Bush-Era Debate: Using G.I.’s in U.S. (Considered using military on US soil)

[Skinner]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests would be nearly unprecedented in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/us/25detain.html

[MadMaddie]

1. This is a police issue not military thank God this didn't happen.

[No Elephants]

34. IMO, terrorists are a police issue, too, but we're in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. Rachel Maddow just broke this (the NYT story) on her show...

Rec'd.

[The abyss]

3. Thanks for posting!

I did not see this.

[seafan]

4. “If we had tanks rolling down the streets of our city, we would have had pandemonium down here."

We weren't paranoid.


In tomorrow's NYT:

.....

Still, at least one high-level meeting was convened to debate the issue, at which several top Bush aides argued firmly against the proposal to use the military, advanced by Mr. Cheney, his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials.

.....

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, said an American president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.

Senior military officials were never consulted, former officials said. Richard B. Myers, a retired general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview that he was unaware of the discussion.

.....

The lawyers, in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, wrote that the Constitution, the courts and Congress had recognized a president’s authority “to take military actions, domestic as well as foreign, if he determines such actions to be necessary to respond to the terrorist attacks upon the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and before.” The document added that the neither the Posse Comitatus Act nor the Fourth Amendment tied a president’s hands.

Despite this guidance, some Bush aides bristled at the prospect of troops descending on an American suburb to arrest terrorism suspects.
“What would it look like to have the American military go into an American town and knock on people’s door?” said a second former official in the debate.

Chief James L. Michel of the Lackawanna police agreed. “If we had tanks rolling down the streets of our city,” Chief Michel said, “we would have had pandemonium down here.”

.....

Cheney and Addington operated their own sleeper cell.

“We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop,” explained Vice President’s Dick Cheney’s legal counsel David Addington, according to Goldsmith’s new book, The Terror Presidency.

Goldsmith wrote that Addington “and, I presumed, his boss viewed power as the absence of constraint.”

However, “the absence of constraint” in the context of political leaders wielding the extraordinary authority of a powerful state is synonymous with tyranny, the antithesis of a democratic Republic with checks and balances, rule of law and respect for the will of an informed electorate.

Bowing Before an American Tyranny

[The abyss]

6. Pandemonium – how I wish we had pandemonium!

Then again, sometimes I relax and think about the ones and twos that wake up slowly every day.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Doctor_J]

48. The closest we ever get to pandemonium here is when Jacko dies

If the tanks rolled down the streets on the same day the American Idol winner was named, you'd never even hear about the tanks.

[clear eye]

83. ROFL

Funny, because true. :rofl:

Oh, America. What a weird place & time in which to live.

[Javaman]

128. Oh yeah you would...

people would be pissed that the report of the tanks preempted the announcement of the American Idol winner.

:rofl:

"will you tell those f'ing tanks to stop shooting? I can't hear the tv!!"

[TankLV]

106. in some respects, I wish we had that too, but I doubt the SHEEPLE would have done ANYTHING...

and we would still be in that fucking NIGHTMARE of the previous eight years...

[Doctor_J]

8. Pandemonium? Doubtful. Hate Radio and Cabal "News" would have

spun the tanks as a calm, measured, crucial response to imminent threats. No one would have said a word except for a few Dem reps, who would haev been completely ignored by Big Media

[No Elephants]

36. And ignored by everyone else, including Democrats in

Washington, who would have been standing with Dummya, just as they did with the Iraq War Resolution and the WOT Resolution.

[clear eye]

85. Locally there would have been pandemonium.

Lackawanna is a very depressed former steel-making town w/ high unemployment. They have less to lose than in most areas. Of course there would have been mass arrests and the local riot would have been spun as caused by young troublemakers w/o a mention of the violation of posse comitatus. Most Americans wouldn't have known what to make of it or cared.

[neverforget]

5. God I hate him

:mad: :grr:

[annm4peace]

7. there were armed military rolling around in St. Paul, MN during RNC

They also manned the cattle stockade for the people being arrested.

Guess the constitution was suspended those 4 (16) days.

http://www.terrorizingdissent.org/

[dgibby]

29. Do you know if they were National Guard or regular Army?

I know things were really bad there at the time. IIRC, the local govt had decided to let DHS run things, so they were, de facto, under a bastardized form of martial law, so to speak.

What ever happened to those arrested? I know Amy Goodman and her crew were released, but I think I remember that there were still cases pending in the courts.

Eric Holder needs to appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into this miscarriage of justice.

[No Elephants]

38. The Constitution has been suspended since 911, maybe since 1/2001.

[defendandprotect]

109. GOP/Ollie North were working on suspending the Constitution in Reagan admin -- Iran/Contra . . .!!1

that's one of the reasons they need war and the bs of "National Security" --!!

Lots of things hidden behind war --

[clear eye]

84. They gave it another stab in Sept. '08

when they thought the public or Congressional Democrats might rise up in response to the all out looting of the Treasury for the purpose of preventing reorganization of the banks.

See http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/ especially the little "correction" at the bottom.

Shame I didn't get the original page that was up for about 2 weeks describing terrifying, large-scale "non lethal" crowd control weapons mounted on tanks and said to be ready for deployment in the U.S. for unnamed emergencies. The "correction" came two days after the bailout passed w/o serious incident--to Cheney's disapointment, I'm sure. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-CA said that the Administration threatened martial law if the bill was not passed. I think that's when the veil really fell from Sen. Schumer's eyes, because after that he tried valiantly to limit the amount of the bailout and include more oversight in the bill--a real change from his trust re: Mukasey.

[defendandprotect]

110. "The right to free assembly" is somewhat hampered by "weaons on tanks" --!!!

[clear eye]

111. Well-put. n/t

[Bassic]

9. Geez,

I wonder what the freeps think of that one.

[No Elephants]

40. They love it, of course.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[givemebackmycountry]

12. Jeez, if the Monkey and Darth were still in charge...

They may have rolled tanks up to the good Professors house.
I mean THAT situation certainly needed to be diffused didn't it?

[leveymg]

13. Put this together with the recent CIA death squad reports

What is emerging is a picture of the Bush-Cheney junta planning to run the U.S. as a military dictatorship, complete with disappearances, secret torture cells, and death squads, like Gen. Pinochet's Chile.

The original 9/11 coup. 1973.



They had to destroy democracy in order to save democracy.

[dgibby]

31. A lot of us said that at the time,

but we were were called conspiracy theorists. Looks like it wasn't a theory after all. Hmmmmmmm.....

[leveymg]

44. "Build it, and it will come"

The infrastucture for a high-tech police state has been in place for a long time. Universal interception of telecommunications inside the U.S. is done through so-called "legal intercept" equipment installed at all the major telco and ISP switching hubs mandated by the 1995 CALEA Act. This system streams most of the data that goes across the American phone and internet backbone to the NSA. Using vast numbers of powerful computers, everything that's said and written in recent years is stored. This data is then mined and analyzed by multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies to develop a profile of every American. If you have a credit score and a telephone, you also have a Terrorist Potential Quotient.

The use of torture against detainees was widespread in Vietnam, as was political assassinations under the Phoenix Program. Military Intelligence units, including a backup sniper team, were in Memphis on the day MLK was shot, and watched the assassination from a nearby observation post, according to the lawyer for the King family.

In the 1960s, the US Army was deployed in dozens of American cities, and hundreds of people were killed by military units. The military continues training for domestic counter-insurgency. Every major political event, from IMF protests to President Obama's Inauguration, is surveilled or penetrated by covert military intelligence units.

All that was missing until Bush-Cheney was a White House ruthless enough to direct this power to its own political ends.

This is the context in which we should understand John Yoo's memo of Sept. 21, 2001, which laststeamtrain reproduces, below.

"The memo was drafted in response to a question posed by Timothy E. Flanigan, the former deputy White House counsel, who wanted to know “the legality of the use of military force to prevent or deter terrorist activity inside the United States,” according to a copy of Flanigan’s memo.

Yoo suggested some scenarios, such as the need to shoot down a jetliner hijacked by terrorists; to set up military checkpoints inside a U.S. city; to implement surveillance methods far superior to those available to law enforcement; or to use military forces “to raid or attack dwellings where terrorists were thought to be, despite risks that third parties could be killed or injured by exchanges of fire,” according to Yoo’s memo.

Yoo argued that President Bush would “be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties. … We think that the Fourth Amendment should be no more relevant than it would be in cases of invasion or insurrection.”

[dgibby]

50. Tell me about it!

Here's my personal experience with the dark side.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/dgibby

Unnerving to think someone so close to you could be such a stranger.

[leveymg]

56. Read this from an address given by the King family attorney, William F. Pepper

Perhaps your brother was part of a unit like Alpha 184, described by Pepper. See, "An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, Jr.". This is from a talk that Pepper gave during a 2003 book tour: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.html

So the investigation continues. In March, about March 20th or 21st, after the trial was over, a journalist named Steve Tompkins wrote an article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. It was to have been the first of eight installments. It became the only piece, but it was a very lengthy piece. It dealt with the infiltration of the civil rights movement and black leaders throughout America by military intelligence going back to the second decade of the 20th century.

He traced the history of military intelligence's concern and surveillance of black community leaders and brought it all the way down (of course) to the COINTELPRO operations <3> in the '50s and '60s, particularly against Martin King. <4>

But the article showed that what happened in the '50s and '60s was just a continuation of what had been going on since around the time of the Russian Revolution. Because blacks were regarded as prime candidates for recruitment to the Communist Party after the Russian Revolution. So they had to be watched and surveilled.

Hoover's Number 2 of course, Tolson was an officer of military intelligence and Hoover himself was given a rank of Colonel which he only discarded after the Second World War.

In this article there was one little paragraph that caught my eye. It said, in Memphis on the day of the assassination of Martin King there was an Alpha 184 Team there. And nobody understood why that team was there. Alpha 184 six-man unit was a sniper team. No one understood why they were there.

