Torture Bill States Non-Allegiance To Bush Is Terrorism

Torture Bill States Non-Allegiance To Bush Is Terrorism

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http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles...orturebill.htm



Torture Bill States Non-Allegiance To Bush Is Terrorism

Legislation tolls the bell for the day America died, birth of the dictatorship
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | September 29 2006
Buried amongst the untold affronts to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the very spirit of America, the torture bill contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.
7:25PM CST UPDATE
After five hours of searching through the 80-plus page bill, Alex Jones, who won the 2004 Project Censored award for his analysis of Patriot Act 2, uncovered numerous other provisions and definitions that make the bill appear as almost a mirror image of Hitler's 1933 Enabling Act.

In section 950j. the bill criminalizes any challenge to the legislation's legality by the Supreme Court or any United States court. Alberto Gonzales has already threatened federal judges to shut up and not question Bush's authority on the torture of detainees.

"No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever, including any action pending on or filed after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions under this chapter."

The Bush administration is preemptively overriding any challenge to the legislation by the Supreme Court.

The definition of torture that the legislation cites is US code title 18 section 2340. This is a broad definition of torture and completely lacks the specific clarity of the Geneva Conventions. This definition allows the use of torture that is, "incidental to lawful sanctions." In alliance with the bill's blanket authority for President Bush to define the Geneva Conventions as he sees fit, this legislates the use of torture.
The media has spun the bill as if it outlaws torture - it only outlaws torture for "enemy combatants," and in fact outlaws the retaliation of any military against the United States as "murder." Those deemed "enemy combatants" are not even allowed to fight back yet the government affords itself every power including the go-ahead to torture.

Further actions that result in the classification of an individual as a terrorist include the following.
- Destruction of any property, which is deemed punishable by any means of the military tribunal's choosing.
- Any violent activity whatsoever if it takes place near a designated protected building, such as a charity building.
- A change of the definition of "pillaging" which turns all illegal occupation of property and all theft into terrorism. This makes squatters and petty thieves enemy combatants.

In light of Greg Palast's recent hounding by Homeland Security, after they accused him of potentially giving terrorists key information about U.S. "critical infrastructure" when filming Exxon’s Baton Rouge refinery (clear photos of which were publicly available on Google Maps), sub-section 27 of section 950v. should send chills down the spine of all investigative journalists and even news-gatherers.

"Any person subject to this chapter who with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign power, collects or attempts to collect information by clandestine means or while acting under false pretenses, for the purpose of conveying such information to an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

Subsection 4(b) (26) of section 950v. of HR 6166 - Crimes triable by military commissions - includes the following definition.
"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

For an individual to hold an allegiance or duty to the United States they need to be a citizen of the United States. Why would a foreign terrorist have any allegiance to the United States to breach in the first place?

This is another telltale facet that proves the bill applies to U.S. citizens and includes them under the "enemy combatant" designation. We previously cited the comments of Yale law Professor Bruce Ackerman, who wrote in the L.A. Times, "The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal protections of the Bill of Rights."

The New York Times stated that the legislation introduced, "A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted."

Calling the bill "our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts," the Times goes on to highlight the rubber stamping of torture.

"Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses."

Since with this bill, in the aggregate, Bush has declared himself to be above the Constitution and the laws of the United States, the allegiance of American citizens is no longer to the flag or the freedoms for which it stands, but to Bush himself, the self-appointed dictator, and any diversion from that allegiance will mandate arrest, torture and conviction in a military tribunal under the terms of this bill.

Similar to the UK's Glorification of Terrorism law, which top lawyers have slammed as vague, open to interpretation and a potential weapon for the government to kidnap supposed subversives, the nebulous context of "wrongfully aiding the enemy," could easily be defined to include publicly absolving an accused terrorist of involvement in a terrorist attack.

That renders the entire 9/11 truth movement an aid to terrorist suspects and subject to military tribunal and torture. In addition, Bush's recently cited National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which is available on the White House website, labels conspiracy theorists as terrorist recruiters.

This should leave us with no doubt as to which parties are the target of the government's torture and intimidation campaign.

Could protesting a war approved by the government and their bootlickers in Congress and the Senate be considered breaching an allegiance to the United States? Could campaigning against the bombing of a target country be considered wrongfully aiding the enemy?

When the USA PATRIOT act was rushed through at the height of an anthrax scare without any members of Congress even having time to read it, we were assured that it was to fight terrorists and would not be used against the American people.
Since then a plethora of cases whereby the USA PATRIOT act was used against U.S. citizens emerged, including the internment without trial for over three years of Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was finally released after no evidence of terrorism was uncovered.

