February 05, 2006
Some Folks Don't Recognize That We Are At War
"Could the President legally and legitimately order the targetted killing of a terrorist on US soil?" That is the essence of a question raised recently by Senator Diane Feinstein.
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In the latest twist in the debate over presidential powers, a Justice Department official suggested that in certain circumstances, the president might have the power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the United States. Steven Bradbury, acting head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, went to a closed-door Senate intelligence committee meeting last week to defend President George W. Bush's surveillance program. During the briefing, said administration and Capitol Hill officials (who declined to be identified because the session was private), California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Bradbury questions about the extent of presidential powers to fight Al Qaeda; could Bush, for instance, order the killing of a Qaeda suspect known to be on U.S. soil? Bradbury replied that he believed Bush could indeed do this, at least in certain circumstances.
I would take it a step further -- he can do it in any circumstance. Anyone who disagrees with that analysis is still sleeping soundly in a 9/10/01 world, refusing to deal with the the realities that were brought home on 9/11.
First, we are at war with the terrorists. In war, you kill the enemy. Taking some prisoners is something that happens, but the reality is that you try to kill them before they kill you. While we are dealing with smaller concentrations of enemies in this war (cells rather than armies), the principle remains the same -- killing the enemy may be preferable to capturing them.
Second, there are no civil liberties, no due process, in battle. There are no warrants, and there are generally no trials (other than war crimes) for prisoners. Too many folks don't recognize that, as the constant belly-aching over Gitmo demonstrates. Prisoners are held for the duration of the conflict. You don't get a warrant to conduct intelligence operations agains the enemy. And you don't need a judge, jury, and executive to sign off on a death warrant before you march into battle.
But for those who still don't get it, let me ask the question differently. If al-Qaeda were an invading army that got a foothold in the United States, would the President have the authority to order the targetted killing of the commanding general? Of particular officers? Or an attack on the enemy that resulted in the deaths of common soldiers?
If you answer in the affirmative, then there can be no objection to the targetted killing of terrorists in the US.
If you answer in the negative, you are really too stupid to bother with.
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1
"If al-Qaeda were an invading army that got a foothold in the United States"
That's the first question that popped into my mind as I was reading the article. What idiot would reject the president's authority to target our enemies here or outside our borders? Then again, what idiot would object to wiretapping any US citizen known to be conversing with terrorists??
That's the first question that popped into my mind as I was reading the article. What idiot would reject the president's authority to target our enemies here or outside our borders? Then again, what idiot would object to wiretapping any US citizen known to be conversing with terrorists??
Posted by: Hank at Sun Feb 5 05:47:22 2006 (HFUZy)
2
very well said, and thanks for the trackback/link
Posted by: The City Troll at Sun Feb 5 06:44:23 2006 (4nHpP)
3
Well, having been in a ,a href="http://bluecollarpolitics.com/bio.html">war I know the difference between shooting enemy and shooting civilians because your intelligence says they "might" or "could" be enemy.
Having been in intelligence, I know how often we're wrong.
Having seen how this admin seems most adept at cherry picking faulty intelligence and then proceeding blindly into a mess (WMD-2,400+ deaths and counting), I have little faith they'll be suddenly adept at using the power to kill people in America, citizens AND/or other.
Having been an American, I've read American history. I realize, therefore, that even with an occupying Army of the most powerful military then known (Brits), PLUS having American/Tory sympathizers in their midst, and in numbers that often exceeded the forces that wanted to offer blood and treasure to wrest freedom from a government/monarchy that had begun giving huge tax breaks to corporations (a certain tea corp. that the nobles owned much stock in), our courageous Founding fathers made a Constitution, AND a 4th Amendment, a priority. That was so EVEN with the Saint of their day, George Washington, as the President. He, and the others, did NOT want to empower the President with the very powers that those in America, who quake at the word terrorist and would prefer a safe/calm police state, now wish to grant our Executive.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
See, I live in NYC, worked on the construction of the Trade Center, had my daughter watch the first plane hit as she sat in a bus a block from the building and we've all been breathing the air the Bush admin lied and said was safe.
But I still refuse to surrender America to those 19 maniacs who used our planes as their missiles.
If we could fight many wars and many more battles to keep our Constitution supreme, I can't understamnd traitorous cowards who scream "surrender our sacred rights to protect me from a few dozen maniacs." That sickens me!