I was curious about that and I went to see Steve and I said, `This is a whole other dimension to the case.' I was beginning to form the opinion pretty clearly that Martin King had been killed as the result of a Mafia contract. There were any number of bounties on him in those periods of time and a fair amount of money had been raised to try to get him killed. None of the occurrences were successful and I figured ultimately one was and this was a Mafia hit. And that was it.

But now, all of a sudden, into this picture comes one of the most secretive aspects of the government of the United States: the role of the Army and the Army and military intelligence on American soil. That bounded and intrigued me so I said to Steve, `Will you arrange for these guys' -- whom he knew, he knew two members of this sniper team -- `will you ask them if they'll answer questions for me?' It took awhile and he said No, he wouldn't. He refused for the longest time. He didn't want anything to do with these people again because he said they were nasty, they'd kill you where you stand, they'd kill your family, your kids, anyone else. These are just trained killers and that was the way it was. He didn't want anything more to do with them.

So I kept going back and again `Look, we got this guy in jail and we believe he is innocent. Any information I can get I need to have.' Finally he said he would help. They would not however meet with me. They would trust him because he had never betrayed them. He was a former Naval Intelligence officer himself. So he agreed to take questions from me and they agreed to take those questions and answer them. For a long, extended period of time I would give Steve questions. He would go and he would come back with answers. He'd go again, come back. This was all in his spare time and only his expenses were paid.

As he got the answers to the questions -- he knew nothing really about the details of the assassination -- he didn't even know why I was asking certain things. But as he got those answers back to me -- these people were in Mexico by the way; they fled the United States in the '70s because they thought there was a clean-up operation underway so he had to make the trip to Mexico -- the picture started to become clearer and clearer to me as I got the answers to these questions.

It became evident that the military did not kill Martin King but that they were there in Memphis as what I've come to believe was a backup operation. Because King was never going to be allowed to leave Memphis. If the contract that was given didn't work these guys were going to do it. The story they told was that the six of them were briefed at 4:30 in the morning at Camp Shelby. The started out around 5 o'clock. They came to Memphis. They were briefed there. They took up their positions.

At the briefing at 4:30 they were shown two photographs who were their targets. One was Martin King and the other was Andrew Young. That was the first time I'd heard that Andrew Young might even conceivably be a target. But that's what he was. The main informant who told us most of the information in fact was the sniper who had Young in his crosshairs.

Now as far as they knew they were going to kill these people. They had no regrets about it at all because they considered them as traitors and they used very unkind words about them. So they were going to kill them and they were prepared to do that. But they never got the order. Instead they heard a shot. And each thought the other one had fired too quickly. Then they had an order to disengage. It was only later that they learned that, as they call it, `some wacko civilian' had actually shot King and that their services were not required. But that's how they worked.

This was not a one-off for these guys. They were trained snipers. You remember a hundred cities burned in America in 1967. These guys were sent around the country, teams of them, into different cities. These particular fellows had been in Detroit, Newark and Tampa and possibly L.A. They were given mugbooks. Those mugbooks were the photographs of community leaders and people who were to be their targets. And they would be put in positions and they would take out community leaders who would somehow be killed in the course of the rioting that was going on in various cities.

The assassination of Martin King was a part of what amounted to an on-going covert program in which they tried to suppress dissent and disruption in America.

He was shot from the bushes behind Jim's Grill, not from the bathroom window. And he was shot as a result of a conspiracy that brought a man called Frank Liberto -- who was a Marcello operative in Memphis, he ran a wholesale food place -- in to see Loyd Jowers whom he knew. Jowers owed him a very big favor. And in addition to that he paid Jowers $100,000 and that was to take complete use of that Grill facility for planning and staging of the assassination and the room upstairs that Raul (who was controlling James Earl Ray) would have James rent and then keep out of most of the afternoon.

The final stages of the assassination logistically were planned in Jim's Grill itself and there were a number of Memphis Police Department officers -- some of them were senior officers -- who were there. One of them was a black officer called Marrell McCollough.

Marrell McCollough is still alive and well today in Memphis, Tennessee. He went from the Memphis Police Department to the Central Intelligence Agency where he worked for a number of years . Before he became an undercover Memphis Police Officer, he was brought back to active duty by the 111th Military Intelligence Group on June 16 1967.

So he was seconded from military intelligence to become a policeman to go undercover with a black group called the Invaders, a local group. So McCollough was very much in the frame, in terms of all of these that were happening. He participated in the planning. And Jowers named the other people who were involved in the planning as well.


Each of these groups of people only knew what they had to know about this overall assassination scenario. There were two photographers on the roof of the Fire Station and they filmed everything. They were still cameramen and they filmed the balcony, the shot hitting Martin King, the parking lot, up into the bushes and they got the sniper just lowering his rifle.

So the whole assassination of Martin King is on film. We negotiated for a year-and-a-half with those guys -- who were psychological operations Army officers -- to try to get it. They didn't know there was going to be an assassination. They were there to take photographs of everybody and everything around the Lorraine Motel at that point in time. The guy just happened, when he heard the shot, to spin his camera up into the bushes. That's why they got the photographs that they did.

We came close to getting an agreement with them. Then my contact made a mistake and used his own name on a flight into Miami. The FBI field office sent a team to track him. When he was meeting with them in an open park area one of the FBI guys put a big long lens camera out the passenger side of the car and the Army officer saw it and spooked him. He thought we were trying to set him up and he split. That broke down the negotiations.

But they didn't know what was going on. The guy who shot King was a police officer and he would only be told what he needed to know. The Alpha 184 team knew nothing about the Mafia operation that preceded them. The Memphis Police Department knew of the Mafia contract and they covered that up. The FBI's role was to take control of the total investigation and to cover it up.

There isn't enough time to go into the details of the evidence. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. I try to cover all of the evidence that we have -- and that we eventually put before the court -- in the book.

Needless to say all of this started to flesh out in 1993 and '94. I did a work-in-progress up to that time called Orders To Kill. That book was never reviewed in America. This book will never be reviewed in America. Most masses of people here will never know anything about this story because the book will receive no attention whatsoever.

[dgibby]

58. Holy shit. I sure hope not!

However, nothing would surprise me anymore.

So much for American Exceptionalism and taking the high moral ground.
We are so SCREWN!

[defendandprotect]

112. Thank y ou -- !!

I love Pepper and I've seen a number of his videos and read "Orders to Kill" but

I've never heard the story in such detail before --

By the time the non-reading/TV-watching public wakes up to what is going on in America

we'll all be in chains!

[leveymg]

59. Also, read this 1997 Dept of Justice report - confirms MID units in Memphis surveilling King

While it disputes some details of Pepper and Tomkins accounts, it confirms the main feature - military intelligence had some role in domestic political spying and other operations inside the U.S. at the time. See, http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/mlk/part6.htm.

[laststeamtrain]

14. Cheney Pressured Bush to Authorize Use of Military On U.S. Soil

Cheney Pressured Bush to Authorize Use of Military On U.S. Soil

Posted By Jason Leopold On July 24, 2009 @ 8:52 pm In Nation


<snip>


Just three months before Bush exited the White House, Stephen Bradbury, as acting chief of the OLC, renounced the Oct. 23, 2001, legal opinion in a “memorandum for the files” that called Yoo’s opinion “overbroad and general and not sufficiently grounded in the particular circumstance of a concrete scenario.”

In an Oct. 6, 2008, memo, Bradbury wrote that Yoo’s legal opinion “states several specific propositions that are either incorrect or highly questionable.” But Bradbury attempted to justify or forgive Yoo’s controversial opinion by explaining that it was “the product of an extraordinary period in the history of the Nation: the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 9/11.”

The Oct. 23, 2001, “memorandum represents a departure, although perhaps for understandable reasons, from the preferred practice of OLC to render formal opinions only with respect to specific and concrete policy proposals and not to undertake a general survey of a broad area of the law or to address general or amorphous hypothetical scenarios that implicate difficult questions of law,” Bradbury wrote.

Some of Yoo’s thinking on domestic military operations was revealed, however, in an even earlier memo than the one dated Oct. 23, 2001. There was another one, written 10 days after the 9/11 attacks, on Sept. 21, 2001. The memo was drafted in response to a question posed by Timothy E. Flanigan, the former deputy White House counsel, who wanted to know “the legality of the use of military force to prevent or deter terrorist activity inside the United States,” according to a copy of Flanigan’s memo.

Yoo suggested some scenarios, such as the need to shoot down a jetliner hijacked by terrorists; to set up military checkpoints inside a U.S. city; to implement surveillance methods far superior to those available to law enforcement; or to use military forces “to raid or attack dwellings where terrorists were thought to be, despite risks that third parties could be killed or injured by exchanges of fire,” according to Yoo’s memo.

Yoo argued that President Bush would “be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties. … We think that the Fourth Amendment should be no more relevant than it would be in cases of invasion or insurrection.”


<more>

http://pubrecord.org/nation/2821/cheney-pressured-bush-military/

[kpete]

15. Bush-Era Debate: Using G.I.’s in U.S

Source: New York Times


Bush-Era Debate: Using G.I.’s in U.S.

By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: July 24, 2009

WASHINGTON — Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests would be nearly unprecedented in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/us/25detain.html?_r=2&hp

[ixion]

16. uh, "subsequent laws" try Posse Comitatus

so that's one of the only wise decisions Chimpenfurher ever made.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

18. Did you read the Time piece on

Fuckface dissing Cheney about Libby's pardon?

Seems like the little fucker grew a spine right at the end.

But my theory is that the Obama people told him that if he pardoned Libby, they'd come after him for crimes committed while in office, so Fuckface had no choice.

And that's why the White House is now shying away from prosecuting them. Leaving it to Holder................