The so-called "compromise" before the bill was passed and the media acclaim of John McCain as some kind of human rights champion is one of the biggest con jobs ever inflicted upon the American people.

Shortly after the bill was finalized it was spun by Bush security advisor Stephen Hadley as "good news and a good day for the American people." McCain said that it safeguarded "the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions."

In truth the legislation does the exact opposite, giving Bush carte blanche to "interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions."
In addition, under the bill, "No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories."

The bill also allows hearsay evidence (obtained via phony confessions after torture) to be considered by the military tribunal and bars the suspect from even having knowledge of the charges against him - making a case for defense impossible. This is guaranteed to produce 100% conviction rates as you would expect in the dictatorships of Uzbekistan or Zimbabwe and other torture protagonists who are in many cases allied with the Bush administration and provide phony confessions obtained from torture that allow the U.S. government to scare its people with the threat of imaginary Al-Qaeda terror cells waiting to kill them.

Following the Supreme Court's ruling to previously strike down Bush's shadow penal system, Alberto Gonzales is already out threatening federal judges to shut up and get behind the dictator or face the consequences.

Gonzales has the sheer gall to attack judges for even considering to "overturn long-standing traditions or policies without proper support in text or precedent," which is exactly what Gonzales, Bush and the rest of the White House criminals are doing themselves by de facto abolishing the Bill of Rights!

This is a dark day for the United States, the day America died and the bastard birth of a literal dictatorship.RELATED: Bush Given Authority To Sexually Torture American Children"

Let me get in under the line.......

Or this one........

I've really got to go back and rethink the entire anti-Christ thing and how he will be a man of 'peace' supposedly and all that....this just isn't adding up (what I was taught when I was younger) and what I know right now about him...

Rusty, I think it is retroactive!!!!



This is so bad...

VesperSparrow said:

I've really got to go back and rethink the entire anti-Christ thing and how he will be a man of 'peace' supposedly and all that....this just isn't adding up (what I was taught when I was younger) and what I know right now about him...

Click to expand...

He'll come to power in a time of great war....say before or just after the first of the year.

The Reichstag Fire Decree (Reichstagsbrandverordnung in German) is the common name of the decree issued by German president Paul von Hindenburg in direct response to the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With Nazis in key positions of the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis of imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and was used to suppress publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians to be one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany.

Background

Adolf Hitler had been named chancellor of Germany and invited by President von Hindenburg to lead a coalition government only four weeks previously, on January 30, 1933. Hitler's government urged von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and to call elections for March 5.

On the evening of February 27, 1933 — six days before the parliamentary election — fire broke out in the Reichstag chambers. While the exact circumstances of the fire remain unclear to this day, what is clear is that Hitler and his supporters quickly capitalized on the fire as a means by which to speed their consolidation of power. Seizing on the burning of the Reichstag building as the opening salvo in a communist uprising, the Nazis were able to throw millions of Germans into a convulsion of fear at the threat of Communist terror. The official account stated:

The burning of the Reichstag was intended to be the signal for a bloody uprising and civil war. Large-scale pillaging in Berlin was planned.... It has been determined that ... throughout Germany acts of terrorism were to begin against prominent individuals, against private property, against the lives and safety of the peaceful population, and general civil war was to be unleashed....
The decree was improvised on the day after the fire (February 28) after discussions in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, which was led by Hermann Göring, and was then brought before the Reich cabinet. In the ensuing discussions, Hitler stated that the fire made it now a matter of "ruthless confrontation of the KPD" and shortly thereafter, President von Hindenburg, 84 years old and lapsing in and out of senility, signed the decree into law.

The decree, officially the Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat (Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State), invoked the authority of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution which allowed the Reichspräsident to take any appropriate measure to remedy dangers to public safety.

