Don' Get Cocky...

Posted By: Average American
Posted on: Jun. 29, 2006 at 9:52 PM

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Bush Denied By His Own Court.

Now I’m sure this is how many of you are going to hope to see the Big Courts decision handed down today on the Military Trials that Bush was planning on having for the Gitmo residents. True, they did deny the tribunals under current U.S. Law, and they did say that these people are covered under the Geneva Convention, although an elementary reading of the documents makes this claim tenuous at best. But it is what was written in the opinions that may carry the heaviest weight in the long run. They told the President what to do in order to make his plan Supreme Court friendly.

Simply return to Congress and ask them for the authority to conduct these tribunals. Simple as pie isn’t it. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his opinion that without congressional approval, these matters could not go forward.

Justice Thomas had the opposite opinion of the situation; however, in this country of checks and balances and with the system being designed so that the majority of the justices decide the case, the Supreme Court is in charge at this a stage of the game.

What will happen next? With the courts so much as telling Bush what he needed to do I am sure he will do just that, approach congress in the next weeks soliciting the very authority needed to “move forward”. And it is very likely that congress will provide for just such an action to be performed by the military at the discretion of the Commander of the Armed Forces, or as I like to refer to him, the President.

The bigger question is how are the Democrats on the Hill going to tout this as a win when it is nothing more than a rain delay. Harry Reid has taken a pass on the subject and is going forward with his plan to ask for a withdrawal date for the troops. The same plan he watched go down to defeat just earlier this month. But you have to hand it to Harry, he’s like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going and going, regardless of the fact that it has already been voted on. Matter of fact a Google search shows Reid hasn’t had an opinion on the Supreme Court since the Alito nomination.

If you look for the three Democratic front runners for the 2008 election you find an eerie silence on the part of Gore, Kerry and Clinton (Hillary). These are the leaders of the Democratic Party, why are they not speaking out about this great triumph of the liberal cause, the protection of rights for the very enemy we are fighting? Because they know as well as I do that this is nothing more than a rain delay and that they can not comment on this or they will look as stupid as Pelosi.

Lets look at her comments one more time…”The rights of due process are among our most cherished liberties, and today’s decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration’s detainee policies and a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights”, (sorry, had to correct her grammar for this part of the discussion). “The rights of due process…” Would this not be an American Right supported by the Constitution of the United States and specifically a citizen benefit? BINGO. “…are among our most cherished liberties…” our liberties as in American citizens again, right? BINGO. “…and today’s decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration’s detainee policies…” a rebuke, really. Why did they give him a perfectly plausible way to get around this part of the law if they were in the middle of rebuking him? “…and a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights.” Now this part is the real money shot of this whole statement, protecting both the American people and our Constitutional rights, of which you must be an American citizen or be here on a legal Visa or other officially recognized federally issued pass for lack of a better term to even qualify for.

I hate to say this but Hillary, Kerry, Gore and hell, even Reid are all a hell of a lot smarter than the moron in charge of the House Democrats on the Hill.

Either way folks, don’t get cocky, this nothing more than a brief delay in the action, a break so to speak. So go get a popcorn, a soda and a box of goobers, because when we come back the real action will start…

But what would I know; I’m just an Average American.

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www.MoronInCharge.com

Jun. 29, 2006 at 11:03:42 PM

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"They told the President what to do in order to make his plan Supreme Court friendly. Simply return to Congress and ask them for the authority to conduct these tribunals."

You glossed over the essential heart of our discontent (hatred) of this President and his unitary executive powers.

That's all he had to do was get Congressional authority and oversight. He did not.

He wanted to data phone millions of American's domestic phone calls. Then get a judicial court warrant or conduct a program with Congressional oversight.

He wanted to eavesdrop on domestic calls oversees. Go through the FISA court.

He wants to trace our financial records to follow the money of the terrorists. You guessed it. No Congressional oversight, review, approval - nada. It's not enough to brief a few Congressmen after the fact, you have to do it before you start.

