Reply With Quote
Outlawry is making a revival, in the sense that the state is explicitly placing people -- US citizens -- beyond the protection of the law.
Caput gerat lupinum.
(I know I've said it before, but no one replied the first time.)
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/03/the_...ity/singleton/Bush lawyers offered a theory for why due-process-free imprisonment was justifiable. The theory had these four fairly simple premises:(1) Terrorism is not primarily a criminal offense. It is an act of war. Thus: We Are At War With The Terrorists.Those were the once-controversial theoretical premises offered repeatedly by Bush lawyers and other defenders to justify the Guantanamo detention system. More generally, these theories were (and remain) the heart and soul of the neocon view of the War on Terror. Once you accept those four premises, there is no coherent way to oppose Guantanamo. So here is my question:
(2) Those who try to harm the U.S. as part of this War are combatants and Terrorists — not criminals — and are thus en led to no due process or any other rights to which accused criminals are en led. It is the U.S. military (led by the Commander-in-Chief) — not courts — which decides who is and is not a combatant and Terrorist.
(3) Whether someone is a combatant or Terrorist is decided by only one thing: the President’s unilateral decree. Once the President decrees someone a combatant or Terrorist — including one of his own citizens — that person by definition becomes one, and he can then be treated as such without any further judicial process or Cons utional protection. Once that presidential accusatory decree issues, protections of the Cons ution and law disappear. In sum, presidential accusations that someone is a Terrorist are the same as proof and a verdict of guilt.
(4) Unlike virtually every other war ever fought, the “battlefield” of this War is not found where opposing forces are shooting at each other, but is rather defined as: wherever an accused Terrorist is found anywhere in the world. Thus, the President’s battlefield powers — which are limitless: unilateral targeting for death, indefinite imprisonment without charges, spying on communications without any oversight – are not confined to any geographical location, but instead can be applied everywhere. Wherever an accused combatant or Terrorist physically exists — sleeping in a bed, riding in a car with his children, thousands of miles away from any actual shooting — is the “battlefield.”
At this point, do Obama defenders reject any of these four premises? I mean this literally: I cannot count how many times I have heard exactly this same theory offered by Obama supporters justifying his assassination powers (the President is en led to target citizens for death because we are at War, and once you take up arms against the U.S. (meaning: once the President accuses you of doing so) you have no due process rights). Indeed, there simply is no possible way to defend the assassination powers claimed by Obama without embracing each of these theories. And therefore, here is what Obama lawyers said on Thursday:
U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday. The lawyers were asked at a national security conference about the CIA killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and leading al-Qaida figure. . . .When Obama lawyers refer to “U.S. citizens who take up arms with al-Qaida,” what they mean is this: those whom the President accuses (in secret, with no due process or evidence presented) of having taken up arms with al-Qaida. When they refer to “battlefield targeting decisions,” they do not mean a place where there is active fighting, but rather: anywhere in the world an accused Terrorist is found (leaving no doubt about that, Johnson decreed that the limits of “battlefield v. non battlefield is a distinction that is growing stale“). In other words: the whole world is the battlefield, a claim Obama officials have long embraced, and someone is a Terrorist the minute the President declares him to be one: the President is the sole judge, the sole jury, and now even the sole executioner.
The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson, did not directly address the al-Awlaki case. But they said U.S. citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.
Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.
So my question to defenders of Obama’s assassination powers is this: which of those four core Bush/Cheney War on Terror premises do you reject, if any? Given the theories used to justify Bush/Cheney powers — ones that were just repeated almost verbatim by Obama lawyers when asked about the Awlaki assassination — how can anyone coherently have objected to the Bush/Cheney Guantanamo detention system but support Obama’s assassination powers now? Indeed, if anything, the Obama assassination powers are more extremist than the Guantanamo detention system; that’s true for two reasons: (1) Bush/Cheney imprisoned foreign nationals at Guantanamo, whereas Obama has targeted U.S. citizens with death (foreign nationals captured on foreign soil have – according to the Supreme Court – far less Cons utional protections (if they have any) than U.S. citizens, who retain Cons utional protections no matter where they are); and (2) death-by-CIA-drone is obviously a more draconian deprivation than imprisonment at Guantanamo. In sum, how is it possible to support Obama’s assassination powers without embracing each of those four theories used to justify Guantanamo?
Once you have embraced those theories offered by Obama lawyers, you have, by definition, embraced the Bush/Cheney War on Terror (indeed, as Marcy Wheeler do ents, those Obama lawyers even explicitly defended the very theories used by Bush DOJ lawyers to justify the Bush NSA eavesdropping program and sweeping secrecy powers; Obama DOJ lawyer Marty Lederman, for instance, announced: because of secrecy powers, “we’re in armed conflicts with some groups the American public doesn’t know we’re in armed conflict with“). During the Bush presidency, I spent years arguing — without opposition from a single progressive, literally — that the two most radical and dangerous premises ushered in by Bush/Cheney were these: (1) the whole world — including places where this is no shooting or fighting — is now deemed a War battlefield (which means unlimited Presidential war powers exist everywhere); and (2) presidential accusations of being a Terrorist are now deemed the equivalent of binding verdicts of guilt. Is there any possible way to support Obama’s assassination powers without embracing both of those notions? I’m genuinely interested in hearing answers to that question.