The decree consisted of six articles. Article 1 suspended most of the civil liberties set forth in the Weimar Constitution — freedom of the person, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, the secrecy of the post and telephone, not to mention the protection of property and the home. Articles 2 and 3 allowed the Reich government to assume powers normally reserved to the federal states (Länder). Articles 4 and 5 established draconian penalties for certain offenses, including the death penalty for arson to public buildings. Article 6 simply stated that the decree took effect on the day of its proclamation.
[edit]
Text of the decree
The preamble and Article 1 of the Reichstag Fire Decree show the methods by which the civil rights protections of the Weimar Republic's democratic constitution were abolished in a legal manner by the Nazis:

Ordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State
Auf Grund des Artikels 48 Abs. 2 der Reichsverfassung wird zur Abwehr kommunistischer staatsgefährdender Gewaltakte folgendes verordnet: On the basis of Article 48 paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the German Reich, the following is ordered in defense against Communist state-endangering acts of violence:
§ 1. Die Artikel 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 und 153 der Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs werden bis auf weiteres außer Kraft gesetzt. Es sind daher Beschränkungen der persönlichen Freiheit, des Rechts der freien Meinungsäußerung, einschließlich der Pressefreiheit, des Vereins- und Versammlungsrechts, Eingriffe in das Brief-, Post-, Telegraphen- und Fernsprechgeheimnis, Anordnungen von Haussuchungen und von Beschlagnahmen sowie Beschränkungen des Eigentums auch außerhalb der sonst hierfür bestimmten gesetzlichen Grenzen zulässig. § 1. Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [ habeas corpus ], freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Also being discussed here:

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=213665

Thanks New Freedom...Better to have it posted 100 times than none, I guess.

I met and talked to Alex Jones about a month ago. What a sincere and passionate guy.

He's not in this for the money...he already had all he needed. (Oil interests, would you believe)

He's a true Patriot and Hero in my book !

...and I don't care what anyone says about him...he's for real!!!

Fast Forward to early 2009. . . President Hillary uses these same laws to start rounding up Republicans.

DrJerry said:

Fast Forward to early 2009. . . President Hillary uses these same laws to start rounding up Republicans.

Click to expand...

Thank You DrJerry!!

I've been suggesting, then screaming that very thing since the day in Oct. 2001 when I quit the Republican party after 20+ years.

I've said these bozos have been passing legislation giving no thought to who'll have the reigns next.

If the language in the article is correct, it's laughable in content, and dastardly in it's intent. Try this little jewel:

Further actions that result in the classification of an individual as a terrorist include the following.
- Any violent activity whatsoever if it takes place near a designated protected building, such as a charity building.

Click to expand...

I'm tellin' ya these bozos aren't thinkin'! What are the chances the second Democrats have the reigns, every abortion clinic in the nation, doing even 1 in 500 procedures for free won't be classified a "a designated protected building" or "a charity building"?

Thinking of protesting the new PanAmerican/Mexican Trucker's Highway?
Thinking of protesting if the Democratic party set up booths at the border, granting visa, then citizenship, then party registration to an endless stream of "use-ta-be illegals"? He heh... think again!

- A change of the definition of "pillaging" which turns all illegal occupation of property and all theft into terrorism.

Click to expand...

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If this is an accurate quote from the legislation:

"No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever, including any action pending on or filed after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions under this chapter."

Click to expand...

There can't be but more than 6 kinds of problems with this language.
Neither Congress or the Admin can legislate, or dictate away any portion of the court system's jurisdiction, short of using the amendment process. Such authority simply doesn't exist.

If this was an attempt to move this whole judicial process into the realm of the military courts system, it was written with the typical ignorance and incompetence of Robert Gonzales. This will be challenged the following morning in court, and it'll lose.

The Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter. civilian citizens are only subject to the military justice system when they travel under the wing of the armed forces. In short what they ruled was that, for example: citizens who go to Germany, to live with spouse-members of the armed forces can be subject to the MCJ. That's about it.

Where the court has seen fit to curtail it's own authority is in the realm of national security and evidence. They normally defer to the administration concerning evidence deemed risky to national security. However this they do on a case by case basis, and have since the process began.

This administration is near the end of it's leash on this dodge, tho. A recent decision by Judge Anne Diggs Taylor has even called them on it. If they're dumb enough to unilaterally cut themselves outa the loop where US citizens are concerned... man, the donuts are on me!
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The notion that Bush can somehow go back and make legal, crimes committed in violation of the Geneva Convention is also pure fantasy:

Article 1 Section 9:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Note that this notion of an ex post facto law is normally referred to in the sense of "back dating" a law making what was once legal, illegal. Nothing in the language above limits it in this way! Congress is just as surely prevented from passing bills which make a previously committed illegal act legal.
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More of the same....

"No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions or any protocols thereto in any habeas corpus or other civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States is a party as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories."

Click to expand...

What this verbage says is that Congress hereby abbrogates the Geneva Accords. Over, finished, Kaput where the US government is one concerned party, if the reason is part of one's right to excercise habeas corpus rights.