What do all these things have in common? They're illegal. Like signing statements that aim to reinterpret rather than clarify Congressional legislation, they're unconstitutional.

No, I'm not gloating. I mourn the fact that we have come so far down this road towards Fascism, for so long, without the Congress or the Court speaking out until now. I agree with you, that with the a$$-kissing Congress in hand, Bush will indeed CHANGE the law rather than OBSERVE it. But I suppose that's O.K. so long as it's a Republican doing it. Disgusting.

The only person I know here that is quick to gloat over the slightest thing that could conceivably be bent to vindicate his myopic world view is you.

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Ohio Nut Case

Jun. 30, 2006 at 04:58:56 AM

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I think the old addage - "It's easier / Better (depending on who you hear this from) to ask forgiveness, than to seek permission."

In today's world of media hype and bean spilling, I think the president's "go ahead" method in all of the items you list, MIC, were genious. Why "tip our hand" so to speak, to our enemies as to what we are doing / going to do, by going through the rigors of asking permission and wading through the beaurocratic delays that would surely ensue, as well as the inevitable media hype spreading the word throughout the world of the methods the U.S. is looking at using to stop our adversaries? That would be akin to telling your child you know he is stealing cookies from the cookie jar, and you are going to hide a video camera in the kitchen to catch him doing it - what would be the point?!?!

The president knew exactly what he was doing here. Right, wrong or indifferent - legal or not, he knew that if he used the programs initially, and as covertly as possible, - yes, he would get caught, and likely get his hands slapped - but in the mean time, he may be able to catch a few "bad guys", or at least obtain some very good leads, that just MAY help to avoid any future attacks on the U.S.. Bravo Mr. President !! Bravo !!

And - I truly think that even getting caught has its upside as well !! As, now, having gained some, or all of the information we were looking for in the first place, and having our genious (ya right) media spill the beans to make more news, our enemies know that, not only might some or all of their key secrets have been found out, but also - the U.S. is hunting, and will continue to hunt them down to ensure our domestic, and over all safety.

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Average American

Jun. 30, 2006 at 05:58:08 AM

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Mike,

Your just wrong buddy. The terrorist surveilence is absolutely legal on international calls, the phone records they may or may not have amassed was and is completely legal and the money tracking that traitors at the New York Times exposed is also 100% legal.

Even what Bush has done in Gitmo is not a direct violation of the law, it was a misinterpretation of the understanding of the legal standing of our guests at Gitmo. The Court clarified its view of the situation and Bush will now follow up where he needs too to secure the tools needed to properly deal with the scum he has in custody.

And as for changing the law instead of observing it, that is what we do in America, no law is in stone and all are subject to change. Stop acting like if the President does something it must be a knife in the back of the American people or Congress or the Courts. He is following the laws of the land.

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indie616

Jun. 30, 2006 at 07:02:51 AM

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Speaker Pelosi came out swinging, “The rights ofdue process are among our most cherished liberties, and today’s decision is a rebuke of the Bush Administration’s detainee policiesand a reminder of our responsibility to protect both the American people and our Constitutional rights." And just for the hell of it I pasted it complete with the Grand Speakers own type errors. What a gal you got running the show up there; you must be so proud.

AA, do you really want to get into that? Because I think I might be able to find just a couple of grammatical errors on the part of the Dear Leader Bush. Talk about embarassing!

It has not been established that Bushies programs are legal, and you saying it doesn't make them so. There are many constitutional lawyers who say they are not. The test will come someday in the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, you and ONC seem to take the position that Bush should just do whatever he wants over and over.
That is the definition of a serial criminal.

