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The Real Reason for Obama's Threat to Veto the Indefinite Detention Bill (Hint: It's Not to Protect Liberty)
OBAMA WANTS TO VETO THE INDEFINITE DETENTION BILL BECAUSE IT WOULD HOLD THE U.S. TO THE GENEVA CONVENTION
I - like everyone else - am horrified by the Senate's passage of legislation that would allow for indefinite detention of Americans.
And at first, I - like many others - assumed that Obama's threat to veto the bill might be a good thing. But the truth is much more disturbing.
As former Wall Street Street editor and columnist Paul Craig Roberts correctly notes:
POLICE STATE STARTED YEARS AGOThe Obama regime’s objection to military detention is not rooted in concern for the constitutional rights of American citizens. The regime objects to military detention because the implication of military detention is that detainees are prisoners of war. As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin put it: Should somebody determined “to be a member of an enemy force who has come to this nation or is in this nation to attack us as a member of a foreign enemy, should that person be treated according to the laws of war? The answer is yes.”
Detainees treated according to the laws of war have the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They cannot be tortured. The Obama regime opposes military detention, because detainees would have some rights. These rights would interfere with the regime’s ability to send detainees to CIA torture prisons overseas. [Yes, Obama is still apparently allowing "extraordinary renditions" to torture people abroad.] This is what the Obama regime means when it says that the requirement of military detention denies the regime “flexibility.”
The Bush/Obama regimes have evaded the Geneva Conventions by declaring that detainees are not POWs, but “enemy combatants,” “terrorists,” or some other designation that removes all accountability from the US government for their treatment.
By requiring military detention of the captured, Congress is undoing all the maneuvering that two regimes have accomplished in removing POW status from detainees.
A careful reading of the Obama regime’s objections to military detention supports this conclusion. (See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saps1867s_20111117.pdf)
The November 17 letter to the Senate from the Executive Office of the President says that the Obama regime does not want the authority it has under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Public Law 107-40, to be codified. Codification is risky, the regime says. “After a decade of settled jurisprudence on detention authority, Congress must be careful not to open a whole new series of legal questions that will distract from our efforts to protect the country.”
In other words, the regime is saying that under AUMF the executive branch has total discretion as to who it detains and how it treats detainees. Moreover, as the executive branch has total discretion, no one can find out what the executive branch is doing, who detainees are, or what is being done to them. Codification brings accountability, and the executive branch does not want accountability.
Those who see hope in Obama’s threatened veto have jumped to conclusions if they think the veto is based on constitutional scruples.
Even if Obama's threatened veto was for more noble purposes, the fact is that it would not change anything, because the U.S. government claimed the power to indefinitely detain and assassinate American citizens years ago.
For example, law school professor and National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn pointed out in 2006:
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."
***
Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush’s list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government’s policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.
Glenn Greenwald and Fire Dog Lake's Emptywheel have also documented that the White House has believed for many years that it possessed the power to indefinitely detain Americans. See this, this, this, and this.
I noted Friday:
The police state started in 2001.
Specifically, on 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney initiated Continuity of Government Plans that ended America’s constitutional form of government (at least for some undetermined period of time.)
On that same day, a national state of emergency was declared … and that state of emergency has continuously been in effect up to today.
The Obama administration has also said for more than a year and a half it could target American citizens for assassination without any trial or due process.
In 2005, Chris Floyd pointed out that the ability of the government to assassinate U.S. citizens started the very week of 9/11:
On September 17, 2001, George W. Bush signed an executive order authorizing the use of "lethal measures" against anyone in the world whom he or his minions designated an "enemy combatant." This order remains in force today. No judicial evidence, no hearing, no charges are required for these killings; no law, no border, no oversight restrains them. Bush has also given agents in the field carte blanche to designate "enemies" on their own initiative and kill them as they see fit.
The existence of this universal death squad – and the total obliteration of human liberty it represents – has not provoked so much as a crumb, an atom, a quantum particle of controversy in the American Establishment, although it's no secret. The executive order was first bruited in the Washington Post in October 2001 .... The New York Times added further details in December 2002. That same month, Bush officials made clear that the dread edict also applied to American citizens, as the Associated Press reported.
The first officially confirmed use of this power was the killing of an American citizen in Yemen by a CIA drone missile on November 3, 2002. A similar strike occurred in Pakistan this month, when a CIA missile destroyed a house and purportedly killed Abu Hamza Rabia, a suspected al Qaeda figure. But the only bodies found at the site were those of two children, the houseowner's son and nephew, Reuters reports. The grieving father denied any connection to terrorism. An earlier CIA strike on another house missed Rabia but killed his wife and children, Pakistani officials reported.