Again, Congress has no authority to proceed on this language, as the Geneva Accords have been ratified. First of all,

Article 1 Section 9:
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

I am at a loss as to how one contrives a "civil action" to be "Rebellion or Invasion", or that injurious to public safety.

Article VI:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

If it is their intent to completely abbrogate the Geneva Accords, then fine. but the language of Article VI doesn't say anything about picking and choosing within a treaty's language, 50 years hence.
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Note all this is written by lil ol' me, and all I know is what I read. JHMO, YMMV

But I still like Charley Reeses statement:
"The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both written to be read by ordinary folks, not legal scholars."

Don't know when I've seen any more paranoia displayed here.....you guys outa' get together for a circle......ah.....meeting........ ......windsail.......

Rampon said:

Thanks New Freedom...Better to have it posted 100 times than none, I guess.

I met and talked to Alex Jones about a month ago. What a sincere and passionate guy.

He's not in this for the money...he already had all he needed. (Oil interests, would you believe)

He's a true Patriot and Hero in my book !

...and I don't care what anyone says about him...he's for real!!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, he's real alright.

REAL f***ing stupid.

Well, if you're interested, I put up a record of who
voted for the House version, HB 6160 here.

Senate Version here

I am trying to find the text of the conference bill or these if that fails.

Ok, followed my nose to Thomas.gov. There I found three versions,
House,
Senate,
Final Version approved by both.
For the PDF impaired I took it and created an HTML version you can read here.
Links to the votes are buttons at the top of the doc, titled: "Senate Vote" and "House Vote"
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Brutus and Windsail;

I am genuinely curious, as I fail to understand something:
Windsail says "paranoia",
Brutus, so far you discount the source of the commentary, (Ok, fine, fair enough, I'm not an Alex Listener, myself)

You now have links to the text itself to read it for yourself, and/or check the veracity of the claims.
My immediate doubts are based on the track record of this admin, which I consider to have no regard for the Constitution, or standing law of any kind.

I also have such serious doubts as to their skill in writing law, I consider them completely incompetent to the task.

Given that

• It's remotely possible this crew may be gone in 2006,
• Most definitely be gone by 2008,
• The other party has a better than even chance to gain control of the WH and part of Congress by 2012, latest,
• Given the last two administrations demonstrated skill for manipulating the justice system

Just who is it you trust this much?

Who is this white knight who removes all this law, or the ability to abuse all this law, in ways no one has even thought of yet, now and for all time? I honestly don't get it. Is this all the reassurance you need?

McCain said that it safeguarded "the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions."

Count me in Bush. You ignorant, short dicked, stupid, slow talking, retarded mother ****er. Dennis proved here your a half chimp bred gentic freak...your momma Barbara was one baaaaaaaaaad little girl..daddy Bush not have the goods to keep her happy?

You couldn't win a war against Girl Scouts, all 13 and PMS'ing....forget the Iraq thing...it's shot and your failure as CIC is a good part of the reason.

Put this rant in my permanent file, the next time you go on a Dream Team trip write it down on your clipboard moron.

I'm sure history will get over you and Cheney, Rummy, and Gonzales and see you for what you all were...the ones that took this country back 50 years and (hopefully) almost totally destroyed it.

Now send in the storm troopers. Pussies.

Dark

"..."Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."..."

Uh...who is "any person subject to this chapter"? Does it say it anywhere and if so, what does it say?

FredKC, here's the operative part in bold:

"Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."

Click to expand...

It doesn't say a damned thing about allegiance to the Pres., Congress, or any other elected or appointed official(s).

Also, "knowingly and intentionally" is a HELL of a high standard for the prosecution to prove.

Okay, come get me....

El Shrubbo is a Nazi POS.

That bit about the Reichstag Fire is what Sweet Baboo has been saying....El Shrubbo used 9-11 as an excuse to slip his already-formulated plan under the average American's radar. He always intended to go to war to Iraq, so he could prove he had bigger cujones than his PawPaw.

Think this stuff is new? Guess again. They've been trying to force it on us for years....the National ID, Know Your Customer, all that shit. After 9-11, the average sheep was bleating for protection and they conveniently rolled it out again. This time, it passed.

You've got nobody to blame but yourselves, folks.

Did you call your reps? Write letters? Protest?

I did. At least I know I TRIED to do something....and it got me labeled a traitor. Fine. I wear it with pride.



I fluffy heart DarkDakota

"which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal."


hah! thats pretty funny.

Didnt Saddam have the same rule?

BTW, you left the picture out of the real presisdent.