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BOMANI

Jun. 30, 2006 at 07:47:06 AM

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Massacre is an acquired taste. The United States is arguably the only country on the planet whose national personality and self-image is rooted in centuries of unremitting expansion through race war punctuated by massacre. There have always been "free-fire zones" all along the coveted, ever moving peripheries of white American power, from the "Indian country" surrounding the settler beachheads of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown to the "Sunni Triangle" of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. Whole peoples - millions - have been erased in the glorious march of American Manifest Destiny.

It is true that the globe-ravaging European colonial powers certainly killed more human beings in the course of their imperial careers than their settler sons in North America. However, the national characters of Britain, Spain, France, Holland and Belgium were already formed when the Great European Breakout and Worldwide Pillage commenced. Although their wealth was later built on the blood and bones of faraway "natives" and slaves, European civil societies were already shaped by long histories of conflict among themselves, between classes and nations on their small sub-continent. Britain and France stretched forth their naval and army tentacles to ensure that wealth arrived in Liverpool and Marseilles, but the colonized peoples did not effectively intrude on the evolution of European society.

Nobody had to invent the historical personalities of the Frenchman in France, the Englishman in England. Their civil societies were deeply impacted - and some sectors greatly enriched - by the existence of the colonies, but not (until very recently) by the foreign peoples who died for European prosperity.

The English settler colonies in North America were different - unique. Masses of armed migrants came to steal, and stay, and keep stealing. Theirs was an enterprise of aggrandizement at the native�s expense, and unlimited expansion. Less than a century and a half after the massacre and near-erasure of the Pequots - in celebration of which the Governor of Massachusetts proclaimed the first day of Pilgrim Thanksgiving - the white colonists decided that they were a distinct people, no longer Europeans.

They were right. American colonial society was shaped by constant depredations against non-whites, close up and brutal. By 1776, one out of five non-Indian residents of the colonies were Black slaves, the control and dehumanization of which had become a daily collective duty of� much of the white population. Across the Alleghenies lay unconquered Indian lands that, once cleansed, could usher into being a white empire that would dwarf Europe. The English King and his treaties with the Indians stood in the way; he had to go.

The "American" mission was clear, manifest: to endlessly expand through the elimination of impediments posed by the External Other ("savage" Indians), while keeping white society safe and separate from the "debauchery" of the valuable, Internal Other (Black slaves). This is the foundation on which the American iconography and celebration is based. Lacking any other, it is the template of white American identity and purported "civilization."

From Outright Theft to Glorious Empire

By the turn of the 20th Century, with the Indians dead or subjugated and African Americans forced into the long nightmare of Jim Crow, soon-to-be president Teddy Roosevelt - who called Blacks "a perfectly stupid race" - summed up the great American adventure with the guilelessness of a pure psychopath. In our March 16, 2004 issue, BC contributing writer Paul Street described Roosevelt�s "massive, four-volume 1899 study Winning of the West" as "a white-supremacist paean to Anglo-America's near-eradication of North America's original civilizations."

"During the past three centuries," Roosevelt opined, "the spread of English-speaking people over the world's waste spaces" (meaning spaces not occupied by "progressive" capitalist-developmental Caucasians) was a great and welcome "feat of power," for which the "English-speaking race" could justly feel proud. No such "feat" of "race power" was more laudable, however, than "the vast movement by which this continent [North America] was conquered and peopled" - the "crowning and greatest achievement of a series of mighty movements."

This is still the song that is sung, the imperative to supremacy that cannot but lead to endless war and massacre. Paul Street presents a long but necessarily incomplete chronicle of the mass murder exclamation points in U.S. history that polite white society now shakes its head in regret about, but which remain the operative events and premises on which U.S. behavior in the world is justified - celebrated! - today.

Roosevelt became a "hero" in the Spanish-American War of 1898, a pushover conflict in which a decrepit Spain was ejected from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The U.S. was now a full-fledged imperial power with tens of millions of "natives" under its boot - and proud of it. American Manifest Destiny had gone truly global, as white as ever.