[davidpdx]

22. I saw the Time article

It was very interesting that Bush kept telling Cheney no yet he continued to insist on the pardon. I think any rumor as to a "deal" for prosecution is just that a rumor.

[No Elephants]

41. Bush. Legacy. Project.

[dgibby]

32. IIRC, Posse Comitatus was eliminated by the John Warner bill,

but later reinstated.

[No Elephants]

61. But then, there's the insurrection act, as amended by our current Democratic

Congress. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act

Maybe someone with more patience than I can figure out how The Insurrection Act, as currently in force, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_comitatus

meshes with Posse Comitatus, as currently in force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act

When I googled, I did see on the search page a comment that not much of posse comitatus was left. On the other hand, the Insurrection Act does now seem to cover the Katrina type scenarios.

Thanks, again, Republicrats!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

17. They didn't just want to wipe

their sorry asses with the Constitution - they wanted to flush it. Entirely.

What did they want? Absolute power?

How would that have differed from what they already had?

OK, more people in jail without charges.

Guantanamo-on-the-Beach, or some such.

We came so close to utter disaster.

Cheney is legally insane, I have no doubt of that now..................

[dgibby]

30. Whatever happened to all those threads about all of this?

You know, the ones where a lot of us were flamed as conspiracy theorists. And where are all those CT deniers now? All I'm hearing now is.....crickets.:evilgrin:

God, I love the smell of vindication in the morning!:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :rofl: :rofl:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

65. They took a page

from the playbook of the folks who were all for lynching the Duke lacrosse team and the people who were cheering on Patrick Fitzgerald's "sealed indictment" of Karl Rove - you know, the one that gave Rove something like "twenty-four business hours" to "get his affairs in order".

Boy, the pitchfork-wielding villagers sure get upset when they find out their poutrage is based on ignorance and stupidity, I must say......................................

[defendandprotect]

118. Agree -- and was Liz Cheney out there defending this today?

[2Design]

19. this is what the argument with LA governor was about too n/t

[No Elephants]

94. Don't think Governors could argue anymore.

[Amos Moses]

20. They had doubts that the FBI could apprehend six people?

K&R

[dgibby]

33. No, that was just a red herring.

The real goal was to test the Constitution, to see how far they could errode it.

[No Elephants]

43. Good point to emphasize. Thank you..

"Top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials."

[Third Doctor]

21. This sounds

right down the alley of a extreme right wing dictator. The RWs have the nerve to call Obama Hitler while their most recent president thought about doing crap like this.

[dgibby]

35. George W. Bush

"This would be easier if it was a dictatorship. Just as long as I'M the Dictator." (Heh, heh, heh).

This is why I never thought he was as stupid as he led us to believe. He might not be Mensa material, but he's cunning and street smart, and he has the entire BFEE behind him. My motto: NEVER underestimate the enemy.

[davidpdx]

23. That's scary shit

If he had done that, it might have set a precedent for repeated uses of military force on our own soil. Interesting how we find out about this 7 years later.

[truthisfreedom]

24. "Top bush administration officials" = one bush admin official. cheney.

obviously.

[Dennis Donovan]

26. ...and Rummy.

..mustn't forget ol' Squinty.

[defendandprotect]

113. Plus . . .

the reality is that 9/11 was "an inside job" --

therefore, most of the people roped in after 9/11 were obviously innocent.

Let's face it, we're all on the verge of being labelled "Enemy Combatants"

at this point!!!

[SpiralHawk]

25. Republicons really got the TOTALITARIAN thingy down

so frikkin anti-American...Good thing we American people tossed the Republicon Fascists out on their assess...

[tanyev]

52. I sometimes wonder if the totalitarianism is overcompensation

for pure paranoid chickenshit cowardice.

[SpiralHawk]

55. "Don't you mean chickenhawk cowardice?" - Rush 'Ass-Pimple-Deferment' Limbaugh

[HamdenRice]

27. It felt like a coup in NYC after 9/11 with all the troops

The difference here in this news story is that Bush was considering using active duty troops to arrest people -- to carry out an offensive military action in essence on domestic soil -- while the troops in NYC were national guard operating in post disaster mode, like the national guard usually does.

Nevertheless, it definitely felt like Bush was testing the public's tolerance for the militarization of society. I was amazed that there were national guardsmen with machine guns riding the subways for several years -- all the way out into the outer boroughs where I lived.

Having lived in a few post coup and authoritarian third world countries, it definitely felt like a coup.

So this story is shocking but not surprising.

[a la izquierda]

28. No offense to active duty or vets...

but I sure as hell don't want the military on the streets. Let me tell you from personal experience, living in Mexico part-time, it doesn't work. The people here hate the military...and they probably have good reason. Folks won't cooperate with them, so the purpose is kind of moot.

[dgibby]

45. No offense taken.

I'm retired Navy, and I can't imagine a worst cast scenario than to be ordered to take action against your fellow citizens. Guess I'd have been in the brig, 'cause that's one order I sure as hell wouldn't have followed.

I think the Military is probably the only thing that kept us from Martial Law. Notice in the article that the Military was never made aware of this plan. I believe that's because the Joint Chiefs would have blown the whistle. At least, I hope so. I know they were prepared to resign en masse if we were ordered to attack Iran, so I suspect they would have balked at this as well.

[onehandle]

37. Buffalo is almost Canada.

So no problem.

[dgibby]

39. Skinner, I had already started another thread on this topic.

If you want to combine them, it's ok with me.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6144917:hi:

[AsahinaKimi]

42. "Bring them on..."

Dispatching troops into the streets is virtually unheard of. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

Really kind of surprised Bush didn't write an executive order allowing this to happen. That old "Bring them on .."thing. He probably would have gotten away with it.. after all, look at all the other things he has gotten away with.

[dgibby]

46. How weird would it be to find out Bush saved us from Cheney?

Now that's what I call a legacy!

[Doctor_J]

49. I don't believe this for a second

this is part of the Bush Legacy Project. He was drunk or playing golf that day, just like most of "his" term.

[high density]

57. OK, if that's the case, who made the decision?

Cheney wanted to use the military. That didn't happen so either the entire story here is false or somebody above Cheney overrided the idea. As much as I hate Bush, this episode seems to show he at least had minimal sense sometimes drift into his thought process on a few rare occasions.

[Doctor_J]

75. Someone wth veto power of Cheney. Rove, perhaps

Certainly not the Village Idiot. He never had any thoughts of a presidential variety drift into his head. He was able to spout right-wing dogma and read from a teleprompter. He never made any decisions. Look at his face while we were being attacked and explain to me how he could make a decision on anything more important than what beer to order on the golf course. Not a chance in hell. If he would have had to make a decision like the one we're discussing, he would have started sweating and swearing, and the rest of the people in the room would have laughed at him before delegating the decision to someone with at least a passing knowledge of what was happening in the world.

Edit: Remember that the White House from 01-09 had no policy arm - only a political arm. My guess would be Rove vetoed the Martial Law because it might have raised too much suspicion, and hurt *'s popularity. Otherwise it would have been a "go"

[baldguy]

47. The fact that the Lackawanna 6 were caught, tried & convicted through CONVENTIONAL means

demolishes the neocon lie that the Constitution is obsolete.

[leveymg]

54. There probably wasn't enough evidence against them to convict if the Constitution still applied

Perhaps, not even enough to arrest them. Wiki:

"On September 14, 2002, the FBI held a press conference in Buffalo to announce the arrests of five of the local al-Qaeda suspects. The FBI Special Agent in charge of the investigation, Peter Ahearn (At the time head of the FBI's Buffalo Field Office), stated that there was no specific event triggering the arrests, which followed four to eight months of investigations.<2>. Later, FBI counterterrorism chief Dale Watson told The New York Times that the bureau's response was that "we are probably 99 percent sure that we can make sure these guys don't do something - if they are planning to do something." Watson paraphrased the President's response as that "under the rules that we were playing under at the time, that's not acceptable. So a conscious decision was made, 'Let's get 'em out of here'"<3>."

These guys were unarmed and untrained, and apparently had no specific plans to carry out terrorist acts. The initial purpose of their trip abroad was to study at a madrassa in Pakistan. Their biggest crime was having been present at a speech in Afghanistan given by UBL in early 2001. They knew nothing about the 9/11 attacks or any other terrorist operations. They cooperated with the FBI by providing information about what they saw during their trip, and thought they'd be placed in the federal Witness Protection Program. They each got eight to ten years in prison for the crime of association. The guy who operated as their organizer, Ahmed Hijazi (aka Jalal, aka Kamal Derwish, who some have speculated was an agent provocateur), was killed by a Hellfire missile in Yemen in 2002.

[No Elephants]

51. Weren't they calling troops in from overseas shortly before the 2008 Presidential?

[seafan]

53. And we were disparaged as wacky conspiracy theorists.

Evil incarnate.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I told all four that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. --- December 8, 2000

Cheney's new chief of staff controversial, November 4, 2005



US Military to conduct civil reconnaissance in 5 eastern North Carolina counties, Jan 2009, December 26, 2008

Military to Deploy 20,000 Soldiers For Homeland Security, December 1, 2008

Dennis Kucinich: 2008 Defense Authorization Bill authorizes use of US military for domestic purposes, November, 9, 2007

Think Again: The Invisible Battle Over Posse Comitatus, October 23, 2008

Rex 84: FEMA's Blueprint for Martial Law in America, August 20, 2006

Elliot D. Cohen: How Do You Spell “DICTATOR”?, January 12, 2007

Dept of Homeland Security: ENDGAME: Office of Detention and Strategic Removal Plan, February 14, 2008



Rule by fear or rule by law?, February 4, 2008

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.

According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."

Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.

.....

Bush-Era Debate: Using G.I.’s in U.S., New York Times, July 24, 2009




Where was the F#*$ing media?