Cheney

DrJerry said:

Fast Forward to early 2009. . . President Hillary uses these same laws to start rounding up Republicans.

Click to expand...

Why that's ridiculous! The "two parties" (and their sheeple adherants) are what props up the current system! The ones who WILL be "disappeared" are the true patriots and Constitutionalists in this country. They'll be ruthlessly hunted down and killed "pour encourager les autres..."

All Hail der Fuhrer! (or die)....

don't know if this is anything

But another forum, not UB, not CE, but one with God in the title has gone "dark" for 24hours. It's admin is freaking out over this bill to the point that he is thinking of taking the place down. Doubt that he will. Still!

Thanks, Dennis, for keeping this forum going even in the face of what could be the death knell of our country.

Godspeed.

Dennis Olson said:

Why that's ridiculous! The "two parties" (and their sheeple adherants) are what props up the current system! The ones who WILL be "disappeared" are the true patriots and Constitutionalists in this country. They'll be ruthlessly hunted down and killed "pour encourager les autres..."

All Hail der Fuhrer! (or die)....

Click to expand...

You hit the target there. Constitutionalists will have that target on their backs...

Troke said:

"..."Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."..."

Uh...who is "any person subject to this chapter"? Does it say it anywhere and if so, what does it say?

Click to expand...

Would this be it?

§ 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by
military commission under this chapter.


§ 948a. Definitions
In this chapter:
(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT.--(A) The term `unlaw-
ful enemy combatant' means--
(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who
has purposefully and materially supported hostilities
against the United States or its co-belligerents who is
not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who
is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces);
or
(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of
the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006,
has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant
by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another com-
petent tribunal established under the authority of the
President or the Secretary of Defense.

(3) ALIEN.--The term `alien' means a person who is not
a citizen of the United States.

Dennis Olson said:

Why that's ridiculous! The "two parties" (and their sheeple adherants) are what props up the current system! The ones who WILL be "disappeared" are the true patriots and Constitutionalists in this country. They'll be ruthlessly hunted down and killed "pour encourager les autres..."

All Hail der Fuhrer! (or die)....

Click to expand...

I guess that Fulltimer member will be one of the hunters. He wants Dennis to turn us over to the Black Op Feds right now.

Warthog said:

I guess that Fulltimer member will be one of the hunters. He wants Dennis to turn us over to the Black Op Feds right now.

Click to expand...

Uhmmm.... Well, that might be a gambit that could be used.

Turn in all the Big Government Apologists and Bush supporters as terrorists.

After they are taken to GITMO and tortured maybe they will see the light.


don

"Take him to Detroit!!" - Kentucky Fried Movie, A Fistful of Yen skit.

"...§ 948c. Persons subject to military commissions
Any alien unlawful enemy combatant is subject to trial by
military commission under this chapter.


§ 948a. Definitions
In this chapter:
(1) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT.--(A) The term `unlaw-
ful enemy combatant' means--
(i) a person who has engaged in hostilities or who
has purposefully and materially supported hostilities
against the United States or its co-belligerents who is
not a lawful enemy combatant (including a person who
is part of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces);
or
(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of
the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006,
has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant
by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another com-
petent tribunal established under the authority of the
President or the Secretary of Defense.

(3) ALIEN.--The term `alien' means a person who is not
a citizen of the United States..."

About what I figured.

Troke said:

"..."Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct."..."

Uh...who is "any person subject to this chapter"? Does it say it anywhere and if so, what does it say?

Click to expand...

of course

948c. Persons subject to military commissions “Alien unlawful enemy combatants, as defined in section 948a of this title, shall be subject to trial by military commissions as set forth in this chapter.

Click to expand...

But what are Alien unlawful enemy combatants?

lets start with Alien as that has a very specific definition in the new law.

Ҥ 948a. Definitions

“(1) ALIEN.—The term ‘alien’ means an individual who is not a citizen of the United States.

Click to expand...

Now what about the "unlawful enemy combatants" part?

“(7) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT.—The term ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ means an individual determined by or under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense

(A) to be part of or affiliated with a force or organization—including but not limited to al Qaeda, the Taliban, any international terrorist organization, or associated forces—engaged in hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents in violation of the law of war;
(B) to have committed a hostile act in aid of such a force or organization so engaged; or
(C) to have supported hostilities in aid of such a force or organization so engaged.
This definition includes any individual determined by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, before the effective date of this Act, to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant, but excludes any alien determined by the President or the Secretary of Defense (whether on an individualized or collective basis), or by any competent tribunal established under their authority, to be (i) a lawful enemy combatant (including a prisoner of war), or (ii) a protected person whose trial by these military commissions would be inconsistent with Articles 64-76 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949. For purposes of this section, the term “protected person” refers to the category of persons described in Article 4 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949.

