In a White House ceremony, George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act (MCA) now known as "the torture authorization act," but it's more far-reaching than that. It grants the administration extraordinary unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute alleged terror suspects and anyone claimed to be their supporters. It also lets the President call anyone anywhere in the world an "unlawful enemy combatant" and empowers him to arrest and incarcerate those accused indefinitely in military prisons without needing corroborating evidence proving guilt. The law states for persons detained that "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause for action whatsoever.... relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission....including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions."
MCA further scraps habeas protection (dating back to 1215 in the Magna Carta) for domestic and foreign enemies of the state, citizens and non-citizens alike, and says "Any person is punishable... who....aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures" and in so doing helps a foreign enemy, provides "material support" to alleged terrorist groups, engages in spying, or commits other offenses previously handled in civil courts.
Other key elements of the act include:
-- legalizing torture against anyone and lets the President decide what procedures can be used on his own authority;
-- denying detainees international law protection and lets the executive interpret it;
-- empowering the President to convene "military commissions" to try anyone he designates an "unlawful enemy combatant," and hold them in secret detention indefinitely;
--denying speedy trials or any at all;
-- allowing evidence obtained by torture or coerced testimony to be used against detainees in trial proceedings;
-- permitting hearsay and secret evidence to be used; and
-- denying due process, destroying human dignity, mocking the rule of law, and establishing the principle of kangaroo court justice for anyone the executive targets.
Revising the 1807 Insurrection Act and Ending 1878 Posse Comitatus Protection
Also on October 17, 2006, the president privately signed into law a hidden provision in Sections 1076 and 333 of the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. It amended the Insurrection Act of 1807 and Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that prohibit using federal and National Guard troops for law enforcement inside the country except as constitutionally allowed or expressly authorized by Congress in times of a national emergency like an insurrection. The executive can now claim a public emergency, effectively declare martial law, suspend the Constitution for "national security," and deploy federal and National Guard troops on the nation's streets to suppress whatever he calls disorder. That means First Amendment-guaranteed peaceful public demonstrations and all organized acts of dissent are no longer constitutionally protected. Neither is the republic in "police state America."
The new law also authorizes the Pentagon to transfer state-of-the-art crowd control weapons and technology to state and local responders. It's to militarize them and blur the distinction between federal and local law enforcement agencies as an operational police state tactic.
The Real ID Act of 2005
Congress passed the Act that threatens personal privacy, it's scheduled to become effective in May, 2008, and it will require states to meet federal ID standards if in takes effect next spring. That's now in question as two dozen or more states passed laws prohibiting its use and refused to fund it.
The federal law mandates that every US citizen and legal resident have a national identity card that in most cases will be a driver's license. It requires that it contain an individual's personal information and means this ID will be needed to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able to vote, or conduct virtually any other essential type business.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
What a stupid comment on the first page regarding the misinformation that no Pope has condemned the war in Iraq. All the author had to do was google Popes + Iraq War and find all sorts of condemnations by Pope Paul II and Benedict XVI of the war. What the article should have stated is that our MSM has not reported on these condemnations because they certainly undermined what the Bushies wanted to do.
Other than that, probably a good article.
by
Shirley Bianchi (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 95 comments)
on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 12:12:59 PM
one sour apple will not spoil the complete bushel. Comments Popes have made can be taken either way. Popes are also known to contradict themselves with their public statements. I haven't read all ten pages of your article. Once I have, I shall add yet another response.
curtis
by
Tony Forest (6 articles, 15 quicklinks, 155 diaries, 1359 comments)
on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 2:55:04 PM
In other words, you didn't read the article, but merely saw
the 1st-page comment about "Popes." Do you really think it's fair to use the word "stupid" in connection with this article, based on your shallow (probably non-existent) acquaintance with it?
You picked on what is at worst a trivial defect, in an otherwise high-quality & thorough review of an immensely important subject. Meanwhile, you don't have a single word to say about the article's main thrust. // There's a large gap between the quality of the article, & the quality of your petty criticism of it.