But most of the assassinations are carried out in secret, quietly, professionally, like a contract killing for the mob. As a Pentagon document unearthed by the New Yorker in December 2002 put it, the death squads must be "small and agile," and "able to operate clandestinely, using a full range of official and non-official cover arrangements to…enter countries surreptitiously."
The dangers of this policy are obvious, as a UN report on "extrajudicial killings" noted in December 2004: " Empowering governments to identify and kill 'known terrorists' places no verifiable obligation upon them to demonstrate in any way that those against whom lethal force is used are indeed terrorists… While it is portrayed as a limited 'exception' to international norms, it actually creates the potential for an endless expansion of the relevant category to include any enemies of the State, social misfits, political opponents, or others."
It's hard to believe that any genuine democracy would accept a claim by its leader that he could have anyone killed simply by labeling them an "enemy." It's hard to believe that any adult with even the slightest knowledge of history or human nature could countenance such unlimited, arbitrary power, knowing the evil it is bound to produce. Yet this is what the great and good in America have done. Like the boyars of old, they not only countenance but celebrate their enslavement to the ruler.
[Note from Washington's Blog: 9/11 allowed those who glorify war to implement plans they had lusted after for many years (and see this), even though 9/11 happened because Dick Cheney was - at best - totally incompetent, and the government is now doing things which increase the risk of terrorism, instead of doing the things which could actually make us safer.]
***
This was vividly demonstrated in ... Bush's State of the Union address in January 2003, delivered to Congress and televised nationwide during the final frenzy of war-drum beating before the assault on Iraq. Trumpeting his successes in the Terror War, Bush claimed that "more than 3,000 suspected terrorists" had been arrested worldwide – "and many others have met a different fate." His face then took on the characteristic leer, the strange, sickly half-smile it acquires whenever he speaks of killing people: "Let's put it this way. They are no longer a problem."
In other words, the suspects – and even Bush acknowledged they were only suspects – had been murdered. Lynched. Killed by agents operating unsupervised in that shadow world where intelligence, terrorism, politics, finance and organized crime meld together in one amorphous, impenetrable mass. Killed on the word of a dubious informer, perhaps: a tortured captive willing to say anything to end his torment, a business rival, a personal foe, a bureaucrat looking to impress his superiors, a paid snitch in need of cash, a zealous crank pursuing ethnic, tribal or religious hatreds – or any other purveyor of the garbage data that is coin of the realm in the shadow world.
Bush proudly held up this hideous system as an example of what he called "the meaning of American justice." And the assembled legislators…applauded. Oh, how they applauded!
This is, of course, the real meaning of the famous Star Wars scene:
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"... HOLD THE U.S. TO THE GENEVA CONVENTION"
Ah yes, reminds me of Hogan's Hero's and the Nazis ignoring the "Geneva Convention".
The National Lawyers Guild is communist. That needs to be pointed out.
Very true. They don't want you to know that. They're the scum behind all the Senate/House treasonous assholes. Believe me there will be a culling of Lawyers/Attorneys. 75% of Congress are Lawyers. Why do you think so much fail?
"All this for a flag?" - MO
9/11 wasn't carried out by ideological Al Qaeda terrorists. How did Osama implode building 7 even though it was hit by no plane? Al Qaeda isn't real, this is all meant for you. Buy guns and supplies and learn how to survive.
+ 100
http://ae911truth.org/
Eventually, many of the less informed posters here will have their arms and precious metals forcefully confiscated, but as long as the US has its patriotic songs and claims to be the freest nation on earth, I suppose they'll buy it.
Susceptible to marketing, but not reality.
Look at the trend. The trend is your friend.
If thinking that makes you sleep better at night, so be it. Reality in America is there are 150 million gun owners, with billions of rounds of ammo amongst em. Lets say for arguments sake that only three percent of em ar the "cold dead hands" type that refuse to disarm. That means 4.5 million gun owners will shoot at least the first person through their door. Even if these homes are targeted with obamas new cencus gps coord's on each American home, we are talking about a total decimation of "boots on the ground." Its more likely they cut of our food supply. You know what happens then. But even that senario only leaves more pissed off, hungry gun owners (the only ones left) to deal with who will all be on constant alert. By that time we will probably all have 16 fingers from worldwide radiation anyhow. Asv far as a ploice state, that only aplies for those who dont know how to exercise their natural rights in a republic. Always talking about "civil right," a term to be despised in my mind. Why anyone wou;ld trade soveriegn rights for govt. permission knowlegably is beyond me. Guess its all the brainwashing from the tell-a-vision.