GENEVA CONVENTIONS.—The term "Geneva Conventions" means the international conventions signed at Geneva on August 12, 1949, 5
including common Article 3.

Click to expand...

In otherwords this law and these tribunals EXCLUDES citizens of the United States, It further EXCLUDES lawful enemy combatants, in otherwords regular enemy troops.


In otherwords alice, the typical folks are stirring up the usual BS Soup.

mistaken you beat me to it, but will post as addition confirmation.

I am amazed people would buy this without reading it themselves, based on a few opinions. They will still defend those bad opinion. But everyone else is sheeple.

truthseeker, Troke...if you two don't stop posting that common sense stuff, one or more of our local paranoiacs might start mistakenly laboring under the illusion that G.W. Hitler isn't going to personally swoop down in his JBT black helicopter, pluck them off the ground by the arms and whisk them away to his G.W. Hitler gulag.

And we certainly couldn't have any of that now, could we?

Well, once I saw the source I couldn't decide which icon to use. So I'll use all appropriate ones after reading the source:

:sb:

Oilpatch Hand said:

truthseeker, Troke...if you two don't stop posting that common sense stuff, one or more of our local paranoiacs might start mistakenly laboring under the illusion that G.W. Hitler isn't going to personally swoop down in his JBT black helicopter, pluck them off the ground by the arms and whisk them away to his G.W. Hitler gulag.

And we certainly couldn't have any of that now, could we?

Click to expand...

Whats scary is if a hitler like person gained popularity with the ant-gov types, not informed patriots, but the alex jones, who believe anyone with a web site and a radio program. They would be some easy pickins for such a leader if conditions were right.

The other crazy thing is we will be debating something else a year from now and this will be presented as fact that it applies to US citizens. They will post and repost these stories till the convince themselves. The fact that some find this think rational and sane shows what slippery slopes there are on.

I saw nothing in the very few parts of the bill which were actually quoted which said anything about equating non-Allegiance to Bush as terrorism. I didn't even see Bush mentioned.

I detect spin.

Looked to me that any provisions applied no matter who is president--and maybe that is enough to worry about. But if so, keeping politics out of it would allow us to focus on that troublesome issue.

In the meantime, the Demos can be gald that Bush is pushing for a law that they will be able to use. I doubt it expires with the next Demo's inauguration.

truthseeker said:

Whats scary is if a hitler like person gained popularity with the ant-gov types, not informed patriots, but the alex jones, who believe anyone with a web site and a radio program. They would be some easy pickins for such a leader if conditions were right.

The other crazy thing is we will be debating something else a year from now and this will be presented as fact that it applies to US citizens. They will post and repost these stories till the convince themselves. The fact that some find this think rational and sane shows what slippery slopes there are on.

Click to expand...

I agree. Unfortuntely, I fear we are too late for some. (See Posts 2, 3 and similar others above.)

So if Bush's approval rating is only 33% does that mean that the remaining 67% are terrorist
so therefore their polling segment doesn't count which means he has 100% approval rating?

If you aren't SERIOUSLY apprehensive about the future, you are either ignorant of the facts or not really as competant a person as you imagine yourself to be. (That does not discount faith in God but does consider what men are preparing to do to each other.)

fredkc;2058370 I've said these bozos have been passing legislation giving [b said:

no thought[/b] to who'll have the reigns next.

Click to expand...

As if it is ok with the current group of would-be dictators or any other group of potential dictators? It is precisely this kind of attitude where it's ok to disregard the Constitution so long as it's "our team" that allows dictators to assume power.

This is what Jon Stewart means when he says that partisan hackery is hurting the country. When it goes beyond political games and is used as a tool to assert
extra-constitutional powers we all loose. No matter whose "team" you think the
current talking heads are on.

Desperado said:

So if Bush's approval rating is only 33% does that mean that the remaining 67% are terrorist
so therefore their polling segment doesn't count which means he has 100% approval rating?

Click to expand...

That's exactly what it means! And anyone who cannot get either the polling arithmetic or the reportage right is a terrorist, subject to arrest, secret trial by military tribunal, and execution, all without the right of habeas corpus. BUWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Cue creepy organ music, insert laughing "mad scientist" smilie here.)

Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill
By Chris Floyd, TO UK Correspondent
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 02 October 2006

There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if the people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.
- Walt Whitman
1.