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1171 comments)
on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 1:11:01 PM
This is the most comprehensive review and summary of all of the preconditions already placed for dictatorial rule and the suspension of civil rights in the United States. Typically, the first comment nitpicks a minor, though important, mistake, that is irrelevant to the body of the work. This is one I will print and reference again and again, and I thank the author for the hard work he put into it.
I might note, additionally, that many of the rights lost, and structures built, actually occurred long before Bush II, during another unending war on drugs. In that war, random stops without cause and vehicle searchs without cause became legal, excessive and no bail became constitutional, anonymous and confidential sources became sufficient cause to obtain a search warrant for a dwelling, paid state witnesses became common, perjury by police became more common than not, local police became militarized in SWAT units, and joint federal/state investigations ended the long held tensions between the two.
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W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 333 comments)
on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 4:19:16 PM
for your excellent article Mr. Lendman. I found your article to be the best compilation of all these issues I have yet read. I will pass it on to all I know because it lays everything out very clearly.
btw, Shirley's harshness in the first post was uncalled for and rather telling.
m.
by
richard (0 articles, 5 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 789 comments)
on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 6:50:07 PM
Police State America ---- the domestic half of Vichy Empire
Yes, Stephen Lendman’s article provides a very comprehensive review focusing on the domestic tyranny and police state which has arisen in parallel with the current and future imperialist wars in Iraq and the Middle East.
The author’s previous book, “The Iraq Quagmire: The Price of Imperial Arrogance” focused more on the dangers of arrogant empire in terms of foreign imperialist wars, while this article focuses more on the domestic tyranny and police state also common to the very same pathology of empire.
Lendman’s analysis of both foreign wars and domestic tyranny at the hands of empire certainly bespeaks his own intelligent assessment of the real danger in which we find ourselves, and also comports with the insightful views of many progressive and humanitarian leaders and with the increasing number of active participants on Op-Ed (and other anti-war, anti-tyranny, and pro-human rights sites and movements).
However, what really caught my attention in Lendman’s piece was his reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ very public and very blunt statement that, the US is 'worst' imperialist’ and wields its power more reprehensibly than the British Empire ever did.Which is saying quite a bit ---- but which I fully subscribe to also.
But the real question that came to my mind from this dramatic statement (which I had not previously seen), and, in fact, the question that always comes to my mind when reading Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Harold Pinter, David Harvey, David Korten, Gabriel Kolko, Justin Raimondo, Michael Hardt and hundreds of other well informed progressive intellectuals and thousands of articles and authors here on Op-Ed, is just this:Why is this ‘worst imperialist’ empire, which wrecks foreign wars, domestic tyranny, and economic oppression not universally recognized as such an awful and clearly un-democratic empire?
If a ‘Brit’ like the Archbishop of Canterbury sees this as imperialism worse than the British Empire, then why doesn’t everybody see this danger as empire?
Or to put it another way, how can the laughable veneer or façade of a supposedly progressive democracy be conflated with what is so clearly the behavior of an empire worse than the British Empire?Is it merely that America is not called an empire by the MSM?
Hannah Arendt presciently warned that, “Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home”, and yet the tyranny and police state that Lendman describes here, as well as the imperialist wars that his book describes are precisely the twin symptoms of empire.So why is America not easily recognized by the majority of the citizens as acting like an empire?Why is it not openly recognized and described as an empire?
My belief comes back to a more guileful style of empire than ‘Brits’ or Germans, or Russians, or anyone historically caught in the belly of an empire ever saw.I fully believe that, except for the insightful minority who see through the fog, the very modern, new style of guileful empire (one might say neo-empire) that infects our country is a nearly invisible virus or pathology, which maintains the outward appearance and image of a normal nation-state, and yet takes over the entire body politic.
Similarly to the Nazi Empire that breached the Maginot Line and took over the French Republic, this neo-empire of global corporatism, through stealth instead of Panzers, breached the defenses of the old American Republic.But instead of setting up a thinly veiled ‘Vichy French’ government to front for the empire, it has set up a much more guileful, harder to comprehend, and infinitely more sophisticated two-party ‘Vichy America’ ---- which is not just one phony party installed as the government, but the entire two-party structure of government, plus a ‘vichy press’, and all the appearances of a civil and economic society infrastructure imposed over the rough glove of empire.
