too broad, too secret, too arbitrary and far too outside the confines of the Constitutional boundaries under which our leaders rule. When considering we have 8 year olds who have been battling to be removed from the no fly list for 3 years, who are surely no danger to the US, it is highly likely there are other innocents who have been deemed dangerous to the US. I can easily extrapolate that list could include those of us who disagree with this president’s policies, whom he has already called out as “extremists”, and of which the DHS has further extrapolated the term to mean “terrorists” - or at the very least “terrorists in the making”.
The fact is that individual citizens have no chance to defend themselves against such a charge and it is a charge unbeknownst to them in most cases. They are a target and the President can simply say “just take them out”. That quickly. POOF! You are no more.
Combine those facts with the newly revealed adjacent "policy" that tells us the government has purposely allowed known terrorists into the US for Surveillance purposes. A policy which obviously has the potential to foment war upon the citizens of these United States, since such a one could escape surveillance easily enough in order to do the dirty deed they came here to do.
For good measure add in the loss of our economic freedoms that has been proven to have been brought upon us through a combination of congress, President’s (CFR and redistribution initiatives), cabinet appointees (deregulation of SEC trading rules), and the purposeful, proven “negligence” of the Federal Reserve. It becomes clear that we now have quite a dangerous stew of policies going on in this country today. Policies that should deeply disturb all of us.
We can’t fight it, we don't know exactly what it is. Even if we did, they won’t listen because it contains their belief in superiority, their political expediency to remain in control, and entitled elitism. Nor do we have the funds left to flee or to protect ourselves against it, which is exactly the definition of our "economic freedoms".
They are playing quite dangerously with the rights afforded us by our constitution: our safety, security, privacy, redress, petition, protest, due process, economic freedom, and our personhood rights - those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They are manipulating with their pseudo-war time activities. They are playing in such a way as to endanger ALL US Citizens, not just those deemed “bad seed” - and they dare say we the people are the threat to this country?
Are we a threat to their policies through peaceful resistance? I certainly hope we are.
Are we a threat to their plans to stay in power through the web of campaign contributions, States of Emergencies and further pseudo-war actions they themselves have built? We had better be.
Are we a threat to their ever increasing credit lines and their license to makes us all serfs?
If we aren’t, we might as well hand over our property and simply lie down in the coffin now, for we can all be labeled “terrorist serfs” now.
Additional Recommended Reading: "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer. A study of the takeover of a people by Nazi Germany.
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