It was a dark hour indeed on Thursday when the United States Senate voted to end the constitutional republic and transform the country into a "Leader-State," giving the president and his agents the power to capture, torture and imprison forever anyone - American citizens included - whom they arbitrarily decide is an "enemy combatant." This also includes those who merely give "terrorism" some kind of "support," defined so vaguely that many experts say it could encompass legal advice, innocent gifts to charities or even political opposition to US government policy within its draconian strictures.

All of this is bad enough - a sickening and cowardly surrender of liberty not seen in a major Western democracy since the Enabling Act passed by the German Reichstag in March 1933. But it is by no means the full extent of our degradation. In reality, the darkness is deeper, and more foul, than most people imagine. For in addition to the dictatorial powers of seizure and torment given by Congress on Thursday to George W. Bush - powers he had already seized and exercised for five years anyway, even without this fig leaf of sham legality - there is a far more sinister imperial right that Bush has claimed - and used - openly, without any demur or debate from Congress at all: ordering the "extrajudicial killing" of anyone on earth that he and his deputies decide - arbitrarily, without charges, court hearing, formal evidence, or appeal - is an "enemy combatant."

That's right; from the earliest days of the Terror War - September 17, 2001, to be exact - Bush has claimed the peremptory power of life and death over the entire world. If he says you're an enemy of America, you are. If he wants to imprison you and torture you, he can. And if he decides you should die, he'll kill you. This is not hyperbole, liberal paranoia, or "conspiracy theory": it's simply a fact, reported by the mainstream media, attested by senior administration figures, recorded in official government documents - and boasted about by the president himself, in front of Congress and a national television audience.

And although the Republic snuffing act just passed by Congress does not directly address Bush's royal prerogative of murder, it nonetheless strengthens it and enshrines it in law. For the measure sets forth clearly that the designation of an "enemy combatant" is left solely to the executive branch; neither Congress nor the courts have any say in the matter. When this new law is coupled with the existing "Executive Orders" authorizing "lethal force" against arbitrarily designated "enemy combatants," it becomes, quite literally, a license to kill - with the seal of Congressional approval.

How arbitrary is this process by which all our lives and liberties are now governed? Dave Niewert at Orcinus has unearthed a remarkable admission of its totally capricious nature. In an December 2002 story in the Washington Post, then-Solicitor General Ted Olson described the anarchy at the heart of the process with admirable frankness:

"[There is no] requirement that the executive branch spell out its criteria for determining who qualifies as an enemy combatant," Olson argues.

"'There won't be 10 rules that trigger this or 10 rules that end this,' Olson said in the interview. 'There will be judgments and instincts and evaluations and implementations that have to be made by the executive that are probably going to be different from day to day, depending on the circumstances.'"

In other words, what is safe to do or say today might imperil your freedom or your life tomorrow. You can never know if you are on the right side of the law, because the "law" is merely the whim of the Leader and his minions: their "instincts" determine your guilt or innocence, and these flutterings in the gut can change from day to day. This radical uncertainty is the very essence of despotism - and it is now, formally and officially, the guiding principle of the United States government.

And underlying this edifice of tyranny is the prerogative of presidential murder. Perhaps the enormity of this monstrous perversion of law and morality has kept it from being fully comprehended. It sounds unbelievable to most people: a president ordering hits like a Mafia don? But that is our reality, and has been for five years. To overcome what seems to be a widespread cognitive dissonance over this concept, we need only examine the record - a record, by the way, taken entirely from publicly available sources in the mass media. There's nothing secret or contentious about it, nothing that any ordinary citizen could not know - if they choose to know it.

2.

Six days after the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush signed a "presidential finding" authorizing the CIA to kill those individuals whom he had marked for death as terrorists. This in itself was not an entirely radical innovation; Bill Clinton's White House legal team had drawn up memos asserting the president's right to issue "an order to kill an individual enemy of the United States in self-defense," despite the legal prohibitions against assassination, the Washington Post reported in October 2001. The Clinton team based this ruling on the "inherent powers" of the "Commander in Chief" - that mythical, ever-elastic construct that Bush has evoked over and over to defend his own unconstitutional usurpations.