Anyhow, i raise the sam adams in my hand to all the other sovereigns out there.
Keep it dry
You and I are probably polar opposites politically, but I'm in full agreement with your above take.
Name an attack plot that was prevented by Homeland Security, please...
There's not one.
Move to Russia you fucking ignorant America-hating communist.
How 80's of you...
SmokeyQuinn:
You is dense mofo!
You learn nothing from the bitch-slapping I gave you yesterday?
ZeroHedge ain't the place for trolls like you who beg on their calloused knees for some little attention and infamy.
Is the notoriety, you so desperately crave, gained from stupid comments and creating the reputation of an obscene MORON addicted to porn and zoophilia?
All the 9/11 aiders and abettors over at your home blog...
www.TheBestialityPlatform.com ... miss their resident idiot.
They love reading your zoosexuality and anal-fixated musings.
I wonder if that was a Hitler bumper sticker at one point?
This is what Lincoln did when he suspended habeous corpus. And he SIGNED the Geneva Convention. So therefore this policy must be right since Lincoln was "great"!
I know this will draw the ire of many people here, but I would like to point out that if we have in fact reached "police state" status... it seems to be working fine in terms of preventing terrorist attacks inside the country. There have been plenty of attempts but there hasn't been a single successful post-9/11 attack on the US.
When I hear the phrase "police state", I start picturing stuff like Gestapo and SS troops going block by block, dragging people from their homes, lining them up, and murdering them by the hundreds in broad daylight. Thankfully I've not seen that happen yet in this country, nor do I ever hope to see it.
laughing man, the inside boys have you to thank for without you, and millions like you, they would be powerless.
You crack me up! Don't you know that the only "terrorist plots" that have been foiled have been ones created and set-up by our own government? You need to get out more!
I don't know all the details but "The Laughing Man" is from some lame Japanese cartoon called Ghost in the Shell. Most likely these two posters are teenage/early 20's kids living in their momma's basements.
Their avatars are derived from http://www.lowbird.com/all/view/2010/08/1280562044580 which is a similar face that says "what I thought I'd do is I'd troll some fags on the internet."
Neither of these posters should be taken seriously as they are both obvious trolls and declare themselves such via their chosen names and avatars. Their posts should be disregarded outright.
We'll know soon enough Laughing Man.
But in your case they'll send the Major and Section 9 after you...
No shit you wont see it. That is exactly why it didn't come like that. Because that is what you have been trained to expect!
pods
Are you really this ignorant, or forget to sarc?
No ire, but let me set you straight. You assume that 9/11 was a "terrorist" attack. I beg to differ. Perhaps it was not a "terror" attack at all but the successful coup 'd etat of a group of men (neo-cons) who successfully plotted to create a "Pearl Harbor-type event" in order to initiate their agenda, which included invasion of Iraq. As you'll recall they tried like hell to finger Saddam Hussein as "somehow" being connected to 9/11 and possessing WMD. What they wanted to establish was an excuse for a military stronghold with "Operation Iraqi Liberation" (OIL), but changed the name when it was too obvious. Also remember a covert CIA agent whose job was to ferrett out WMD in Iraq (Valerie Plame) was outed by Cheney's office. Perhaps it wasn't her husband Joe's comments about "no yellowcake" at all, but perhaps she was getting close to the truth of the existence of this cabal.
The only "terror" attacks I've seen note of that have been "thwarted" in the U.S. are set-up attempts to goad some guys who possess less than average intellegence into some sort of "plot". Were they left alone chances are a million to one that nothing would have resulted, but it makes good press to drag one of these cases out from time to time to justify the existence of DHS.
So in summary, the current state of affairs is nothng to "laugh" about; these bastards are trampling all over the Geneva Convention, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. of A. is in precarious danger of initiating exactly what you described as your vision.
Westcoastiiberal.
You got it right. The liberals and conservatives have to come together to save the Republic from this Two Party Oligarchy.
Even The Oracle of Omaha pointed it out. There is a war going on. This is not just blatant financial Terror being waged. It accompanies a dismantling of civil liberties that we have gladly surrendered for supposed protection. A very small group of sociopathic representatives; minions with benefits and their Psychopathic masters are sealing the deal for an all out Paramilitary Police state.
All Americans should consider the following
"The bane of humanity is we learn nothing from the horrors of past atrocities and history repeats itself. Our/Your passive acceptance of one transgression always makes way for another. This and the belief that injustice, visited on our neighbor, will not one day come knocking at our door is the banality of evil..." - Inflection Point
See: RAPE OF THE REPUBLIC
When it comes to Financial Terrorism; lack of action by those constitutionally sworn to protect the people is the equivalent of active participation at most and passive complicity at least, both of which are acts of treason.
