Are we moving towards a military dictatorship? (Detainee Authority)

[mmonk]

Republicans moving to strip DOJ control of detainee authority.

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are teaming up with Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to write legislation that would take decisions about trying detainees out of the attorney general's hands and hand that power to the secretary of defense.

In the wake of the White House's new executive order allowing Guantanamo detainees to be held indefinitely, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) unveiled legislation that would, among other things, affirm the military's right to detain, hold and interrogate detainees at its discretion without Department of Justice or Attorney General Eric Holder involvement.

-snip-

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/mckeon-bill-would-exclude-holders-from-detainee-decisions.php

[spanone]

1. i'd be interested to see what the military did if we cut their budget.

the MIC scares the bejeezus out of me

[RagAss]

2. McCain...what a senile cartoon !

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. No closer than we were...

...under Eisenhower, and General Curtis LeMay and General Walker, or under Nixon, or under Reagan, or under anybody else since 1945.

[mmonk]

4. So we moved civilian controlled authority to military control?

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. It's an affectation that we live in uniquely dangerous times.

The right did it with terrorism, so their narrow and crabbed lives can have meaning in a great crusade.

The left does it with Seven Days in May scenarios, so their narrow and crabbed lives can have meaning in an equal and opposite crusade.

The military/security state today is as bad, and as dangerous, as ever it was. No more no less.

[patrick t. cakes]

7. i like what you say, but we are certainly moving towards something

would you not agree? There seems to be a certain unease "in the air."
Then maybe that unease is always in the air, its just our turn to sense it.

[mmonk]

8. My spidey sense has been tingling for a while.

We certainly aren't turning back toward anything more democratic. But maybe this is what empire in decline feels like. A few last power centers are flailing for power.

[mmonk]

9. It has a coup flavor though.

[mmonk]

5. Are there Republicans here?

Wondering why this was getting an unrecommend. It's not about Obama.