White House Senior Advisor Karl Rove (R) performs a rap dance alongside NBC White House correspondent David Gregory during the entertainment section of the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner at a hotel in Washington.
March 30, 2007

[laststeamtrain]

60. Glenn Greenwald: The Cheney plan to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil

Glenn Greenwald
Saturday July 25, 2009 06:26 EDT
The Cheney plan to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil

<snip>

All of this underscores why it is so important to vigorously oppose the efforts of the Obama administration (a) to continue many of the radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism programs and even to implement new ones (preventive detention, military commissions, extreme secrecy policies, warrantless surveillance, denial of habeas corpus) and (b) to endorse the core Orwellian premise that enables all of that (i.e., the "battlefield" is anywhere and everywhere; the battle against Terrorism is a "War" like the Civil War or World War II and justifies the same powers). By itself, the extreme injustice imposed by our Government on the individuals subjected to such tyrannical powers (i.e., those held in cages for years without charges or any prospect for release) should be sufficient to compel firm opposition. But the importance of these issues goes far beyond that. Even if the original intention is to use these powers in very limited circumstances and even for allegedly noble purposes ("only" for Guantanamo detainees who were tortured, "only" for people shipped to Bagram, "only" for the Most Dangerous Terrorists), it's extremely dangerous to implement systems and vest the President with powers that depart from, and violently betray, our core precepts of justice.

It's the nature of governments that powers of this type, once vested, rarely remain confined to their original purpose. They inevitably and invariably expand far beyond that. Powers that are endowed to address a limited and supposedly temporary circumstance almost always endure for years if not decades. Once a political official possesses a particular power, they almost never relinquish it voluntarily (there are exceptions -- Jimmy Carter in 1978 signed, and subsequent Presidents until Bush complied with, FISA, which barred Presidents from eavesdropping without a judicial warrant, but such instances are exceedingly rare). Perhaps most dangerous of all, detention and punishment schemes that are implemented in relatively normal times (such as now) will inevitably expand, and expand wildly, in the case of some heightened threat (such as another Terrorist attack). Put another way, once we depart for ostensibly limited purposes from our fundamental principles of justice -- in order to indefinitely detain "just some special cases" without charges -- then, by definition, we're fundamentally altering our system of justice far beyond that.

<snip>

Those are the stakes when it comes to debates over Obama's detention, surveillance and secrecy policies. To endorse the idea that Terrorism justifies extreme presidential powers in these areas is to ensure that we permanently embrace a radical departure from our core principles of justice. It should come as no surprise that once John Yoo did what he was meant to do -- give his legal approval to a truly limitless presidency, one literally unconstrained even by the Bill of Rights, even as applied to American citizens on U.S. soil -- then Dick Cheney and David Addington sought to use those powers (in the Buffalo case) and Bush did use them (in the case of Jose Padilla). That's how extreme powers work: once implemented, they will be used, and used far beyond their original intent -- whether by the well-intentioned implementing President or a subsequent one with less benign motives. That's why it's so vital that such policies be opposed before they take root.

<more>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/25/military/index.html

[Blue_Tires]

62. lol...i still remember the days when the RW nutbars screamed

it would only be a matter of time before Clinton/Reno did this to take everyone's guns...and yet, it is the RW savior Bush who puts it in practice...

[Lasher]

63. Cheney wanted to do this just to create a precedent.

He spent a lot of time thinking what he could do to make the presidency more powerful. Unitary Executive, all that crap. He had baggage from the days when Tricky Dick was run out of office and he wanted to set the record straight about that.

[flyarm]

64. The Bush admin was also attempting to do this in Louisana after Katrina

They put the Governor of Louisana in a horrible situation after Katrina , if anyone else remembers, by witholding aid,and wanting her to sign over the rights to bring military into La. therefore ridding Posse Comitatus ..The Governor was given advice by Clinton's Fema Head James Lee Witt ..to protect her state from the power grab the Bush administration was attempting.

If anyone else remembers(?) they were trying to make the governor look bad ..and force her into accepting the Military ..in order for her to get government aid down there..or any aid for that matter..i remember many from my state of Florida..doctors and nurses and boats all being turned back by our government..even Canadian help was turned back..the Bush admin was doing everything they could to destroy Posse Comitatus in Louisana..and do a major power grab...and militarize inside our borders.

Clinton's people stepped up to the plate and advised and helped the LA governor keep it from happening.

[seafan]

66. Excellent memory, fly.

Blanco calls for federal Katrina probe: Ex-director says White House tried to foil governor

By Bill Walsh
January 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco called on Congress Monday to create a bipartisan commission to investigate whether White House politics played a role in slowing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Blanco's request was prompted by comments from former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who told a university class last week that in the days after the 2005 hurricane, the Republican Bush administration plotted to upstage Blanco, a Democrat, by pressuring her to relinquish control of the Louisiana National Guard as troops were mounting rescue efforts and trying to restore order in the area.

"Through Michael Brown's revelation this past weekend, all of us were sickened to hear that while thousands of our citizens were suffering during Hurricane Katrina, political operatives in the White House were playing party politics," Blanco said in a statement. "These individuals based key decisions of emergency response on the gender and party affiliation of elected officials, rather than the urgent needs of our people."

.....

(original link now inactive)



Bush and Cheney were (are) like sharks, pushing against each steel bar shielding the Constitution, testing for a fateful point of attack.

[flyarm]

68. Thank you for the link!! crunched for time here..so i don't have time to look

for links through my files!!

But i remember this like yesterday..

BTW James Lee Witt advised The Good Governor of Louisana ..and he is a good man..I know, I and My family went through a disaster in Los Angeles in the Northridge earthquake and lost my home and I know directly how good a man and how great a job he did for those of us who went through that disaster!

The Bush Cabal was evil in every way!

Sorry to say , I do not believe they will ever be held accountable for what they have done to my nation..and yours!!

They were so evil to the people effected by the Katrina disaster...I will never forgive them in my heart or soul!

[dgibby]

70. Exactly ,

while unleashing Blackwater on the citizens at the same time. Evil sociopathic Bastards!

[No Elephants]

93. Please see Reply 61. Or the wiki on the Insurrection Act.

I believe the Act now enables the President to do what would have been doubtful before the Act was ameneded.

[suffragette]

107. First thing I thought about as well

They purposefully blocked aid while they applied pressure so they could grab the power to deploy the military inside the U.S.
And people died because of it.

To add to the irony, NorthCom had aid ready to deploy, particularly the Bataan ship, and they could have provided the aid as a humanitarian mission but the Bush admin was more focused on gaining power than on rescuing citizens.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1993305
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5672056&mesg_id=5678272

[defendandprotect]

119. And the National Guard that did respond was held back from going forward ...

[Peace Patriot]

67. "Mr. Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force." Hm-m-m.

I don't trust this NYT assertion. For one thing, I don't believe that Bush Jr. had the power to override Cheney/Rumsfeld. In fact, I think that this (Junior's lack of power--his being a manipulated tool of Cheney/Rumsfeld) was part of the problem that was addressed by a counter-coup--to force Rumsfeld out and neutralize Cheney--organized by Bush Sr, circa 2005-2006, via his Iraq Study Group (which, interestingly, had Leon Panetta as a member). The successful conclusion of this counter-coup was signaled, or hinted at, by Pelosi's odd statement--apropos of nothing--just after the 2006 elections, that "impeachment is off the table" (what table, Nancy?), which was followed shortly by Rumsfeld's resignation. And very soon after that, the nuking of Iran went away--as a real threat, with all that buildup to it. Bush Sr. helped organize the counter-coup probably mostly to save Jr. from various bad fates (for instance, consequences of Rumsfeld/Cheney's war on the CIA?)--but others involved were likely top military brass (opposed to nuking Iran and to bringing the boot down on people here), and some top corpos and politicos (nuclear war and martial law are not "good for business.") What I think occurred was a deal. The counter-coup offered the Bush Junta principals--Bush Jr, Cheney and Rumsfeld--immunity from prosecution in exchange for, a) not nuking Iran, and b) leaving the White House peacefully when the time came. (And, of course, Rumsfeld--hated by a lot of the military--had to resign.) This may well be why Bush Jr. issued not a single pardon in his last weeks. He didn't need to. How far down this crooked chain of command the immunity extended is an interesting question. Rove may be included (he certainly acts as if he has immunity.) Clearly Libby--a convicted felon--was not. (And Cheney's now whining about that.)

The counter-coup's next job would be to vet the presidential candidates, and exclude any from the White House (via Diebold & brethren, and/or corpo/fascist 'news' manipulation) any who did not agree to honor the immunity deal. And this may explain Obama's lame statement--regarding the Bush Junta's enormously long list of grave "high crimes and misdemeanors"--that "we must look forward not backward"--an absurd assertion. (Do we fail to prosecute murderers because the murder occurred in the past?) If the above scenario is more or less what occurred, Obama agreed--maybe thinking that he could do more good in the White House than not in it. That's a guess. Who knows what goes on in the mind of our presidential chess-player? I think he's very smart, and knows what's what (--he appointed Leon Panetta--no "civilian," believe me--to straighten out the godawful mess at the CIA, whose agents welcomed Panetta with cheers and champagne corks popping). He's gotten health care for all Americans off the ground--a seeming impossibility--and is aiming the country in the right direction on many fronts, despite serious, undemocratic limitations on his power, including the heinous media. He's one of the good guys. I'm convinced of that. He's doing what he can with a government that he has very little control over--an imperial government run by global corporate predators and war profiteers. We were spared (and the Iranians were spared) the nuking of Iran--an act that could easily have escalated into WW III (which would be the last war on earth, because the planet would not survive it). We were likely spared martial law and the suspension of elections and civil rights (such as they are)--with these legal documents that are now surfacing in bits and pieces (the ones we are permitted to see) being the "tips of the iceberg" of their martial law plan. I think some of those who may have been involved in "the Deal"--and those like Obama who may have agreed to it--did it for what they thought was our benefit.