Outlawry is making a revival, in the sense that the state is explicitly placing people -- US citizens -- beyond the protection of the law.
Caput gerat lupinum.
(I know I've said it before, but no one replied the first time.)
times, I should say
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...ry#post3399747The normalization of torture represents a reversion to outlawry and self-help, hence, to the barbaric origins of Anglo-Saxon justice.
Wow...
10 in a row. What's up? Bored?
linking relevant material. hope you don't mind -- you're not required to read anything.
theme: return of outlawry.
chime in if you like, counselor.
Last edited by Winehole23; 12-04-2011 at 04:59 AM.
Sorry, not interested right now. Hitting the forum every once in a while as I watch a new DVD box set I got. Almost finished with the first season of It Takes a Thief. Loved the show as a kid. Don't remember any of the first season though.
have fun, 'ese
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obam...law/singleton/In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct). As a result, the final version of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.
The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.” Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”
Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “President Truman had the courage to veto” the Internal Security Act of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonment of Communists and other “subversives” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detention Act, and are now being rejuvenated by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention). President Obama, needless to say, is not Harry Truman. He’s not even the Candidate Obama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as ”black hole” injustice.
This one's ugly and for whatever reason reminds me of the Gestapo detaining and torturing Germans who opposed the Nazis during the latter stages of the second world war.
Brown Shirts, yes.
Barry caves on the veto, 5th and 6th amendments nullified
Dems cave on surtax on millionaires to pay for SS cut extension.
Barry's next cave in:
White House rejects Ryan-Wyden: 'This plan would end Medicare as we know it'
"We are concerned that Wyden-Ryan, like Congressman Ryan’s earlier proposal, would undermine, rather than strengthen, Medicare," said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. "The Wyden-Ryan scheme could, over time, cause the traditional Medicare program to “wither on the vine” because it would raise premiums, forcing many seniors to leave traditional Medicare and join private plans. And it would shift costs from the government to seniors. At the end of the day, this plan would end Medicare as we know it for millions of seniors. Wyden-Ryan is the wrong way to reform Medicare."
That's pretty strong language (not just "end Medicare as we know it" but also "wither on the vine" and "wrong way), and it echoes concerns from other Democrats. Rep. Pete Stark said it "ends Medicare as we know it, pure and simple" and Rep. Jim McDermott said he couldn't understand why Wyden was giving political "cover" to Paul Ryan by agreeing to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
There's no reason to think that turning Medicare into a voucher program—even if it's a voucher program with a public option—will save money over the current system. In fact, Ryan and Wyden rely on a trigger to reduce costs, just like the debt ceiling deal. Triggers didn't work with the debt ceiling and they won't work with Medicare. Why would we want to try them again ... especially as part of a plan that would get rid of Medicare as we know it?
Unlike the White House, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are both celebrating Ryan-Wyden, obviously hoping that Wyden's support for voucherizing Medicare gets them off the hook for supporting such an unpopular plan. But given the strong Democratic rejection of the proposal, that's not going to happen. And let's not forget: not only has virtually every House Republican voted for Ryan's original Medicare-repeal plan, both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich (belatedly, in the latter case) have said they would have signed it into law.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/1...28Daily+Kos%29
Obama’s White House that demanded the law apply to U.S. citizens in the first place.
Will not veto
http://www.infowars.com/indefinite-d...o-obamas-desk/
remember when the world was shocked that Chinese tanks nearly ran over student protesters?
If that happened in the U.S. today, half of the country would conclude they deserved it.
You are so damn right.
Fox News would be making cheerleaders out of the wingnuts.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011...tion-americansA defense spending bill that passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly and is set to be signed by President Barack Obama as early as this week could make it easier for the government to transfer American terrorist suspects to foreign regimes and security forces.
The National Defense Authorization Act (PDF) contains a section that says the president has the power to transfer suspected members and supporters of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or "associated" groups "to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign en y."
That means if the president determines you're a member or supporter of Al Qaeda or "associated forces," he could order you to be handed over to the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Yemenis ("any other foreign country"), any of their respective security forces, or even the United Nations ("any other foreign en y"). (You can read the relevant section of the law in the do ent viewer at the end of this article.)
Many legal experts consider the NDAA a congressional codification of war powers the Bush and Obama administrations have claimed they already possess. David Glazier, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and expert on the law of war, argues that Obama already had the power to transfer suspected Al Qaeda members (even Americans) to foreign custody, and the NDAA simply endorses that view. "If the president could lawfully transfer a German prisoner of war to a foreign country, then in theory he could do the same thing with an American prisoner of war," Glazier explains.
I don't know if this is good or bad, but I do know that there have been false representations of it. Just impossible to tell to what degree.
Wouldn't it be nice if it was required for our government, and the news media, to be honest to us?
ministry of truth?
no thanks.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