But the Filipinos, who had surrounded and almost run out the Spanish before the Americans arrived, insisted on claiming their independence. The U.S. embarked on a scorched earth and bodies strategy - as usual.

The American soldiers were confused, however. What would they call these people who lived in the thousand-island archipelago "free-fire" zone? With the Indian wars (massacres) still fresh in their minds, and the lynching of thousands of American Blacks the favorite pastime for many back home, U.S. soldiers wrote to family and friends of the fun they were having killing the "niggers" and "injuns" of the Philippines.

"Gooks," "chinks," and "hajis" would come later, once the Americans got their feet wet in the blood of the world.

Mark Twain, an anti-war activist, wrote of how 30,000 U.S. troops caused the deaths of a half-million Filipinos. One episode of many in the imperial butchery occurred in 1906 when a whole village sought refuge from the invaders in a dormant volcanic crater on the southern island of Jolo.� Sixteen-hundred were massacred by American artillery, rifles and machine guns. U.S. officials reported:

"This action was absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people of Jolo. The position was first shelled by a naval gunboat and then assaulted by the troops and constabulary. The Moro women fought alongside the men and held their children before them, having sworn to die rather than yield. In this way a number of women and children were among the killed - an unfortunate but necessary evil."

The same script we hear today had been written, even then, just as the U.S. was stepping fully onto the global stage. We will not list the atrocities that U.S. soldiers have committed against (almost always) non-white peoples in the 100 years since the Jolo Crater Massacre, the Philippines. They are legion, as were the massacres that occurred in the previous centuries of the evolution of American Manifest Destiny.

The rabid expansionism at the core of the American national personality has never been bound by fixed borders, international law, or any other constraints.� Steeped in racism, it places no value whatsoever on non-white lives. That�s why the Bush administration gets away with not counting the civilian casualties in Iraq - only the American dead matter. And that�s why contemporary Americans feel perfectly normal speaking of "exporting American values" and other nonsense to cloak the atrocities of nation-stealing that are but a "necessary evil" in the fulfillment of some God-given mission - wherever it leads.

Continuity of Crimes

The Haditha, Balad, Ramadi, and Makr al-Deeb massacres of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops are mere whiffs from the inferno that has consumed up to a quarter million Iraqis since the Americans set upon their mission to accomplish - as in 1906 Jolo, the Philippines - what was "absolutely necessary to the welfare of the people."

In a post-Haditha column that Cindy Sheehan, anti-war mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, called "the most difficult article that I have ever had to write," she decried "the fact that our troops are being turned into war criminals." Sheehan recognizes that the U.S. is in violation of international law - that the Iraq war is a criminal enterprise.

"War turns our mostly normal American youth into wanton murderers who have lost their own humanity and love of others. Haditha in this war and My Lai in another disgusting war were unfortunately not aberrations. War is the abominable aberration."

We commend Sheehan�s courage in describing the U.S. government as criminal. In doing so, she is beginning to confront the national mythology - at the core of the national identity - that Americans are always seeking some "greater good" and commit crimes only by mistake or through the "aberrations" that are inevitably unleashed once wars are started.

But even the brave Ms. Sheehan cannot face the truth. The (white) American public still cannot discuss why the U.S. glories in having become the ultimate imperial power of all time, to the acclaim of the overwhelming majority of its citizens whose whole history and culture has prepared them to accept this "burden." Wars may be aberrant experiences in the lives of most human individuals, but some nations are serial aggressors. American society is unique in having been formed almost wholly by processes of aggression against external and internal Others.

Societies willingly go to war when they have been primed to do so by an already existing mass internal dynamic that is easily manipulated by scheming rulers. White America has been constantly at war with Others, internal and external, since long before the founding of the Republic. George Bush just played the right chords, in Iraq. Now the music is sounding way off key, which causes majorities of Americans great concern and confusion. Yet these same citizens react just like their pre-Iraq selves when the Bush regime choreographs a near-identical run-up to war with neighboring Iran – another country they know nothing about except that it's not "white" in the American sense. Are white Americans stupid, or have they been conditioned by a national ethos born of habitual aggression, fundamental expectations of impunity, and an idiotic assumption of innocence?