I like my scenario because it explains so much. Junior was in over his head. Daddy Bush was clearly unhappy with what was going on, circa 2005-2006. He doesn't form "Iraq Study Groups" outside the government with idyll purposes (say, merely to advise). His true purposes--and those of some of the other players--to cover up Junior's ineptness, save him from CIA vengeance, and from being responsible for Armageddon, and to draw the veil back over our secret government (which Cheney/Rumsfeld were so crudely exposing) would gel at some point with the various motives of the other players, some good, some bad. Some to keep the mask of democracy over their vast corruption; others to give democracy a chance to be restored, or at least to keep the peace.

But now the Obama administration has to contend with evildoers like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove on the loose--Cheney lobbying for a pardon for Libby, for goddsakes; Rumsfeld probably planning Oil War II-South America--and other downsides to their immunity. If you are wondering why Obama tolerates all this, think of this scenario, above, and ask yourself if it doesn't seem quite probable.

[Doctor_J]

76. Complete bullshit. Bush making a decision, I mean

See my reply 75

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3985471&mesg_id=3986238

[clear eye]

86. Umm, maybe Panetta just got the upperhand on this one

and convinced Bush jr. that sending the Army into the streets would lead to impeachment.

If a deal was really brokered, how do you explain Cheney's hubris about threatening both Congress and the public (via the story in the Army Times I've linked to above) with martial law in Sept. of 2008 if the limitless bailout w/o oversight wasn't passed? Wouldn't that violate the "agreement"?

And if Obama only entered this circle once he was close to election, how to explain his exclusive use of Robert Rubin and his circle as economic advisors from the start? Obama would have had to have been a silent participant from the time they showed their power by rigging the NH primary against him or even before. If that were true, what does it say that he decided not to speak out but cut a deal instead?

What does it say that he continues to avoid real election integrity as an issue?

Is he truly so naive as to believe that if you come to power via the collusion and dirty tricks of a gang w/ limitless resources, that you can do anything for the people that this group doesn't favor? Or is racial equality advanced by his Presidency his one and only cause, and he doesn't care in what world the races are equal? Is economic serfdom for 90% of us a reasonable condition to be equals in to him? And is the restoration of a Constitutional Republic so trivial for this Constitutional scholar as to be something traded away?

Do you see where your scenario takes you?

[Peace Patriot]

104. Very, very good questions, clear eye!

I'm looking at the effects of the hypothetical "Deal" --and extrapolating backwards to what could have caused those things that we could see, and present circumstances, for instance, Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld's obvious immunity for a list of crimes so long that it could circle the earth. What could possibly prompt a Constitutional scholar and brilliant politician--Obama--to say something as lame and non-sensical as this: "We have to look forward, not backward"? We're going to toss the Constitution because we "have to look forward"? What would prompt Obama to make such an absurd statement? Also, what could move Pelosi to take "impeachment off the table" (a violation of her oath of office and giveaway of her power) and what "table" was she speaking of?

You could surmise a lot of compelling reasons and motives for either thing, but when you put them together with other events they point to a "Deal"--things like Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group," the vanished Cheney/Rumsfeld threat to Iran (remember how the media kept pumping it? all sorts of people convinced that Iran was about to be nuked?), and Rumsfeld's resignation--like Pelosi's remark, apropos of nothing--i.e., no change in Iraq War policy (the 'Democratic' Congress that was 'elected' just before his resignation proceeded to escalate the Iraq War, and larded Bush/Cheney with billions more for the "surge"--so why did Rumsfeld resign?).

I started developing this theory during Katrina, when Jr. seemed to be abandoned by his handlers. I had been following the Fitzgerald prosecution of Libby, which I think was causing a bloody war in the White House, Bush/Rove vs. Cheney/Libby, over who was going to take the fall for this outrageous (and dangerous) assault on the CIA. I think this struggle erupted behind the scenes during the Katrina debacle (and may be partly responsible for it). Remember how Daddy Bush and Clinton came out and stood behind Bush Jr. at that press conference (when Bush Jr finally held one--after a week of neglect and haplessness), and stood there like sentries saying nothing--as if to buck up Jr. in his act as president? That's when the Bush/Cheney split was occurring, behind the scenes--and the immediate cause of the split, the Plame outing (and who would take the blame), I think is related to Rumsfeld's plan to segue the Iraq War into the nuking of Iran--to widen the war, to get all of the oil--for which he needed more cooked up evidence, and the CIA was balking at manufacturing it, and the military brass were beginning to oppose the goal.

Granted, these things are very hard to suss out. Most of what is going on in our government is hidden from our view. And I'm just guessing--trying to put two and two together. But I think it's a pretty interesting theory, and events that we can see--now--keep supporting it (such as Obama's lame reason for no prosecutions; and Cheney pushing the envelope of "the Deal" to try to get Libby included), as well as events we look back on with puzzlement ("impeachment is off the table").

To address your particular questions:

If a deal was really brokered, how do you explain Cheney's hubris in threatening martial law over the bailout?

If you immunize someone like Cheney--a powerful master criminal (on a scale we have never seen in public office in this country), you risk him double-crossing you. He's immunized--what the fuck does he care? If he can't have Iran, by God, he's going to loot every last dime in the public treasury unto the 7th generation! He also had dossiers on everybody. It's impossible to control a criminal on this scale, except to strip him of his looted assets and put him behind bars. Immunizing him is dangerous and risky. He could have nuked Iran anyway--maybe got around curtailments put on his actions. I think things were very dicey in those last two years--2006 to 2008. Or, he may have threatened martial law as a sneer, daring those who had curtailed him to call him on this crap. A rogue criminal on a grand scale, with all the levers of government at his fingertips. Good luck threatening him with prosecution! But I think that's what the counter-coup did, and took their chances. They weren't about to overthrow our "military-industrial complex" (i.e., our entire government). They wanted a solution that keeps it all in place, but without utter madness (nuking Iran), and without any faction getting too out-of-control (Cheney-Rumsfeld declaring martial law and suspending elections--such as they are--to stay in power).

There are a lot of reasons why our national political establishment wouldn't prosecute Cheney/Rumsfeld. One is, they were all collusive in the Iraq War, and, no matter what they say, they were all collusive in torture and other crimes. To prosecute Cheney/Rumsfeld is to indict our entire political leadership for the last 20 years or so. Frankly, I don't think prosecution was ever much of a possibility. But--an important but--with Bush Sr, Leon Panetta and others like them weighing in, and the CIA furious at the outing of its agent and its entire WMD counter-proliferation project, and top brass on the verge of insurrection opposed to nuking Iran--they could make it appear to be a real threat. The CIA no doubt had the goods on Cheney and Rumsfeld--sufficient indictment material to utterly destroy them. They would have bargaining chips on the indictment/impeachment front, which they might not ever use, except as a threat--to get Rumsfeld out and neutralize Cheney. I think these two were going to go ahead with nuking Iran despite threats from Russia and China that they would retaliate, and that's what got Bush Sr. activated. He saw Bush Jr going down in flames, formed the Iraq Study Group and hooked up with others--military brass, top insider politicos, etc.--who wanted to, a) prevent a potential Armageddon, and b) normalize politics in the U.S. (not restore democracy, but damp down the political crimes, such as Rove's use of the DoJ for political ends) and avert outright nazism in the "homeland."

Your questions about Obama: Ah, me! Machiavelli said that the first order of business for 'the Prince' (head of state) is to get and keep power. 'The Prince' can do no one any good--in Machiavelli's day, against the overweening power of the Church--if he cannot gain and keep power. Machiavelli has become synonymous with evil manipulation for power, but that is really a slander. It was Machiavelli's view that a secular state was far better for the good of the many, than the hypocritical, religion-controlled state that had emerged from the Middle Ages. Thus, he wanted the secular authority--'the Prince'--to shed religious hypocrisy and become objective and rational. He also proposed militias--citizen armies--to defend the secular state (as opposed to the corrupt mercenaries and professional armies of the day). Our founders admired Machiavelli, and adopted many of his ideas. Machiavelli was the first political commentator (post-Middle Ages) to make the point that the head of state is a politician--not a person anointed by God and the Pope--but someone who gets his power from his own intelligence, his understanding of peoples' motives, his attention to the common good (popular support), his P.R. savvy and his ability to gain, keep and use power in an objective way.

I don't know that Obama is a "player"--that is, an insider--in the U.S. Imperial Game. I tend to think that he isn't--that his ultimate personal goals are serious reform, restoration of democracy here, peace and social justice. But he is also very, very smart. If "the Deal" was put to him (immunity for the Bush Junta principles), and he agreed, he did it because he thought that he could do more good with the power of the White House--however limited that power might be--than without that power. We may gainsay that decision, but I have to say that it is a fair assessment of conditions in this country that reform is nearly impossible. It is not unreasonable to conclude that it has to be incremental, and that it simply cannot occur until the American people get organized and demand it. No one person--whoever he or she is, even the President--can reform this godawful mess that our country has become all alone.

On the other hand, the counter-coup could not make a "Deal" with Cheney/Rumsfeld without insuring that the next president would honor it. So--from their point of view--they had to vet the candidates on this matter. But those same forces--the "insiders" who run things on behalf of global corporate predators and war profiteers--will never allow a real reformer to become president. Obama fits neatly into this slot--someone smart enough to understand how powerful our secret government is, and that he would never become president if he didn't agree to immunize the Bush Junta--and also smart enough and Machiavellian enough to be quite vague about his promises of reform--eloquent but vague--and then (with real reform in his heart) to work at it incrementally, in ways that do not greatly alarm the global corporate predators who rule over us, and meanwhile urging the American people to get active, get organized and push for real reform.