To save the republic we love; The Rule Of Law Must Apply To All Americans! John F. Kennedy understood the potential cost when one group dominates the whole, when he said;
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."
THE RULE OF LAW MUST APPLY TO ALL AMERICANS!
The Minions and their enforcers will face a future they are incapable of fathoming.
"There are no parasites as vile, insidious and cold as the Bankers. They are the original Satanist. Stop the bankers and you stop the wars, you stop the poverty, you stop the inequality. You stop every evil financed by them and they are considerable.... It's a wonderful irony that those who have spent a lifetime putting others into debt are now going to find themselves very very deeply in debt." - The Forces of the Last Gasp, on Meat Street.
"Sociopaths are always drawn to positions of power and control, which correlates well with our stunning lack of leadership. But, this is not a crisis of leadership. It is a societal and Constitutional crisis. For it is with our consent; a self serving, Two Party Oligarchy has taken the seat of power... A simple scan of history should motivate the people to action. Or, like those before us, one day we may find ourselves on a heap of destruction, only then realizing, it was with our consent, a small group of psychopaths put us there."
- Everything Is Fine: Move On - There's Nothing Here For The 99%
Hey you son of a b*tch. First you steal my name and identity and then you go along and right this crap.
Zerohedge, please eliminate this wanker copy cat.
I don't know all the details but "The Laughing Man" is from some lame Japanese cartoon called Ghost in the Shell. Most likely these two posters are teenage/early 20's kids living in their momma's basements.
Their avatars are derived from http://www.lowbird.com/all/view/2010/08/1280562044580 which is a similar face that says "what I thought I'd do is I'd troll some fags on the internet."
Neither of these posters should be taken seriously as they are both obvious trolls and declare themselves such via their chosen names and avatars. Their posts should be disregarded outright.
The flood of trolls and retards from 4 Chan, Reddit, and Drudge Report is now unstoppable I'm afraid. The quality of the discourse in the comments section on Zero Hedge has been steadily declining and will soon reach Reddit's level of retardation.
Lol afraid I got it 14 weeks earlier than you. Too bad.
"it seems to be working fine in terms of preventing terrorist attacks inside the country."
The real terms are your complete bullshit argument repeated about post 911 attacks - 100% coincidence for sale.
Earth hasn't been hit by an Al-Queda asteroid either, so obviously all the terrorist asteroid mitigation prayers have been a wild success, too.
Time to get profiled, groped and your pussy stared at by TSA, just doing God's work to protect you from Al-Queda asteroids.
Here is the only term that matters -
NATIONAL [IN]SECURITY = TAXPAYER LOOTING!
"it seems to be working fine in terms of preventing terrorist attacks"
Could it be that, except for the underpants bomber and the shoe bomber, there just aren't that many "terrorists" out there? I believe there are millions that hate America but I'm very sceptical that many have the ways/means to carry anything out. But it is very profitable for some to keep the sheeple in fear and then sell them on the idea of TSA and body scans are good for them.
Don't get me wrong Navigator, I'm no fan of the TSA, its body scans, or its many MANY other flaws. I'm just pointing out the simple fact regarding the lack of successful attacks since 9/11. We can debate the reasons for why that is so til the cows come home, I'm just stating a fact in relation to the argument that we've become a police state.
'The Laughing Man' is such a transparent troll that he/she/it must be paid with your tax dollars.
I don't know all the details but "The Laughing Man" is from some lame Japanese cartoon called Ghost in the Shell. Most likely these two posters are teenage/early 20's kids living in their momma's basements.
Their avatars are derived from http://www.lowbird.com/all/view/2010/08/1280562044580 which is a similar face that says "what I thought I'd do is I'd troll some fags on the internet."
Neither of these posters should be taken seriously as they are both obvious trolls and declare themselves such via their chosen names and avatars. Their posts should be disregarded outright.
Just say, for the sake of argument, that you are correct, the reason there have been no terrorist attacks in the last 10 years is the imposition of the police state. Also assume that what the financiers and their colleagues in government have done to governance and the ideals of democracy in the US is not terrorism. Would, then, the imposition of the police state be a reasonable price to have paid for the lack of terrorist attacks?
I think not. I'll take my chances with the terrorists.
Please, get with some educational material that isn't written in headline format. It will open your eyes, and they have been closed.
Piranhanoia,
I'm getting sick of the invasion of paid corporate and govt(our and foreign) trolls on this site,like you.
GW often brings out the good ones...