Cindy Sheehan tries to find the soft spot in America by blaming the crimes in Iraq and Vietnam on something called "war," but sadly winds up in the same place as apologists for slavery and genocide, who claim these systematic crimes were "aberrations" not fundamental to the American national character and worldview.

Slavery was not an aberration; it created the wealth that allowed the United States to emerge as a world power only a century-and-a-quarter after the Declaration of Independence, and to become a magnet for successive waves of European immigrants. Genocide of Native Americans was not an aberration; it was the logical outcome of the original European hemispheric-theft project, and became the national project with the triumph of the settlers over the British. The ever-expanding United States was born. Was it an aberration?

At the very least, we must hope the planet survives the United States. In a world that is becoming inter-dependent at breath-taking speed, there is no room for a superpower nation born in and nurtured by centuries of massacre and endless war, always with the majority support of its white citizenry.

A Change of Values

Most Black Americans understand that the U.S. has never been up to any good in the non-white vastness of the world, because we realize that most American whites have been steeped in either blood or lies about our own Black corner of the society. African Americans react with learned cynicism when white anti-warriors call for a "return" to "American values" - for obvious historical and contemporary reasons. What values? "American" values are the problem.

The American-instigated crisis that threatens to widen the arenas of war is not just an "aberration" that can be corrected by getting the Bush men out of office - although that would be welcome. In truth, most Americans care little about the world, unless they have a privileged position in it, imposing their will on everyone else. They are collectively hostile to their own fellow citizens who are Black, and many are rousing themselves for a fierce confrontation with yet another Other: Latino immigrants. It�s the same historical dynamic, that can only lead to more massacres and endless wars - foreign and domestic.

[link:ejscoffeelounge.us]

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June

Jun. 30, 2006 at 07:50:30 AM

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"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long as I’m the dictator!”
-- George W. Bush

Well, the job ain't easy - no one said it was!

And Bush sure as hell ain't the dictator he wants to be, though he sure behaves like it!

But, what do you expect from a dunce who'd make such a statement?

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Ohio Nut Case

Jun. 30, 2006 at 09:37:34 AM

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Bomani - WTF ?!?!?!?!?!?!? Even though I do not, by any means, have senior tenure on this site - I am pretty sure I will be speaking for the majority when I say - "Please keep your wild - unrelated rantings out of the comments section on an article you OBVIOUSLY did not read - or understand. A full page rant like this does not belong here - this is an article."

As for your rant - it is obvious you feel that all Americans are racist, murdering pigs who only want to keep the black, red, yellow, and brown man down. Here again - don't insult us !!!

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Phaedrus

Jun. 30, 2006 at 11:12:09 AM

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Hi AA,

You were able to quickly scan the Republican talking points and regurgitate them without putting in any independent thought.

Facts on the "detainees"

1. The Geneva Conventions cover every possible situation for enemy combatants; they are either
a. uniformed miltary personnel, who while armed and fighting may be killed or captured, and if become POWs.
b. non uniformed enemy combatants, who may be killed or captured and if so, they can be shot after they've been dispositioned.

What the Bushistas did was create a new class, the "detainee" who had no rights under Geneva. That is until the Supremes ruled yesterday that they did have rights. AA, it is called following the laws, not Judicial Activism. And breaking the law is all Bush knows how to do.

2. 86% of all detainees at Gitmo (755 approx) were not taken on a battlefield, as Bush keeps claiming. 55% were turned over by warlords in Afghanistan for bounties, and some were grabbed in Africa or Eastern Europe. Some were also arrested in street sweeps, where everyone on the street is taken to a detention facility and questioned/ tortured, and any evidence they can gather against them is used as evidence as to their guilt.