Of course, as odds are Hillary will be the next Pres (not my choice), I guess you figure you can trust the Clinton's to use all these Kingly powers (like searching your home, listening to and reading your private communication and, only when needed of course, ordering the death of your neighbor) well?
Having been in intelligence, I know how often we're wrong.
Having seen how this admin seems most adept at cherry picking faulty intelligence and then proceeding blindly into a mess (WMD-2,400+ deaths and counting), I have little faith they'll be suddenly adept at using the power to kill people in America, citizens AND/or other.
Having been an American, I've read American history. I realize, therefore, that even with an occupying Army of the most powerful military then known (Brits), PLUS having American/Tory sympathizers in their midst, and in numbers that often exceeded the forces that wanted to offer blood and treasure to wrest freedom from a government/monarchy that had begun giving huge tax breaks to corporations (a certain tea corp. that the nobles owned much stock in), our courageous Founding fathers made a Constitution, AND a 4th Amendment, a priority. That was so EVEN with the Saint of their day, George Washington, as the President. He, and the others, did NOT want to empower the President with the very powers that those in America, who quake at the word terrorist and would prefer a safe/calm police state, now wish to grant our Executive.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
See, I live in NYC, worked on the construction of the Trade Center, had my daughter watch the first plane hit as she sat in a bus a block from the building and we've all been breathing the air the Bush admin lied and said was safe.
But I still refuse to surrender America to those 19 maniacs who used our planes as their missiles.
If we could fight many wars and many more battles to keep our Constitution supreme, I can't understamnd traitorous cowards who scream "surrender our sacred rights to protect me from a few dozen maniacs." That sickens me!
Of course, as odds are Hillary will be the next Pres (not my choice), I guess you figure you can trust the Clinton's to use all these Kingly powers (like searching your home, listening to and reading your private communication and, only when needed of course, ordering the death of your neighbor) well?
Posted by: Jack Ballinger at Sun Feb 5 10:36:19 2006 (HkDSj)
4
Wow, Jack, you been in NY too long, listen to that drivel from those liberals will make your mind goto mush if you don't search out some truth.
I agree with Ben Franklin myself, and I don't like the Patriot Act one bit. It would seriously be abused by a liberal government.
While our Intelligence may not always be right, but whose is, what should we base what we need to do to defend ourself on?
We have an intelligence community, gutted by the first klintonista government, that is trying to do the job.
Yeah they are going to get some wrong, but not ALL of it.
I don't want to see an innocent die because of bad intel, no one does, but it happens all over the world, and right here in the US there are people killed because of bad intel.
So to act like this is just happening, I must ask you, being in the Intel community, did you have your head in the sand or what, if you believe this is just now happening..
No we don't have a perfect society, but in all honesty America is still the best REPUBLIC there is and the Best Country to live, even with our problems.
I agree with Ben Franklin myself, and I don't like the Patriot Act one bit. It would seriously be abused by a liberal government.
While our Intelligence may not always be right, but whose is, what should we base what we need to do to defend ourself on?
We have an intelligence community, gutted by the first klintonista government, that is trying to do the job.
Yeah they are going to get some wrong, but not ALL of it.
I don't want to see an innocent die because of bad intel, no one does, but it happens all over the world, and right here in the US there are people killed because of bad intel.
So to act like this is just happening, I must ask you, being in the Intel community, did you have your head in the sand or what, if you believe this is just now happening..
No we don't have a perfect society, but in all honesty America is still the best REPUBLIC there is and the Best Country to live, even with our problems.
Posted by: Scubachris at Mon Feb 6 03:27:47 2006 (AktpP)
5
For REPUBLIC edification:>/a>
Thom Hartmann: There are two dimensions. The first is that, back around the time of the Gingrich revolution (which makes me think that it was Frank Luntz, since he was behind the wording of the Contract for America), someone in the Republican Party figured out that whenever you use the word "democratic" it makes people feel good, but when you say "democrat," it doesn't have as much juice. Even though the real and only name of the Democratic Party is "Democratic Party," Republicans started referring to the party as the "Democrat" party. They also refer to Democratic Party's policies as "democrat policies," because they found that, when you say "democrat," you get a more negative emotional response, because people think "politicians." When you say democrat-ic, you get a more positive emotional response because people think of the frame of democracy.
Gingrich Republicans started referring to "that democrat politician Harry Reid," for example, or, "that democrat idea." You’ll even see it in the Washington Post and other publications incorrectly, sometimes. You can always tell the partisan bias of somebody based on whether they’re using that or not, because that’s been drilled into the Republicans. You never refer to the Democratic Party. You never refer to Democratic principles or ideals. You always say Democrat policies and Democrat party.