Many, like Lendman, see through the façade of normalcy and clearly comprehend the dangers of empire in both foreign wars of imperialism and domestic tyranny and police-state tactics.But we are faced with the need for some cleaning solution to ‘clear the windshields’ of most Americans, so that they can see the road they are driving down before it is too late.We are currently on the ‘yellow brick road of empire’ in this land of Oz and the mainstream media is no more helpful than the Cheshire Cat in getting us back to reality.We are living in a surreal corporatist empire’s movie only imitating normal democracy titled ‘Vichy America’, and we have to regain our bearings and our country before it becomes “Apocalypse Now”.
by
Alan MacDonald (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 51 comments)
on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 at 3:35:16 PM
WHEN THE DRUM BEAT IN CONGRESS GET LOURDER ON "GUN CONTROL" THIS WILL BE THE TURNIND POINT TO DECTATORSHIP. AMERICAN PUBLIC IS THE MOST ARMED IN THE WORLD, AND THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM FOR NEOCONS AND GLOBALIST, BELEIVE ME THEY WANT YOUR GUNS.
A LITTLE HISTORY
IN 1929 THE SOVIET UNION ESTABLISTED GUN CONTROL. FROM 1929 ABOUT 20 MILLION DISSIDENTS, UNABLE TO DEFEND THEMSELVES, WERE ROUNDED UP AND EXTERMINATED.
IN 1911 TURKEY ESTABLISHED GUN CONTROL. FROM 1915 TO 1917, 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS, UNABLE TO DEFEND THEMSELVES WERE ROUYNDED UP AN EXTERMINATED.
AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT HITLER DID WITH GUN CONTROL. I KNOW THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE WHO THINK GUNS KILL PEOPLE, BUT THE FACT PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. AND IF OUR GOVERNMENT TAKES OUR GUNS, THE ONLY PEOPLE WITH GUNS WILL BE THE CRIMINALS AND OUR GOVERNMENT. AND WE KNOW THAT THE POLICE ONLY ARIVE AFTER THE FACT, AND REALLY DON'T STOP CRIME.
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RICHARD SHADE (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 460 comments)
on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 at 9:53:40 AM
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11:14
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. Matthew 24:9
The unbearable situation of the poor under oppressive national orders is reinforced by an unjust international order President Bush's new world order is coming on the heels of a decade that witnessed the largest transfer of wealth from the third-world poor to the developed-country rich in human history. The recent massive drain of wealth from the South to the North is reminiscent of the colonial conquest. In 1989 alone, third world peoples sent $52 billion more in debt payments to developed countries in the North than their nations received in new credits.
by
countsueulaw@hotmail.com (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, December 21, 2007 at 6:47:38 AM
looks like we have the stage set for the anti christ
I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." - Thomas Jefferson
It is perfectly possible for a man to b out of prison, and yet not b free-to b under no physical constraint and yet to b a psychological captive, compelled to think, feel and act as the representatives of the national state, or of some private insterest within the nation, wants him to think feel and act...the nature of the psychological compulsion is that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to b free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective -Aldous Huxley(Brave New World Revisited)
"The U.S. record of war crimes has been, from the nineteenth century to the present, a largely invisible one, with no government, no political leaders, no military officials, no lower-level operatives held accountable for criminal actions... Anyone challenging this mythology is quickly marginalized, branded a traitor or Communist or terrorist or simply a lunatic beyond the pale of reasonable discussion." Carl Boggs
"We live in a nation hated abroad and frightened at home. A place in which we can reasonably refer to the American Republic in the past tense. A country that has moved into a post-constitutional era, no longer a nation of laws but an autocracy run by law breakers, law evaders and law ignorers. A nation governed by a culture of impunity ... a culture in which corruption is no longer a form of deviance but the norm. We all live in a Mafia neighborhood now." Sam Smith Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins
"Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike." William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice
by
countsueulaw@hotmail.com (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, December 21, 2007 at 7:04:22 AM
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