The practice of "targeted killing" was apparently never used by Clinton, however; despite the pro-assassination memos, Clinton followed the traditional presidential practice of bombing the hell out of a bunch of civilians whenever he wanted to lash out at some recalcitrant leader or international outlaw - as in his bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory in 1998, or the two massive strikes he launched against Iraq in 1993 and 1998, or indeed the death and ruin that was deliberately inflicted on civilian infrastructure in Serbia during that nation's collective punishment for the crimes of Slobodan Milosevic. Here, Clinton was following the example set by George H.W. Bush, who killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Panamanian civilians in his illegal arrest of Manuel Noriega in 1988, and Ronald Reagan, who killed Moamar Gadafy's adopted 2-year-old daughter and 100 other civilians in a punitive strike on Libya in 1986.

Junior Bush, of course, was about to outdo all those blunderbuss strokes with his massive air attacks on Afghanistan, which killed thousands of civilians, and the later orgy of death and destruction in Iraq. But he also wanted the power to kill individuals at will. At first, the assassination program was restricted to direct orders from the president aimed at specific targets, as suggested by the Clinton memos. But soon the arbitrary power of life and death was delegated to agents in the field, after Bush signed orders allowing CIA assassins to kill targets without seeking presidential approval for each attack, the Washington Post reported in December 2002. Nor was it necessary any longer for the president to approve each new name added to the target list; the "security organs" could designate "enemy combatants" and kill them as they saw fit. However, Bush was always keen to get the details about the agency's wetwork, administration officials assured the Post.

The first officially confirmed use of this power was the killing of an American citizen, along with several foreign nationals, by a CIA drone missile in Yemen on November 3, 2002. A similar strike occurred on December 4, 2005, 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.

However, there is simply no way of knowing at this point how many people have been killed by American agents operating outside all judicial process. Most of the assassinations are carried out in secret: quietly, professionally. As a Pentagon document uncovered by the New Yorker in December 2002 revealed, 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."

What's more, there are strong indications that the Bush administration has outsourced some of the contracts to outside operators. In the original Post story about the assassinations - in those first heady weeks after 9/11, when administration officials were much more open about "going to the dark side," as Cheney boasted on national television - Bush insiders told the paper that "it is also possible that the instrument of targeted killings will be foreign agents, the CIA's term for nonemployees who act on its behalf.

Here we find a deadly echo of the "rendition" program that has sent so many captives to torture pits in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere - including many whose innocence has been officially established, such as the Canadian businessman Maher Arar, German national Khalid El-Masri, UK native Mozzam Begg and many others. They had been subjected to imprisonment and torture despite their innocence, because of intelligence "mistakes." How many have fallen victim to Bush's hit squads on similar shaky grounds?

So here we are. Congress has just entrenched the principle of Bush's "unitary executive" dictatorship into law; and it is this principle that undergirds the assassination program. As I wrote in December, 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 exactly what the great and good in America have done.

But this should come as no surprise. They have known about it all along, and have not only countenanced Bush's death squad, but even celebrated it. I'll end with one more passage from that December article, which sadly is even more apt for our degraded reality today. It was a depiction of the one of the most revolting scenes in recent American history: Bush's state of the Union address in January 2003, delivered live to the nation during the final warmongering frenzy before the rape of 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! They roared with glee at the leering little man's bloodthirsty, B-movie machismo. They shared his sneering contempt for law - our only shield, however imperfect, against the blind, brute, ignorant, ape-like force of raw power. Not a single voice among them was raised in protest against this tyrannical machtpolitik: not that night, not the next day, not ever.

And now, in September 2006, we know they will never raise that protest. Oh, a few Democrats stood up at the last minute on Thursday to posture nobly about the dangers of the detainee bill - but only when they knew the it was certain to pass, when they had already given up their one weapon against it, the filibuster, in exchange for permission from their Republican masters to offer amendments that they also knew would fail. Had they been offering such speeches since October 2001, when the lineaments of Bush's presidential tyranny were already clear - or at any other point during the systematic dismantling of America's liberties over the past five years - these fine words might have had some effect.

Now the killing will go on. The tyranny that has entered upon the country will grow stronger, more brazen; the darkness will deepen. Whitman, thou should'st be living at this hour; America has need of thee.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Floyd is an American journalist. His work has appeared in print and online in venues all over the world, including The Nation, Counterpunch, Columbia Journalism Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Il Manifesto, the Moscow Times and many others. He is the author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium, and is co-founder and editor of the "Empire Burlesque" political blog. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.
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“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes...known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
– James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

continual warfare
continual warfare
continual warfare

unending war on terror
unending war on terror
unending war on terror

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." — Harry S. Truman

The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life. -Theodore Roosevelt-

"Dissent is the essential aspect of patriotism"!--Thomas Jefferson
(dissent can now be construed as aid and comfort to enemies of the empire)