Secondly, there was the idea that the word democracy sounds an awful lot like democratic, whereas the word republic sounds an awful lot like Republican. Therefore, when referring to our form of government, they feel it is better to convince people that we live in a republic than to convince people that we live in a democracy. If you convince people that we live in a democracy, it may seem that the Democratic Party knows more about it. And if we live in a republic, then probably the Republican Party should be in charge of it. This is the thinking and the plan. We’re talking about an actual game plan here.
But here’s the real history of republican democracy. This word smithing began in 1786, the year before the Constitution was to be drafted in Philadelphia. James Madison was finishing up five years of research into the Constitution. He had been designated as the guy who would not run, but instead would be largely responsible for the Constitutional Convention. That is why he is referred to as the father of the American Constitution. Back in 1786, if you looked in the dictionary under the word "republic" or under the word "democracy," you would have found the same definition. It would have said, "republic – see democracy; democracy – see republic." They were essentially the same thing. Plato’s Republic was about democracy, or about the problems of democracy in a republic.
One of the things they struggled with in putting together the Constitution of the United States was that Plato’s arguments against the Athenian democracy - that is, that democracy was essentially mob rule - actually had some cogency. In ancient Athens, it took 6,001 people to show up to pass a law. They could actually get 6,001 people together, and it could be a mob. To participate in that representative democracy in Athens, there was a sort of lottery, something like our jury duty. Everybody’s name was in it, and, when your name came up, you had to show up and be one of the 6001. If you didn’t show up and your name came up, then you were called one of the" idiota" – which is where we got the word "idiot" from.
The founders were looking at this and thinking, this is the only experiment in democracy that has ever happened in civilized society. There also was the example of the Iroquois Confederacy, which Madison relied heavily on, although they were very skeptical because it wasn’t European. They were looking at this and saying, we want to create a federal republic - a central government where you also have individual states - because they had a lot of geographic areas with a lot of differences, and they weren’t willing to homogenize themselves. By the way, the same debate is going on in Iraq right now.
America's founders came up with this idea of the representative democracy. The federal state is a republic, and the democracy would be a "representative" democracy. It was better than having all of us getting together and voting for a particular law. We would vote for a particular representative who would represent us. The only remnant of pure democracy in our system now is things like the California referendum system.
Remember, we were operating under the Articles of Confederation, and lots of people were all for keeping the Articles of Confederation with a weak federal government and strong states. They were markedly opposed to the Constitution being passed.
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were on opposite sides of the debate about whether or not the rabble should be included. Hamilton was a conservative and Madison was a liberal, and they joined up together to do a sales job on the Constitution. Their sales job on the Constitution took the form of some 70 or 80 articles that today we refer to as The Federalist Papers. In late 1787, James Madison wrote one of the Federalist Papers in which he reinvented the terms "democracy" and "republic" intentionally to sell the Constitution to the average person in America. He said a democracy is mob rule and, Plato’s criticisms of it in Athens were probably valid, and we don’t want to have mob rule in the United States, but that's what the Articles of Confederation could lead to. Then he said a republic is more like rule by representatives, and the rights of the minorities are protected in a republic, which is what the Constitution he was trying to sell would do. In a democracy, he said, the rights of the minorities can be trampled. So he redefined these terms.
For the first forty years or so of America, from 1790 until about 1830, anybody who wanted to refer to this country in a favorable way referred to it as a republic. The people who are today’s Democratic Party – people like Jefferson – all referred to themselves as republicans – democratic republicans – because they combined the democratic faction with the republican faction.
Robert Dahl wrote a very interesting book called How Democratic is the American Constitution? He describes James Madison, in his aging days, writing a letter to a friend of his in which Madison says, "I kind of made up those distinctions between the words 'republic' and 'democracy,' but really what we now have is a democracy."
Thom Hartmann: There are two dimensions. The first is that, back around the time of the Gingrich revolution (which makes me think that it was Frank Luntz, since he was behind the wording of the Contract for America), someone in the Republican Party figured out that whenever you use the word "democratic" it makes people feel good, but when you say "democrat," it doesn't have as much juice. Even though the real and only name of the Democratic Party is "Democratic Party," Republicans started referring to the party as the "Democrat" party. They also refer to Democratic Party's policies as "democrat policies," because they found that, when you say "democrat," you get a more negative emotional response, because people think "politicians." When you say democrat-ic, you get a more positive emotional response because people think of the frame of democracy.
