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Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack (pg. 2)
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| Trancer-X |
Nat Hentoff
General Ashcroft's Detention Camps
Time to Call for His Resignation
September 4 - 10, 2002
Jonathan Turley is a professor of constitutional and public-interest law at George Washington University Law School in D.C. He is also a defense attorney in national security cases and other matters, writes for a number of publications, and is often on television. He and I occasionally exchange leads on civil liberties stories, but I learn much more from him than he does from me.
For example, a Jonathan Turley column in the national edition of the August 14 Los Angeles Times ("Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision") begins:
"Attorney General John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace." Actually, ever since General Ashcroft pushed the U.S. Patriot Act through an overwhelmingly supine Congress soon after September 11, he has subverted more elements of the Bill of Rights than any attorney general in American history.
Under the Justice Department's new definition of "enemy combatant"—which won the enthusiastic approval of the president and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—anyone defined as an "enemy combatant," very much including American citizens, can be held indefinitely by the government, without charges, a hearing, or a lawyer. In short, incommunicado.
Two American citizens—Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla—are currently locked up in military brigs as "enemy combatants." (Hamdi is in solitary in a windowless room.) As Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe said on ABC's Nightline (August 12):
"It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. . . . And no court can even figure out whether we've got the wrong guy."
In Hamdi's case, the government claims it can hold him for interrogation in a floating navy brig off Norfolk, Virginia, as long as it needs to. When Federal District Judge Robert Doumar asked the man from the Justice Department how long Hamdi is going to be locked up without charges, the government lawyer said he couldn't answer that question. The Bush administration claims the judiciary has no right to even interfere.
Now more Americans are also going to be dispossessed of every fundamental legal right in our system of justice and put into camps. Jonathan Turley reports that Justice Department aides to General Ashcroft "have indicated that a 'high-level committee' will recommend which citizens are to be stripped of their constitutional rights and sent to Ashcroft's new camps."
It should be noted that Turley, who tries hard to respect due process, even in unpalatable situations, publicly defended Ashcroft during the latter's turbulent nomination battle, which is more than I did.
Again, in his Los Angeles Times column, Turley tries to be fair: "Of course Ashcroft is not considering camps on the order of the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese American citizens in World War II. But he can be credited only with thinking smaller; we have learned from painful experience that unchecked authority, once tasted, easily becomes insatiable." (Emphasis added.)
Turley insists that "the proposed camp plan should trigger immediate Congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties." (Emphasis added.)
On August 8, The Wall Street Journal, which much admires Ashcroft on its editorial pages, reported that "the Goose Creek, South Carolina, facility that houses [Jose] Padilla—mostly empty since it was designated in January to hold foreigners captured in the U.S. and facing military tribunals—now has a special wing that could be used to jail about 20 U.S. citizens if the government were to deem them enemy combatants, a senior administration official said." The Justice Department has told Turley that it has not denied this story. And space can be found in military installations for more "enemy combatants."
But once the camps are operating, can General Ashcroft be restrained from detaining—not in these special camps, but in regular lockups—any American investigated under suspicion of domestic terrorism under the new, elastic FBI guidelines for criminal investigations? From page three of these Ashcroft terrorism FBI guidelines:
"The nature of the conduct engaged in by a [terrorist] enterprise will justify an inference that the standard [for opening a criminal justice investigation] is satisfied, even if there are no known statements by participants that advocate or indicate planning for violence or other prohibited acts." (Emphasis added.) That conduct can be simply "intimidating" the government, according to the USA Patriot Act.
The new Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report, shows the government, some years hence, imprisoning "pre-criminals" before they engage in, or even think of, terrorism. That may not be just fiction, folks.
Returning to General Ashcroft's plans for American enemy combatants, an August 8 New York Times editorial—written before those plans were revealed—said: "The Bush administration seems to believe, on no good legal authority, that if it calls citizens combatants in the war on terrorism, it can imprison them indefinitely and deprive them of lawyers. This defiance of the courts repudiates two centuries of constitutional law and undermines the very freedoms that President Bush says he is defending in the struggle against terrorism."
