What caused an unholy trinity of Republicans, Democrats and the President to trash the Constitution?

[Better Believe It]

There’s Something They’re Not Telling Us… President Signs Indefinite Detention Law
by: Craig Wiesn
Craig is a decorated Air Force veteran who served as a Korean linguist, intelligence analyst, and language instructor (at the Defense Language Institute) from 1979 - 1987. Craig is on the board of Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice (a Bay Area peace organization),
January 5, 2012

When I first heard about Congress adding a provision to a Defense Authorization bill that would allow for the U.S. MILITARY to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, without trial, just for being suspected of supporting anyone who was “engaged in hostilities against the United States,” I assumed it was just the work of some whacky right-winger who knew that the language didn’t have a chance of surviving the first round of mark-ups in conference committee. When the Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for the bill, with the President signing it in the dead of night when no one was looking, it struck me that something very strange was happening, and so far, no one has offered a serious explanation of why this bill came to be and is now law.

What could possibly have caused even some of the most liberal and conservative of members of Congress to vote for such sweeping power, handed to whoever happens to be president, for as long as “the long war” (as the Pentagon supposedly calls it), continues? Since we fought a revolutionary war against England for, among other things, allowing the military to trash the lives of civilians, it has been clear that the United States military can not and should not have the power to arrest American citizens, on American soil, and disappear them to places like Guantanamo Bay forever.

What terrible and frightful scenario is going on at this very moment that caused an unholy trinity of Republicans, Democrats and the President to literally trash the Constitution and 200 years of successful separation of military and civilian authority?

Congress and the President have violated their oaths of office by writing and signing this law. If the United States military is holding a U.S. citizen in military custody and has not allowed that person to have a civilian lawyer and access to a civilian court, members of the military involved in that imprisonment have violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and are committing treason.

Read the full article at:

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/01/05/theres-something-theyre-not-telling-us-president-signs-indefinite-detention-law/

[LonePirate]

1. Money is the simplest and most logical explanation.

[bvar22]

21. Or, in THIS case,

....the ability to Protect Money from democracy.




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[roguevalley]

34. Obama signing that law is beyond the pale. So what if he won't use it.

someone will. I'm glad I'm old and don't have to live through bladerunner world which he helped to create.

[vi5]

2. Power corrupts.....

....absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I forget who said that, but it explains pretty much everything going on in our country right now.

[ProfessorGAC]

38. Lord Acton

GAC

[DJ13]

3. "This law is, if I may be not overly dramatic, treasonous."

"Congress and the President have violated their oaths of office by writing and signing this law."

[closeupready]

23. Ergo, the appeal of Ron Paul to many people.

nt

[QC]

40. Oh please--have you ever seen Ron Paul in his swimsuit? n/t

[indepat]

24. Apparently none are troubled by such piffles

[SteveW]

4. The Unitary Presidency (institutionalized under Cheney/Bush) is the norm...

"...for as long as “the long war” (as the Pentagon supposedly calls it), continues[?]"

The Unitary Presidency allows far more than the suspension of habeas corpus and the denial of due process, it allows for the suspension of ANY citizen's rights as long as a state of emergency, i.e., war, is in progress. That is why we have the expression:

PermaWar.

And we shall continue to have PermaWar to "support" the thin intellectual logic underpinning the Unitary Presidency. Cheney wanted it. He got it. It is welded onto the Constitution like a grand Catch 22. What remains of the "left" has no power to turn this back, and some "liberals" support the UP anyway. Further, Obama WILL not confront the GOP over this and many other policies; remember, he is pragmatic and eschews labels.

[Old and In the Way]

5. FEMA camps...we're all going to FEMA camps.

Dammit.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Couple that with the Liebermann/Dent Bill making its' way through Congress and it's game, set match.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002154933

"Civil libertarian relief appears to have been somewhat naive however, because Congress is currently considering HR 3166 and S. 1698 also known as the 'Enemy Expatriation Act', a bill sponsored by 'Mr. Kill Switch' and 'Defender of Israel', Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA) that, if passed, will give the US government the power to strip Americans of their citizenship for "engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States." Take note, you don't have to be convicted of 'terrorism', you simply have to be accused of 'hostilities against the United States', like camping out or protesting with the OWS gang, for one example, or possibly even writing articles such as this one. This bill seems to be an effort to side-step the clamored for change to the language of the 'Indefinite Detention bill' within the NDAA that seems to have, more or less, excluded American citizens from indefinite detention without trial. Liberman - or whoever is pulling his puppet strings - probably thought long and hard about this problem and decided that the best way to re-include American citizens in the 'Indefinite Detention bill' was to provide for the removal of their citizenship! Genius!"

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

[woo me with science]

13. And control of the internet.

We are in deep, deep trouble in this country, and it is bipartisan trouble.

[JDPriestly]

7. Interesting hypothesis.

What terrible and frightful scenario is going on at this very moment that caused an unholy trinity of Republicans, Democrats and the President to literally trash the Constitution and 200 years of successful separation of military and civilian authority?

Somewhere, I suspect, there’s at least one American citizen already being held by U.S. military forces, whom they suspect of being involved in something so horrible that they have to keep him or her locked up while they try to unravel the mess that he or she is involved with. And… if the past is any teacher, that American probably worked for the U.S. military, some American contractor, or the CIA before becoming an enemy of the state. The president must have called key members of Congress into his office and told them the story, showed them horrifying pictures, and told them he needed the authority to do whatever it was he wanted to do or the world as we know it would end.

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/01/05/theres-something-theyre-not-telling-us-president-signs-indefinite-detention-law/

Did someone in the military or CIA do something really treasonous? That could be the problem. I don't think Manning would be the suspect this law was written for. Could be someone else.