And nearly 300 of the 755 (give or take, I've seen the number of detainees, as low as 740, up to 759) have been or will be released, because they are completely innocent people who were at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

And as for the esteemed Buckeyes anti constitutional post (which makes me glad I'm a Fighting Irish fan)

"In today's world of media hype and bean spilling, I think the president's "go ahead" method in all of the items you list, MIC, were genious. Why "tip our hand" so to speak, to our enemies as to what we are doing / going to do, by going through the rigors of asking permission and wading through the beaurocratic delays that would surely ensue, as well as the inevitable media hype spreading the word throughout the world of the methods the U.S. is looking at using to stop our adversaries?"

There are no DELAYS in following the the FISA court on wiretaps- in fact they can wait 72 hours after they've been listening to get the court order. What delay is that ONC? They get 72 hours to get it done, then go ask for the warrant.

As for the bank account tracking thing, which I haven't had the time to research yet, it seems to be following the same arc as the NSA wiretapping did. First the program is revealed by career intelligence officials concerned about our Freedoms, and that the government is breaking the law. Then Bush comes out, and says the program is legal, and limited to only overseas phone calls, or overseas financial transactions. Next, the truth comes out (which if you notice, the truth never comes from Bush) that the program's scope is much larger, and includes spying on Americans, and is illegal.

Back to AA's response- Even what Bush has done in Gitmo is not a direct violation of the law, it was a misinterpretation of the understanding of the legal standing of our guests at Gitmo. The Court clarified its view of the situation and Bush will now follow up where he needs too to secure the tools needed to properly deal with the scum he has in custody.

Yes, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention, which is a treaty which has been ratified by the US Senate so it is breaking the law.

The terrorist surveilence is absolutely legal on international calls, *** true

the phone records they may or may not have amassed was and is completely legal *** it is legal for the Government, but not for the companies- its finable of $500 for every phone call they've reported to the govt w/o a warrant.

and the money tracking that traitors *** Bush is in violation of 750 laws, and his buddies Rove and Scooter outed a CIA agent directly invloved in fighting our enemies at a time of war (remember, he's a war time president) but the NYT editors are the problem*** at the New York Times exposed is also 100% legal. *** since we don't have any facts on what Bush is doing AA, only what he's told us, which as we all know is never the truth, we don't know if it is violating any laws yet.

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www.MoronInCharge.com

Jun. 30, 2006 at 05:12:34 PM

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ONC, the act of performing checks and balances upon any given branch of the government doesn't have to be the subject of Nancy Grace or People Magazine. Believe it or not, there are many secret and top secret programs under Congressional oversight, and these programs are classified for the very reason of keeping anybody working of the program - including the Congressional oversight committee - quiet on the details (and oftentime the very existence) of the program.

How do I know this? Because I used to work as an aerospace engineer in classified programs. There was definite Congressional review and oversight, but I am willing to bet that NO ONE without clearance ever heard of them.

When the administration comes to the FISA court seeking the warrant for a wiretap, it is done in secret. The only reason that the Bush Administration would choose to side-step the process of obtaining the warrant, therefore, is if there were a real chance that they couldn't make a legitimate case for the warrant in the first place.

There is no genius in the end run around Congress or the Judiciary - it is just ignoring the law in place to keep homegrown tyrants from usurping unlimited powers. Baby steps today - the whole enchilada tomorrow.

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Phaedrus

Jun. 30, 2006 at 05:49:26 PM

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Here's a quote from the lawyer at the heart of the Gitmo detainees storm.

LT. CMDR. CHARLES SWIFT, SALIM AHMED HAMDAN‘S LAWYER: At stake was the rule of law. The president had staked out a position that was contrary both to international law and to our domestic statutes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. What the court did was say that even the president has to follow the law. And that if we‘re going to try people, we‘re going to do it under the law, not under an ad hoc system.

Do you get it AA? "follow the law". Why can't righties understand that?

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