Gingrich Republicans started referring to "that democrat politician Harry Reid," for example, or, "that democrat idea." You’ll even see it in the Washington Post and other publications incorrectly, sometimes. You can always tell the partisan bias of somebody based on whether they’re using that or not, because that’s been drilled into the Republicans. You never refer to the Democratic Party. You never refer to Democratic principles or ideals. You always say Democrat policies and Democrat party.
Secondly, there was the idea that the word democracy sounds an awful lot like democratic, whereas the word republic sounds an awful lot like Republican. Therefore, when referring to our form of government, they feel it is better to convince people that we live in a republic than to convince people that we live in a democracy. If you convince people that we live in a democracy, it may seem that the Democratic Party knows more about it. And if we live in a republic, then probably the Republican Party should be in charge of it. This is the thinking and the plan. We’re talking about an actual game plan here.
But here’s the real history of republican democracy. This word smithing began in 1786, the year before the Constitution was to be drafted in Philadelphia. James Madison was finishing up five years of research into the Constitution. He had been designated as the guy who would not run, but instead would be largely responsible for the Constitutional Convention. That is why he is referred to as the father of the American Constitution. Back in 1786, if you looked in the dictionary under the word "republic" or under the word "democracy," you would have found the same definition. It would have said, "republic – see democracy; democracy – see republic." They were essentially the same thing. Plato’s Republic was about democracy, or about the problems of democracy in a republic.
One of the things they struggled with in putting together the Constitution of the United States was that Plato’s arguments against the Athenian democracy - that is, that democracy was essentially mob rule - actually had some cogency. In ancient Athens, it took 6,001 people to show up to pass a law. They could actually get 6,001 people together, and it could be a mob. To participate in that representative democracy in Athens, there was a sort of lottery, something like our jury duty. Everybody’s name was in it, and, when your name came up, you had to show up and be one of the 6001. If you didn’t show up and your name came up, then you were called one of the" idiota" – which is where we got the word "idiot" from.
The founders were looking at this and thinking, this is the only experiment in democracy that has ever happened in civilized society. There also was the example of the Iroquois Confederacy, which Madison relied heavily on, although they were very skeptical because it wasn’t European. They were looking at this and saying, we want to create a federal republic - a central government where you also have individual states - because they had a lot of geographic areas with a lot of differences, and they weren’t willing to homogenize themselves. By the way, the same debate is going on in Iraq right now.
America's founders came up with this idea of the representative democracy. The federal state is a republic, and the democracy would be a "representative" democracy. It was better than having all of us getting together and voting for a particular law. We would vote for a particular representative who would represent us. The only remnant of pure democracy in our system now is things like the California referendum system.
Remember, we were operating under the Articles of Confederation, and lots of people were all for keeping the Articles of Confederation with a weak federal government and strong states. They were markedly opposed to the Constitution being passed.
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were on opposite sides of the debate about whether or not the rabble should be included. Hamilton was a conservative and Madison was a liberal, and they joined up together to do a sales job on the Constitution. Their sales job on the Constitution took the form of some 70 or 80 articles that today we refer to as The Federalist Papers. In late 1787, James Madison wrote one of the Federalist Papers in which he reinvented the terms "democracy" and "republic" intentionally to sell the Constitution to the average person in America. He said a democracy is mob rule and, Plato’s criticisms of it in Athens were probably valid, and we don’t want to have mob rule in the United States, but that's what the Articles of Confederation could lead to. Then he said a republic is more like rule by representatives, and the rights of the minorities are protected in a republic, which is what the Constitution he was trying to sell would do. In a democracy, he said, the rights of the minorities can be trampled. So he redefined these terms.
For the first forty years or so of America, from 1790 until about 1830, anybody who wanted to refer to this country in a favorable way referred to it as a republic. The people who are today’s Democratic Party – people like Jefferson – all referred to themselves as republicans – democratic republicans – because they combined the democratic faction with the republican faction.
Robert Dahl wrote a very interesting book called How Democratic is the American Constitution? He describes James Madison, in his aging days, writing a letter to a friend of his in which Madison says, "I kind of made up those distinctions between the words 'republic' and 'democracy,' but really what we now have is a democracy."
Posted by: Jack Ballinger at Tue Feb 7 04:44:13 2006 (HkDSj)
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