We also didnt have "terrorist" attacks before 9/11 either. If you dont think that we are in a police state, try to remember what it looked like here in the early 90's. try to imagine how it was when there wasnt so much control, cops at grocery stores, malls, wallmart, FUCKING EVERYWHERE! and if you do some research you will find the pictures of the army rolling down the streets of america. do you believe everything you see on TV or read in the media controlled by one organization? You know what, go read the story of how to boil a frog. go read 1984. go look at how hitler gained control, stalin, saddam, any dictator, it doesnt happen overnight, it takes generations to slowly change culture and then one day, youre just fucked, all of your money is gone and now you depend on the "regime". so get ready for that "laughing man" because youll be the crying man pretty soon if you keep going with the flow...
Hi Laughing Man
A Ben Franklin quote goes something like this: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." and I tend to agree with this wisdom.
Secondly, I've lost all faith in what our so-called leaders have to say - false flags, propaganda, BS. If they can't even be trusted to publish a true un-employment rate, well, enough said.
There have been no massacres committed by maniacal, subterranean dwelling clowns lately. The police state must be working. Hurrah!
What you're describing is ethnic cleansing or civil war. The USA is DEFINITELY a "police state," but we haven't started with labor camps or anything yet.
The apparatus to commit those acts is all in place. That's what makes it a police state. Cops could very easily start rounding up the Jews tomorrow. Or the blacks, or the latinos, or the veterans, or whoever.
As demonstrated, no one seems to care what the laws say.
I predict short lived round up's. Gun confiscation would have to precede, as jews, blacks and latinos far outnumber cops and would not go willingly like the jews did.
ever heard of the LA RIOTS, and that was pretty much blacks only,a couple of latinos
Going by your argument though, the police state is established by the simple potential of the goverment to commit the acts you described. By that same logic you could argue that we've been a police state since the start of the 20th century or even earlier. For me a police state isn't established unless those acts are actually being committed.
Police Power out of control:
http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/16/pre-crime-policing
http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/01/45-swat-raids-per-day
http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/17/flashbangs-under-fire
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/14/chicagos-thick-blue-wall
http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/01/jericho-bile
http://reason.com/archives/2009/10/05/scenes-from-a-crackdown
http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/28/the-infallible-prosecutor
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/19/sheriff-joes-enabler
What do you call 100 SWAT raids per day?
The acts are being committed. Open your eyes.
Some Americans still buy into that whole "free society" and Constitution thing, and they don't think the government should have legal authority to just lock people up for no reason.
For sure, for those who don't care about what the laws say, like yourself, there's nothing worth reading here.
I'd add that admittedly, MOST of the folks who are upset about this are a bit naive.
The notion that the government would ever obey its own laws in the first place should be recognized as wishful thinking.
There are far fewer real terrorists than the government would have you believe. Government agencies almost never prevent real terrorist attacks. The people have been doing that.
A State Dept. official testified before congress that they let the underwear bomber keep his visa so that they could watch what he would do. So they watched the guy get on a plane and try to set off a bomb until some passengers stopped him.
The car bomb which was planted in NYC was spotted by civilians.
The publicized cases of government agencies "catching terrorists" mostly revolve around the common scenario of finding some losers in a minority community, ginning them up for some sort of attack and then buying these "terrorists" boots, cameras and other equipment to further their "plot" at which point they are arrested.
That's not a conspiracy theory. That's the news.
We hire the best terrorists that money can buy. Wake up America.
How far is America going to sink???
If you ever wondered why some Germans worked in the death camps, they were exactly like the current American population - they did as they were told and were too cowardly to speak up against their leaders.
Join us:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gun-Owners-for-a-Gold-Standard/180803025347901
AndrewCostello has it right - It's called The Banality of Evil
All Americans must consider the following
"The bane of humanity is we learn nothing from the horrors of past atrocities and history repeats itself. Our/Your passive acceptance of one transgression always makes way for another. This and the belief that injustice, visited on our neighbor, will not one day come knocking at our door is the banality of evil..." - Inflection Point
See: RAPE OF THE REPUBLIC
Us and themAnd, after all, we’re only ordinary men.
Me and you
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.
- Pink Floyd, Us and Them
More on the The Banality of Evil
"There Are Monsters, And They Walk Among Us." - Jesse's Café Américain
WilliamBanzai7 pointed the deception of the media regarding Time mag's cover. It bares repeating.
See: MUST SEE: The Deception of Media and Surprise Prediction at End
Detain them all, it's good for foreclosures.
No justuce, no liberty, no problem!
No threat too small, no bonus too large, lock them up and everyone gets paid!!
It's the new world order, and since it's new, no one but too big to jail allowed!