I'm guessing again, based on what we can see. And Obama may be a total cynic, for all I know. But my gut says that he isn't. What he is is a realist (in the best sense of Machiavellianism). This may not satisfy us--we (I think most people) who want a Martin Luther King, or a Gandhi, or an FDR, to lead us out of the Dark Valley to the Shining Mountaintop. But Obama is working on what is possible, here and now. And he may be wrong. I very much worry about that. I don't think the Bushwhacks are done looting us, or have given up on their plans to use the US military to corner as much of the world's oil as they can. (They are clearly eyeing Venezuela's oil, and have a war plan to take it.) They may engineer things to shift all the blame for their looting and plunder onto Obama, Diebold him out office in 2012, and bring in Bush Junta II (for Oil War II-South America).

And I can only guess at why Obama didn't--on Day One, with an Executive Order--end vote counting with 'TRADE SECRET' code owned and controlled by far rightwing corporations. Fear, maybe? Attacking the 'TRADE SECRET' voting system would be comparable to prosecuting the Bush Junta principles, or truly going after the banksters, or ending the Forever War. Head-on collision with the powers-that-be. He knows he would lose, or end up dead. It is inconceivable to me that he doesn't know what's going on. I've read his books. He is tuned in. He is in the upper bracket of progressive consciousness. We the People would have thrown this putrid Establishment out long ago, if they didn't control our elections with money, media and finally with Diebold & Brethren. They will not give that power up easily. It is their ticket to continued looting and war.

As to when Obama agreed to "the Deal" (if he did--and if my scenario is more or less true) I think New Hampshire is a good guess. Obama had been winning mostly in the caucus states where Diebold & brethren do not count the votes. Then New Hampshire was fiddled (which has a manipulable system, since they do zero auditing of the electronic results). Obama should have won New Hampshire, and didn't. Then he won South Carolina, which has one of the least transparent and most manipulable voting systems in the whole country. If they had wanted to steal a state from him, they would have done it in South Carolina--and they didn't. So, between New Hampshire and South Carolina, something happened to make Obama more acceptable to the powers-that-be (including the DLC/DINOs, and the Dark Lords--Bush Sr., etc.--all of whom serve corporate and war profiteer interests). He started out as an insurgent candidate, and ended up being "chosen." How did that happen? This is one of the questions that led me to formulate "The Deal" hypothesis in the first place. And, sure enough, once he was President, he foreclosed prosecution of the Bush Junta principles and they're all running free (except already convicted Libby).

I've put the best face possible on who Obama is and what he's up to. Maybe his message of "hope" is clouding my judgment. He's a hard man to read, and certainly has a fantastic talent at projecting sincerity. And his political smarts may have the great limitation of not being able to see the monster over the hill--that the Reich wing is setting him up. As for his quick agreement to the Bushwhacks' Financial 9/11 "bail-out" (grand looting), and his appointments--these are all explainable as smart, well-intended Machiavellianism. In addition to the no-prosecutions Deal, he had to make a deal with the DLC and the Clintons. And speaking of deals, the result of all this is no "New Deal" for us. Very weak reform, in what is essentially a Clinton-II government. To be followed by Bushwhackism II? That is the peril.

Keep your eye on South America, because I think that's where it's all going to come to a head--Obama's stated new policy in Latin America of peace, respect and cooperation (with the vast leftist democracy movement that has swept most of South America and half of Central America), vs. Clinton (?)/Bushite preparations for an oil war (five new US military bases in Colombia, adjacent to Venezuela; efforts to keep the base in Honduras via a fascist coup, and other bad signs).

[defendandprotect]

122. It's a puzzle with a lot of missing pieces we can't even guess at --

One of my problems in looking at this is I don't have as clear a chronological
memory of it all.

I don't know that we have proven that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have immunity.
Lots of people are still after them -- and Obama may have to reverse. Holder has?

Then, again, why has American never prosecuted Kissinger?

Actually, what Obama said was "he was no reason for impeachment" -- something very
close to that.

I agree that there were long term efforts to try to get Iran in as the "third war."
None so nerve-wracking as those being pushed as we got closer to the elections.

There's also video of Pelosi the day after the '06 election stating clearly that
Americans had elected her/Dems to end the wars. So, if there was a "deal" on keeping
the wars going it hadn't happened PRIOR to the election.

As for Katrina . . . didn't we recently learn that it was Rumsfeld who was keeping back
assistance? Not to say that Bush would have been against doing harm to NO -- but that
like 9/11 he probably only saw the results of planning and directives of others.

IMO, Rumsfeld went because he had pretty stinky history -- torture was directly linked to
him and I think many Americans saw him as incompetent in the sense of protecting America?
At that time TORTURE wasn't so directly linked to Cheney? If that's true and I really can't
remember, my impression was that Rumsfeld was stinky and it was time to get rid of him.
I think it was unexpected because there was a lot of fumbling, it seemed, re getting Gates in?
It's my opinion over all that when they get lucky enough to have something like the weather
conditions come along -- for now we have to presume it's total luck -- combined with the lack
of repair and work on the levees which were too low by far to begin with -- then they are
ready to go with what they do best "destruction."

My opinion on the Plame outing was really that they were trying to protect the 9/11 OCT from
attack. Obviously, both she and her husband knew something. I think they were both a threat.
Plame's charge was to keep WMD out of the area. At the same time, we have reports that Bush
tried at least once to plant WMD in Iraq. Also reports of a second attempt.
But, as we can see, Americans didn't very much care if there were WMD there or not.
At that time they seemed thrilled to have excaped any possible "mushroom cloud." ????
At least according to what the corporate press seems to suggest???

Since it was Cheney's 9/11-Iraq, it may have been Cheney and Rove who felt the most threatened
and angered by Plame/Wilson?

Agree, Bush suffered for Katrina in a PR sense -- but they did get what they wanted.
And, no investigations -- and no impeachment.

We're even NOW facing new threats to attack Iran --
Biden has commented that Israel has every right to attack Iran??? Isn't that what he said?
And, I think last week Obama seemed to be reverting more to threats re their developing nukes
than diplomacy??? Right?

Cheney may be a loyalist re Libby -- but my impression is he's worried about what further
implications Libby may cause him or the overall cause of 9/11.

And, given what you are saying re the lack of ability to control someone like Cheney . . .
wouldn't Pelosi/Reid know that? "Immunizing him is dangerous and risky."

And this I agree with --

He also had dossiers on everybody.

However, many suggested that Pelosi had given some kind of approval to the harsher methods
of torture -- specifically waterboarding. It's pretty clear now that she didn't.

I think that there was an effort to lower the threat, lower the NOISE but mainly played in
only the Poppy/right wing ballpark. While they were reigning in the military half of the
Cheney team -- which was the most serious part of the threat to us all -- again, I think
there were Democrats who would have supported an attack on Iran!????

As for the MIC -- granted we have had quite some evidence of insanity at the top -- i.e.,
the Joint Chiefs. Remember "nuke 'em La May"??? Operation Northwoods, as well.
And, anyone's guess as to what happened we still don't know about. But, it seems to be
also a corporate geared thing -- 45,000 private corporations in Iraq! Privatization of
the military can't very much appeal to the Joint Chiefs and others military leaders who
recognize the military is broken and their power being crippled. Maybe they have succeeded
in putting only military/corporate types in office? Is there actually any military leadership
which still respects the Constitution and separation of powers? Civilian rule?

Many of us thought that Watergate would pollute the political waters for the GOP for some
time -- but that didn't really happen. OTOH, my opinion is that they rise to power on stolen
elections and political violence. They didn't need to assassinate Carter because they were
highly successful at manipulating events to weaken him - from downed rescue missions
which Ollie North and Secord were in charge of - to the October Surprise.

The CIA no doubt had the goods on Cheney and Rumsfeld--sufficient indictment material to utterly destroy them.

At the highest levels -- I agree. it is elites who rule there, right?
But then their overall agenda is really the same as Cheney's???

Though I really can't say there is much to disagree with here ...

They would have bargaining chips on the indictment/impeachment front, which they might not ever use, except as a threat--to get Rumsfeld out and neutralize Cheney. I think these two were going to go ahead with nuking Iran despite threats from Russia and China that they would retaliate, and that's what got Bush Sr. activated. He saw Bush Jr going down in flames, formed the Iraq Study Group and hooked up with others--military brass, top insider politicos, etc.--who wanted to, a) prevent a potential Armageddon, and b) normalize politics in the U.S. (not restore democracy, but damp down the political crimes, such as Rove's use of the DoJ for political ends) and avert outright nazism in the "homeland."

Re Obama . . . think we're all trying to figure that one out-- while hoping for the best!
I'm hoping that he has been acting to try to keep himself from getting the "Carter" treatment
early and often. I don't know that he would have had to agree to the "deal." Obviously, if
the Dem leadership did anything like that he was stuck with it 'cause he can't go anywhere without
them, really.

I disagree that reform isn't possible . . . I think they have had to resort to OTHER means to
steal elections -- Ellis/Fox News/fascist rallies/Supreme Court and very pasted together methods
from purges to simply keeping African Americans away from the polls thru 2004 -- but I do think
they have been stealing them for decades. The large computers used by corporate press began
coming in during mid-1960's and the individual voting machines during the late 1960's.
The former permitted the corporate press not only to report vote totals, but to PREDICT results
and finally to CALL ELECTIONS.

One of the problems with the American people getting organized is that they are killing leadership
as it rises IMO - they're no longer waiting until they actually have a Bobby Kenendy or a
Martin Luther King, Jr. on their hands! And, the attack on labor also precludes organization --
I think we're almost down below 10% now with labor unions? Where are unions calling out Americans
to demonstrate for MEDICARE FOR ALL? For that matter, where are women's groups doing that?
Where are Democrats doing that?