Meanwhile, as the camps are being prepared, the braying Terry McAuliffe and the pack of Democratic presidential aspirants are campaigning on corporate crime, with no reference to the constitutional crimes being committed by Bush and Ashcroft. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis prophesied: "The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people." And an inert Democratic leadership. See you in a month, if I'm not an Ashcroft camper. |
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| PHALPAX |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well, if the basic precepts of the constitution survived during the height of the Cold War and the commie scare, I think it should do just fine even in the event of a wmd attack against the US (assuming it's not a full-blown nuclear warhead that takes out dc or new york killing millions). At worst, I think you would see a complete shut down of borders until a more effective means of border control can be devised. |
I agree whole-heartedly....plus I think ordinary Americans realize that this little system we've been doing for 227 years (democracy) works the best and we would only be hypocrites to be turned into a full blown militarized nation, i.e. North Korea. |
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| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by PHALPAX
I agree whole-heartedly....plus I think ordinary Americans realize that this little system we've been doing for 227 years (democracy) works the best and we would only be hypocrites to be turned into a full blown militarized nation, i.e. North Korea. |
Ordinary Americans believe everything that they hear on the news, read in the papers, etc. They live blissfully with their ignorance.
Tommy Franks was the Commander of CentCom and you doubt his words of warning?
Our Constitution is being whittled away and all the inert masses just sit back thinking that all will be okay.
| quote: |
Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”
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| PHALPAX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer-X
Ordinary Americans believe everything that they hear on the news, read in the papers, etc. They live blissfully with their ignorance.
Tommy Franks was the Commander of CentCom and you doubt his words of warning?
Our Constitution is being whittled away and all the inert masses just sit back thinking that all will be okay. |
The wording of Franks comments suggest that our gov't would take such drastic action similar to the "Enabling Acts" passed by the Reichstag in 1933. That kind of action at that kind of level, in my opinion, is something that the American public would simply not tolerate. Sure, Americans in general are ignorant but not to point where we scarf ice all of our civil liberties just to catch a small group of psychotic Arabs. Big words like "civil liberties", "freedom" & "U.S. Constitution" are ideas and concepts that most Americans can comprehend. Take Pearl Harbor for example…a massacre occurred and Congress reacted promptly. One could argue that Japanese Americans civil liberties were trampled on which is fairly accurate, but in the context of the Franks article, there was no flexible law like the Enabling Acts that was vastly used. Congress is sworn to uphold the protections and values that the Constitution provides. I agree that there are loopholes in the Constitution that lawmakers are using to exert more control and infringement on civil liberties, but it is the language in the Constitution that keeps politicians from exerting any more of it. The concept of one fell swoop termination of the Constitution is nothing short of ridiculous. Judging by your reaction to the article and comments, you too are buying into the fear exerted by the media. |
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| Trancer-X |
| quote: | Originally posted by PHALPAX
That kind of action at that kind of level, in my opinion, is something that the American public would simply not tolerate. |
Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be given a choice.
Watch:
911 - The Road To Tyranny
(245 MB .wmv file) |
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| shaolin_Z |
@ Trancer-X:
how do they define "enemy combatant" now and what was the official definition before? |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer-X
Unfortunately, I don't think we're going to be given a choice.
Watch:
911 - The Road To Tyranny
(245 MB .wmv file) |
That was some very interesting and disturbing information. Thanks a bunch for posting it. I still have 20 minutes or more to watch of it but holy crap. WHAT THE IS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO? :( |
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| Trancer-X |
Also, an interesting 2 part video regarding the origins of our Federal Reserve. I hope occrider will watch it because I want to know what he thinks.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/mul...ey_masters.html
I have it saved on CD but I forget where I originally downloaded it. |
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| shaolin_Z |
Thanks for the links. |
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| ogvh5150 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Trancer-X
Also, an interesting 2 part video regarding the origins of our Federal Reserve. I hope occrider will watch it because I want to know what he thinks.
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/mul...ey_masters.html
I have it saved on CD but I forget where I originally downloaded it. |
The best documentary on the money system. Hopefully occ is reading this.
Can you say fractional reserve banking? |
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| smokeape |
I served on Tommy Franks' staff when he was 2ID Division Commander in Korea. The man is a hoot, and I'd follow him to hell and back by god!
Hooah!
;)
[[[smoke]]] |
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