Any Constitutional Lawyers onboard? If Impeachment proceedings are started

[BlackHawk706867]

against this Administration, what is the situation with them declaring Military Law?

ww

[Kagemusha]

1. While I'm not a lawyer, I can tell you this.

Impeachment proceedings and martial law have nothing to do with each other whatsoever. Congress does not answer to the military or to the President.

[BlackHawk706867]

2. I understand that, but what I want to know is how can we stop the President from declaring

martial law? That is what I am getting at!

ww

[Kagemusha]

3. By impeaching him. And it won't stop the next President from declaring it.

It'll just prevent one President from declaring it.

Even if Congress tried to remove all the laws enabling emergency powers like martial law, in genuine emergencies that is, a President could veto all such efforts; and even without law, the President is still Commander in Chief and could simply order the military to do things that are contrary to all good governance and rule of law. The situation would then be well beyond anything you can expect from Congress, and members of the military would have to decide if they serve the President, or the Constitution. Their oaths are to the latter. But you search for a legal solution in vain.

[whistle]

4. BushCo would have to initiate a Coup de tête in order to command

...martial law, the U.S. military would not back them on such an endeavor against the American people. That is why they are keeping the military fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and issuing multiple tours of duty, basically to weaken and exhaust the military.

BushCo has the Blackwater private army that is 100,000 strong and well financed which would take their orders directly from the White House and the neocons. It is a frightening prospect and one which even congress is afraid of.

[beaconess]

5. You know this how?

[whistle]

11. How do I know that Blackwater is the private army of BushCo and reThuglicons?

....Who else would Blackwater be loyal to?

<snip>
Blackwater - Bush’s Private Army
March 20th, 2007
by Jeremy Scahill

On September 10, 2001, before most Americans had heard of Al Qaeda or imagined the possibility of a “war on terror,” Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush. Standing before the former corporate executives he had tapped as his top deputies overseeing the high-stakes business of military contracting–many of them from firms like Enron, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation–Rumsfeld issued a declaration of war.

“The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America,” Rumsfeld thundered. “It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.” He told his new staff, “You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world…. the adversary’s closer to home,” he said. “It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.” Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old DoD bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. Announcing this major overhaul, Rumsfeld told his audience, “I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself.”

<deep snip>
To the great satisfaction of the war industry, before Rumsfeld resigned he took the extraordinary step of classifying private contractors as an official part of the US war machine. In the Pentagon’s 2006 Quadrennial Review, Rumsfeld outlined what he called a “road map for change” at the DoD, which he said had begun to be implemented in 2001. It defined the “Department’s Total Force” as “its active and reserve military components, its civil servants, and its contractors–constitut its warfighting capability and capacity. Members of the Total Force serve in thousands of locations around the world, performing a vast array of duties to accomplish critical missions.” This formal designation represented a major triumph for war contractors–conferring on them a legitimacy they had never before enjoyed.
<MORE>

http://dissidentnews.wordpress.com/2007/03/20/blackwater-bushs-private-army/

<other links>

http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2007/05/30/blackwater-americas-private-army/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/politicalmuscle/2007/04/a_private_army_.html

<New book "Blackwater">
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=10486

http://dissidentnews.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/truthdig-interviews-jeremy-scahill-on-us-private-army-blackwater/

[BlackHawk706867]

6. Yep, except that there are 300 million Americans to stand up against this...

And if they do, this POS is toast in real life drama... if not, then it's all over...

ww

[grasswire]

7. which is why liberals should be supporting the 2nd amendment

It's a lousy time to be thinking about gun control, Dems.

[krispos42]

9. I've been saying that for a while

The neocons are grinding the economy to the brink of collapse and making massive executive power grabs... and Rep. McCarthey is trying to ban barrel shrouds.

[onenote]

10. oooh. Does the "Blackwater private army" have black helicopters?

[foo_bar]

12. that's coup d'état (coup de tête = headbutt)

Coup d'état:


Coup de tête:

[PoiBoy]

8. The Dangers of a Cornered George Bush...

link here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1465196

This single argument (that if cornered, Bush will declare martial law) changed my mind from "indict and imprison later" to "impeach now!"

<snip>
But What if Impeachment Begins?

Is there nothing to rein in Bush and Cheney? It seems likely that only if impeachment proceedings were under way would senior officers like CENTCOM commander, Admiral William Fallon, be likely to parry an unlawful order to start yet another war without the approval of Congress and the UN.

With impeachment under way, such senior officers might be reminded that all officers and national security officials swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States—NOT to protect and defend the president.

It was a highly revealing moment when on July 11, former White House political director Sara Taylor solemnly reminded the Senate Judiciary Committee, that as a commissioned officer, “I took an oath and I take that oath to the president very seriously.”
<end>

I believe that impeachment proceedings need to begin immediately, and Congress needs to question the military commanders to clarify exactly where their loyalties lie... I for one agree with the previous poster that our military, police and private contractors may be better armed and trained.. but will be no match against one hundred million homegrown patriots standing up for our country...