I do agree that while we have gotten rid of Bush/Cheney the right wing conspiractors do seem
to have control of some part of our military -- that they are basically suicidal re natural
resources/capitalism vs global warming -- and that they will continue to try to loot the
Treasury in every manner possible.

And I can only guess at why Obama didn't--on Day One, with an Executive Order--end vote counting with 'TRADE SECRET' code owned and controlled by far rightwing corporations. Fear, maybe? Attacking the 'TRADE SECRET' voting system would be comparable to prosecuting the Bush Junta principles, or truly going after the banksters, or ending the Forever War. Head-on collision with the powers-that-be. He knows he would lose, or end up dead. It is inconceivable to me that he doesn't know what's going on.

If Jim and Kenneth Collier who investigated the computer voting scam in the late 1960's early 1970's
are correct, this has been going on for decades. And they passed that info onto Democratic
HQ's just before Watergate. Therefore, Dems must have had some idea of this long before the
public became aware. And -- what were Democrats doing about it in '06 . . . ???

See: Votescam/The Stealing of America http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

Agree with you on New Hampshire . . . it's possible.

But with no real third party threat and with Obama perhaps being the most liberal candidate
still in -- Kucinich and Edwards having already been sidelined by the corporate press -
the threat may not have been deliverable?

If this is a Clinton II government, we'll soon know. Obama is already cutting $313 BILLION
from Medicare.

Though Latin America is recovering -- I agree they will remain a target.
Needless to say, they don't want a liberal success story there -- any more than they
were going to permit a USSR/Russia success story. And Oil is King!

Interesting posts -- probably should be separate threads. Maybe later sometime . . .???

[The abyss]

133. Peace Patriot

You have stated this theory or portions of it several times. I find your logic excellent!

Written here – these compositions. WOW!

I wish there were a way that individual compositions and analysis like these could be recommended on their own merit.

[defendandprotect]

120. Pretty fair narrative . . . however, that makes Poppy look almost like a good guy . . .

and makes Pelosi/Dems complicit --

Granted, some of the imperialists would prefer to not make so much noise --
some, of course, would like Armaggedon to come quickly.

I do agree that the controversy surrounding Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld was going to bring
Rumsfeld down anyway. And Gonzalez, as well.

I do think that with people like Gonzalez/Yoo/Delahunty torturing the law for Bush/Cheney
almost anything could have happened. Remember, the nukes that flew off in a plane very
mysteriously?

I'm trying to remember what we thought at the time about the likeihood of Congress --
Dems especially -- going along with an attack on Iran?

Quite something to think about -- !!!

[fascisthunter]

69. Here's another Kick for Visibility... this is extremely important

thanks Skinner

[Tab]

71. To be fair

To be fair to Bush, Bush said no (although whether the question should have been up for contention in the first place is another issue).

To place Blame where it should go, Cheney was arguing for it.

I agree Bush was a tool throughout his pResidency, and made that joke about things being easier if he were a dictator, but at least he knew he wasn't. Cheney, on the other hand, more and more comes off as believing he has dictatorial powers (or should that be DICKtatorial?).

[flyarm]

72. To be fair..Bush was pres..the buck stops with him..Why did he allow Cheney to have that much power?

There is one pres..he is in charge of his administration and cabinet..no VP in my lifetime had the power Cheney did ..we all know bush was a puppet..but the buck stops with him..Bush is guilty of allowing anyone in his admin. of even thinking they had the power to do what Cheney was doing or attempting to do.

[Tab]

73. Well, he did stop it.

Make no mistake, I'm no defender of the chimp. I don't know all the dynamics in play, but apparently Bush did decide to assert himself in this situation. Cheney, of course, was there to push his agenda, and there was precious little pushing back. That Bush refused this time is small comfort - there are many other times I would have picked as well.

This doesn't redeem Bush in any way. I'm just saying that to be fair, he did choose this one time to push back (although perhaps other advisors suggested he do so).

The whole administration was rigged from the get-go, though.

[flyarm]

79. ohh i didn't mean you were..sorry i wasn't clearer!!..but this wasn't the end of it..

the bastards kept trying and tried on the backs of those poor people who went through the Katrina disaster..

my point is ..why would anyone in the bush admin even think they could attempt this shit against our constitution without getting their asses fired or held accountable through our judicial system?..Bush was complicit in every walk of this..and he is accountable for everyone he put in position of power and abuse of power.

[Doctor_J]

77. I assume this post is a joke

Bush had no control or decision-making power over ANYTHING. He was a stupi front man for Cheney's gang.

[No Elephants]

92. Sorry, but I think that is your assumption. IMO, Bush choose to leave a lot of

things to Rummy and Cheney in the early days, but made different choices later. Choosing to delegate does not mean you don't have decision-making power. It means only that you decided to delegate.

[defendandprotect]

121. They couldn't have made Bush president without Cheney . . .

remember that Bush even needed hidden microphones in order to "debate" . . .???

Remember that Bush wouldn't appear at the 9/11 hearings without having Cheney by his side??

We can clearly see back to the PNAC re this "Pearl Harbor" of 9/11 triggering the attacks
on Afghanistan and Iraq -- oil, drugs, crusade against Muslims -- imperialism -- all of it.

But PNAC is/was the megaphone calling to the right-wing, showing them the overall agenda.
There obviously has to be a lot of long term thinking and testing behind it. Most
obviously, the idea that yes, they had the pieces in place to bring it to fruition.

9/11 obviously had to take more than 2 years planning -- MIHOP

Anthrax attack on Congress might have been a last minute decision -- ?
The idea of a threat against Capitol/Congress was forecast on 9/11 in the plane on the loose
in DC before being brought down in Shanksville.

Anthrax was around and Rumsfeld had been working for an even more virulent form of it.
Maybe they were just waiting to see if it had to be done? Leahy and Daschle were the
obvious targets.

Patriot Act was presented within days of 9/11 -- obviously written before.
They might have been hoping that Congress would willingly go along -- quickly, quietly.
Didn't quite happen that way.

The buck doesn't stop with "puppets" -- his numbers may fall as they did -- and there may
be efforts to impeach him -- but the puppet-masters are the ones in control.
And I think -- as we can see from the torturing of the law and the politicalization of the
DOJ -- few were worried about consequences. I think they always depended -- and still do
depend on manipulation.

[Kurovski]

74. K&R.

Condi was against it. That's interesting to me. Why? I don't know.

[Papa Boule]

78. The right was so terrified Clinton and the left were planning to do something like this

And if were it to leak that Obama had considered it, they'd be freaking right now.

But as always, trampling the Constitution and rights and basic protections is not a problem if a conservative does it. When a conservative does it, the people who complain about it are the problem.

But that kind of thinking isn't limited to the right. There are people who profess to be on the left who would defend or rationalize it if came out that Clinton or Obama had considered it.

[DebbieCDC]

80. K&R

But I don't for one second believe Jr. had the stones to stand up to Darth or the smarts to know what was going on. I think daddy pulled strings and got Darth/Addington shouted down by some other player/players.

I find Peace Patriot's analysis compelling in this regard.

[mvd]

81. K&R, this is scary stuff

Rare time Darth Cheney didn't get his way.

[24601]

82. Well, on 9-11, the military was dispatched. Fighters under

federal authorities were sent to intercept the hijacked planes, but they arrived too late. I didn't see any NYPD or FBI F-16s flying CAP over our cities - defense is doctrinally a military mission. The military has an appropriate role to defend the US - and that doesn't mean that they can do that only while overseas. When an enemy force is in the act of invading or attacking the US, stopping them is a military mission, not a law enforcement mission.

What the federal military cannot do (and the national guard while under state control can) is conduct law enforcement operations. When you see a soldier, the uniform tape says US ARMY whether the soldier is regular army, reserves or national guard - so just observing someone in uniform doesn't tell you if they are doing a guard mission or if they are federal, including federalized guard, performing a defense mission.

You may recall from Katrina, that the Governor could have the guard arrest/remove people while the federal Task Force Commander said absolutely that his forces would not do that but were there for logistical support only.

Going way back...the Arkansas Gov used the guard to keep the black kids out of the school. President Eisenhower determined that the state was essentially in rebellion by disobeying the courts. Eisenhower federalized the guard and the next day, the same soldiers were ensuring the kids' safe entry into the school.

[defendandprotect]

117. NORAD is always on duty . . . except on 9/11 . . .

the military was dispatched. Fighters under
federal authorities were sent to intercept the hijacked planes, but they arrived too late.

They arrived too late??? They moved moved up to Canada so as not to arrive at all!!

The "hijacked" planes flew over dozens of military bases which could, of course, have also
responded!

Let's just be grateful that after almost 55 years of protecting our skies, NORAD's absence
wasn't the day "The Russians were coming!"

And -- btw -- had this been the Russians would you have been as likely to believe the OCT?

Meanwhile, you might also have noticed that our National Guard weren't permitted to respond
to Katrina as they normally would have. They were held back from doing so. In fact, much
of the assistance which could have been offered NO was held back.

The idea of the National Guard is to protect citizens, to aid in emergencies in the US.

However, I doubt anyone would ever object to the Federalizing of the National Guard to protect
African-American minorities who were being barred from public schools???

[24601]

124. Having worked in Cheyenne Mountain four years, I have a

reasonable amount of experience working with NORAD, and with what at the time was US Space Command. USSPACECOM ran the Space Surveillance Center, Space Defense Operations Center and Missile Warning Center. NORAD ran their main Command Center in the mountain as well as the Air Defense Operations Center. Space Command's main Command/Ops Center wasn't in the mountain but was over on Peterson AFB. NORAD always had a one-star officer on duty in the Command Center while USSPACECOM's "senior shift worker" was an O-6. Base support at both locations was from the Air Force Space Command. In the mountain, support people outnumbered command/ops center by a factor of 10.