This is, of course, just a theory, but it is intriguing.

I can't imagine that OWS was the impetus for the writing of this law. OWS may be a pain in the neck to the authorities, but it is not an insurrection, not even approaching it. And the authorities know it. OWS is mostly well educated people with unfulfilled dreams and lots to lose, not violent revolutionaries.

The article suggests that there must be something else behind this.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but then those theories are not always wrong -- rarely true, but not always wrong.

[BeFree]

9. Very Interesting

Just for example let's say that there were some military coup planned.

The perps could be rounded up and imprisoned and no one would have the legal means to find out why. In effect, a coverup.

And it could be a way to keep cheney from opening his damn yap again?

[bvar22]

22. "I can't imagine that OWS was the impetus for the writing of this law"

...maybe not THIS year,
but if it grows and becomes more powerful?

...if there is a continued decline of the Working Class?


....if the House of Cards collapses, and there are MILLIONS of really hungry Americans banging on The Gates?



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[roguevalley]

35. consider the mannings of the world who will not save us for this. thanks, obama.

[Welibs]

8. That language was write by Republicans and Obama had it taken OUT before he signed it and

Obama added a signing statement. You'd have to find the version he signed but it was on this site last week I think. And he didn't sign it in the dead of night! While there were many false stories about it being signed, it wasn't a secret when he did sign it.

[CrispyQ]

10. The author addresses that in the comments section:

And yes, I was aware of President Obama’s signing statement. Those statements are not worth the paper on which they are written (typed, computer imprinted, or whatever the most accurate words would be). The law is the law. Presidents are not bound by signing statements. Even “Executive Orders” are not worth the paper they are written on, because like signing statements, future presidents don’t have to follow them. Even the president who wrote an executive order can exempt people from following it, as was and is the case in assassinations carried out by this president and his predecessors since Gerald Ford’s executive order against such acts (and Jimmy Carter’s follow up to Ford’s orders).

~emphasis added.

If Bush had done some of the things this president has done . . .

[Autumn]

11. The next republican president will

send him a thank you note. Constitution, signing statement, they are both just a god damn piece of paper. {credit to Bushie boy for the former}

[markpkessinger]

12. A signing statement doesn't mean jack shit . . .

. . . if the President later decides to ignore it. And it sure as hell has no binding effect whatsoever on future presidents -- and that's the REAL concern here.

[lib2DaBone]

14. Mr. Obama works for Wall Street...

I'm sorry.. but I can not forget that Mr. Obama PROMISED during his campaign to close Gitmo.

Today we have the 10th anniversary of Gitmo and the NDAA Act.

[woo me with science]

15. K&R

Occupy NOW.

[Poll_Blind]

16. They say you can't fight what's comin'. I'd like to at least know what's coming.

They that voted "Yea" do.

PB

[woo me with science]

17. We'd better damned well fight it now,

because they are putting structures in place to prevent us from fighting it in the future.

[TheKentuckian]

18. This correct and it is bipartisan. There is no just cause or good defense of the practices

being legislated and enacted for the last decade or so other than riding a wave of mindless fear.

[woo me with science]

30. No just cause, but I worry about their thinking.

I worry that they anticipate that the typical standard of living is about to collapse on a scale most Americans cannot yet even fathom, that the "haves" will grab what they can, and that they will need measures to control the rest of us.

[Warren DeMontague]

19. The drug war.

People who think the constitution just suddenly up and vanished should have been paying bettter attention for the past 3 decades; as we eliminated the 4th amendment and put a million plus people in prison so we could keep folks from smoking a fucking plant.

[a simple pattern]

37. More like keeping that plant illegal in order to put folks in prison.

Other than that I agree.

[T S Justly]

20. The unfulfilled dreams of psychopaths. K&R (nt)

[bbgrunt]

27. I thank the op for posting really important issues. Do you not think

it strange that such legislation was passed with almost universal support from both parties when there is almost nothing else they agree on? And what is the purpose of the new Lieberman/Dent bill?

If all you want to talk about is election polls, please go watch any station, liberal or conservative, on t.v.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

26. Those at the federal level are setting examples and providing weaponry for others at the local level

Yes, "Congress and the President have violated their oaths of office by writing and signing this law."

But events have been put into motion that's taking it beyond what they have directly authorized.

We have ambitious morons at the local levels who will want more money, more power, and won't feel constrained by the Constitution and the rule of law. They have been and are following the examples set by those at the federal level. Some, without going so far as to adopt indefinite detention provisions, are already doing so.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

28. I would like to know

why, with Iraq over, Afghanistan soon-to-be winding down (if President Obama gets re-elected), Al-Queda smashed, and, most importantly, Bin Laden dead, that we can't close Gitmo, end the AUMF, and return to (more or less) how things were before Bush/Cheney began their "war on terror" that followed 9/11? Also, we need to decide once for all how to treat terrorism. It worked fine with the FBI treating terrorism as a crime and prosecuting terrorists in courthouses wasn't controversial at all before 9/11 but things got blurry after 9/11 because of the Bush (mis-)Administration.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

31. Our UNIFORMED troops are out of Iraq.

[Romulox]

32. War, and money. And the money that can be made from war. nt

[dawg]

33. Fear.

Fear of being blamed for being "soft" on terrorists. Fear of a terror attack. Fear of being *blamed* for a terror attack. Fear of not appearing moderate. Fear of being accused of vetoing "funding for our soldiers" in an election year.

Just plain ol' fear - manifested in this un-American policy.

One thing's for sure - it isn't just the President.

[MineralMan]

36. I don't even know where to begin with this load of crap.

Maybe with the word "treason" in this screed.

Screw this!

[Better Believe It]

39. You could try to refute the article .... if you can.

You up to it?