Cheyenne Mountain was put into inactive status a few years ago and now the NORAD/USNORTHCOM HQs on Peterson AFB has their Command Center.

It shouldn't be a surprise that all of the Air Defense Identification Zones were outward-looking from the US and Canada (yes, not all the NORAD Regional Commands are in the US). Terrorism, including hijackings was treated from a legal rather than a military perspective. The FBI was the lead agency, just like in bank robberies and interstate kidnappings. If someone hijacked a plane, you didn't want to be a white male in an aisle seat (especially in first class)but the advice was to stay quiet, don't fight back and you probably would survive. Al Qaeda counted on this mindset - if everyone know what was intended, each flight would have ended up like United 93.

It also should be understood that not every Air Base was subordinate to a NORAD region - only those forces formally apportioned to NORAD were under its day to day control.

On 9-11, I was in DoD on duty in the DC Area, not at the Pentagon, preparing for overseas TDY that obviously was canceled.

What's your fist-hand experience?

[defendandprotect]

126. Nice history . . . but NORAD didn't respond on 9/11 . . .

And it's interesting that we have people involved supposedly connected to these

entities -- whether police, or military, or NORAD -- and they simply just don't get it?

There's an old saying . . .

"You can't wake up a man who is pretending to be asleep" --

Bye -- !!!

[24601]

129. I'll accept your response as "no first-hand experience" Bye n/t

[Snazzy]

87. Their arrest was timed to the first anniversary of 9/11

which the FBI missed by 3 days.

I can see Cheney et al. timing the military swooping into Buffalo on the 9/11 anniversary much like the "Mission Accomplished" fiasco and breaking Posse Comitatus for everafter in the PR climate of fear and 9/11 remembrance they so often worked to create.

Interesting that the actual legal/legislative attempt to break Posse Comitatus didn't come about until 2006. See:

On September 26, 2006, President Bush urged Congress to consider revising federal laws so that U.S. armed forces could restore public order and enforce laws in the aftermath of a natural disaster, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

These changes were included in the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122), which was signed into law on Oct 17, 2006, subsequently repealed in their entirety.<2>

Section 1076 is titled "Use of the Armed Forces in major public emergencies". It provided that:

The President may employ the armed forces... to... restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition... the President determines that... domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order... or suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such... a condition... so hinders the execution of the laws... that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law... or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.<3>

The actual text is on pages 322–323 of the legislation.

As of 2008, these changes have been repealed in their entirety, reverting to the previous wording of the Insurrection Act.<4>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

So in 2002 they were relying on yet another Yoo memo to break centuries of US law.

Unclear to me, but I think Posse Comitatus remains partly broken just by the fact of the new Northern Command and their mission.

(edit clarity)

[ohio2007]

88. What will the next 9/11 anniversary shake out of the bushes ?

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=de7_1248562154

Al Franken should look into it

[Snazzy]

89. Somalia huh, great

Man I miss a lot of fear mongering not watching Wolf.

[ohio2007]

91. Actually, no. 'The land of 10,000 lakes"

MINNESOTA, U.S.A
One of those dissapeared youths was seen dead in an internet picture by his own parents in the USA.


Son was homesick for a life full of hardship ?
Bring the strife of Somalia to the new adopted homeland. They can eventually create their own little enclaves imo...on taxpayers expense.
Thats how freedom of religion works :crazy:

[Snazzy]

125. I watched it. Was thinking about "failed states" and Clinton + Somalia

as a result. No room to get into a third quagmire is there? Bushco. will happily recycle that chapter of the playbook given half a chance I'd think.

No idea about domestic terrorism in Minnesota. I still haven't figured out the story in Buffalo, either from Lackawanna Six, or the guys entrapped about 2 months ago by, I take it, the same field office. Are any of these for real, how real? Or set up just to create that climate of fear (and funding)?

The Saudi who may have actually recruited the Lackawanna Six (who is not the guy blown up by a hellfire mentioned up thread), Juma al-Dosari, did go to Gitmo where he was supposedly linked in to actual attacks like the Cole. And probably tortured. Also intercepted on phone to Bin Laden's son (who was just in the news). Well, he got set free to Saudis in 2007 with no explanation. They gave him a car, a home, a wife, and a job.

Another guy, Jaber Elbaneh, a Yemeni who also lived in Lackawanna, NY, attended the same training camp, and possibly implicated in other attacks, remains free in Yemen apparently under the protection of that government.

In other words, much doesn't pass the stink test in following up on the actual terrorists here, from Yemen and Saudi Arabia just like 9/11.

[gimama]

90. why can't I rec Your thread, Skinner?

..tells me,"error",must be within 24 hrs' since OP posted, etc., but I just rec'd an OP earlier than this one. BtW,I so enJoy Your Writings..

[Hissyspit]

95. Lackawanna Officials Say Troops in City was Bad Idea

Source: The Buffalo News

Lackawanna officials say troops in city was bad idea
Federal, local police arrested the six men without incident

By Lou Michel
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
July 26, 2009, 7:06 AM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney not only proposed to send U. S. soldiers into Lackawanna to arrest the Lackawanna Six but also wanted to declare them enemy combatants, which could have put them in front of a military tribunal.

Cheney and ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued that the six young men be declared enemy combatants, while former Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III successfully argued against it, a retired high ranking federal law enforcement official said Saturday.

- snip -

Bush ruled out use of military personnel and declaring the men enemy combatants.

Lackawanna officials and citizens in the city’s First Ward, home of the Lackawanna Six, uniformly said it would have been a serious mistake to send soldiers into the city, pointing out that federal and local police succeeded in making the arrests in 2002 without incident.

Read more: http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/744712.html

[ScottLand]

96. It was a bad idea

starting with the fact that it was illegal.

[Nickster]

97. A "Bad Idea"? Why won't anyone say illegal?

[No Elephants]

102. ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act

[Nickster]

103. Still doesn't seem to meet the standards of the Insurrection Act either, the police function of the

state wasn't severly hindered to require Federal action.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

98. Seriously- Thank God Bush never died in office.

Could you imagine what Cheney would have done as the real acting POTUS

[Lasher]

100. Cheney assumed the presidency twice while Junior had a colonist.

Although it was for only about 2 1/2 hours each time I was highly concerned.

But remember when Reagan was shot? He was definitely incapacitated for a long time and Junior should have taken charge. But Nancy's lust for power would not permit it.

[defendandprotect]

116. OTOH, some say that after the assassination attempt, Bush became president . . .

[Lasher]

123. That could be true.

But it's academic now, since Saint Ronnie signed all papers even while unconscious with Nancy guiding the pen in his hand. Poppy may have been the president but Nancy assumed control.

[Thothmes]

130. Of course you have verifiable facts to support your claim.

[Lasher]

132. Reagan was shot on March 30, 1981.

For 10 days after the assassination attempt, he was drugged, dazed and physically incapable of leading the nation. He had lost half the blood in his body. Yet he was propped up in bed for the cameras to 'sign' a bill the following day (March 31).

There was no violation of the 25th Amendment, however, because Reagan had actually signed this and other documents in advance on March 29, on advice from Nancy's astrologer.

[ScottLand]

101. I was scared to death they were going

to try to say the 2-term limit didn't apply while we were fighting terrorists. I'm sure Yoo could have drawn up something to make it seem legal.

[defendandprotect]

115. Yes . . . . rather than practicing law it seems to be "torturing the law" . . . ???

[ohio2007]

99. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3986707

[TankLV]

105. and here is yet another REASON to HATE cheney and his AWOL WAR CRIMINAL pResident...

believe me, bush does NOT deserve any credit for doing NOTHING in this instance...

[tblue37]

127. Of course, Dick didn't think the federal and local police

couldn't make the arrest successfully; he just wanted a chance to "test" the Constitution and see if he could get away with undermining it some more.

[defendandprotect]

108. kick

[defendandprotect]

114. "...according to former administration officials" Memo declassified in March . . .

But the White House debate about the Lackawanna group is the first evidence that top American officials, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, actually considered using the Yoo/Delahunty document to deploy the military into an American town to make arrests.

Most former officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations about the case involved classified information. They agreed to talk about the internal discussions only after the memorandum was released earlier this year.

Among those in opposition were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division.

Those who advocated using the military to arrest the Lackawanna group had legal ammunition: the memorandum by Mr. Yoo and Mr. Delahunty.

The lawyers, in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, wrote that the Constitution, the courts and Congress had recognized a president’s authority “to take military actions, domestic as well as foreign, if he determines such actions to be necessary to respond to the terrorist attacks upon the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and before.”

The document added that neither the Posse Comitatus Act nor the Fourth Amendment tied a president’s hands.

Despite this guidance, some Bush aides bristled at the prospect of troops descending on an American suburb to arrest terrorism suspects.

“What would it look like to have the American military go into an American town and knock on people’s door?” said a second former official in the debate.



And wonder which way the Supreme Court would have decided this had Bush/Cheney gone forward????

And look at who our protectors were -- Rice, Bellinger, Mueller and Chertoff!!!

Yoo and Delahunty should, of course, be disbarred --

Obviously, they badly needed this new "Pearl Harbor" . . . !!!

"New World Order" . . . . almost here!!

[Thothmes]

131. Actually, not all that unprecedented

Abe Lincoln used the U.S.Army to arrest many Confederate sympathisers including memebers of the Maryland State legislature and the Governor of Kentucky.
The U.S.Army was the civil police force in the states of the old confederacy during reconstruction. As a matter of fact it was Souther Democrates that were instrumental in passing the Posse Comitatus Act in 1879. Eisenhower not only used the 101st airborn at Little Rock in 1957, he also nationalized the entire Arkansa National Guard and used them to police Little Rock during the integration of Little Rock High School.