Question: Is it possible to be too cynical with the Bush crowd?
Answer: No.
I give up.
Posse Comitatus
by Tim F| 65 Comments
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Posse Comitatus
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JK
Will the MSM’s newest sweetheart Liz Cheney make the rounds in the next few days to defend her daddy against this NY Times story?
It would be refreshing to see someone ask Liz how the hell she can question Obama’s willingness to defend this nation when her daddy got FIVE fucking deferrments to avoid serving in the military during the Vietnam War?
Fuck Dick Cheney and fuck his obnoxious, smarmy asshole daughter Liz.
Taylor
The irony is, as stuff like this comes out, you start to see how history might look more kindly on Bush.
Sure, he destroyed the country, but look at how much worse things could have become.
Imagine what would happen if we had had another 9/11.
robertdsc
I’m just gonna keep on walking.
MattF
‘Cynical’ suggests that Bush & Co. didn’t set out to subvert the Constitution– that they actually pursued some unrelated goal and their repeated attacks on the Bill of Rights were just collateral damage. I disagree.
I’ve felt for quite a while that their real goal was to put an end to (small-d) democratic government in this country. This explains why they were willing to cast the dice in Iraq– the chance of achieving the end justified the means. They failed, through some combination of incompetence on their part and luck on ours– I am, in point of fact, now persuaded that God protects drunks, small children, and the United States of America.
kansi
This piece and the Time story about standing up to Cheney on the Libby pardon. Shudder when Bush is the reasonable one in the room…..or has the Bush rehabilitation tour gotten underway?
Derelict
But Bush was all about the freedom and liberty! And, truly, nothing exemplifies freedom better than the military rounding people up so they can be detained indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer in secret locations. Unless, of course, we throw in a little torture. Now that’s freedom we can believe in!
Awesom0
This story distracts us from the “real” tyranny in this country: raising the top marginal tax rate by 3.5%. Jackasses…
linda
and don’t forget the attempted grab for power during katrina. all they were looking for was the precedent to establish military action on domestic soil.
and to the comment, just imagine if another 9.11 had occurred… most of those shiny police powers are buried thruout the patriot act — just waiting for the opportune moment to be implemented.
amk
The rewriting of shrub’s legacy. Thanks for nothing, fourth estate = fifth columnists.
The Grand Panjandrum
@kansi:
Yes it has. Cheney better stay away from busses.
blogreeder
You have to realize that this was written shortly after 9/11. This was a situation were we were just attacked on our soil by an external non-state terrorist organization. Tens of thousands of people could have been killed. How does a military that was designed to fight other countries respond? Obviously, this is a very bad way to respond. A military that was designed to fight other countries would also explain why we went into Iraq. If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. How does this compare to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2?
Montysano
OT, but Stage 20 of the Tour de France is in its final 15 minutes, and the battle for the podium is very exciting. Online here.
Awesom0
How does this compare to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2?
So despicable acts from 65 years ago excuse despicable acts today? Wow, I’d hate to see what you can justify because of slavery or the extermination of Native Americans.
Montysano
Amazing: an estimated 600K-700k people on Mont Ventoux, and most of them had to park at the bottom and then walk 10-15 miles up to mountain, all to watch men ride bicycles.
Warren Terra
The striking thing for me was that the Times story said that Cheney, Addington, and Yoo wanted to overthrow Posse Commitatus just because they could, with the added benefit that they thought it would help deny the people arrested on US soil any Habeas rights.
And the Times story listed people who were against the move (Condi, Mueller, Chertoff), but – for whatever reason – framed their opposition as being a turf fight, rather than a principled position. Which is scary, if true.
Also, why isn’t Rumsfeld mentioned in the Times story? Surely he’d have been involved?
WereBear
Yes, they are riding bicycles. But are they painting modern art at the same time?!?!?
(Obscure Monty Python reference.)
wilfred
Yeah, that’s about right. They took up the neo-con aping of the White Man’s Burden.
They went for Empire. Read the opening paragraph of the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States.
Instead of bread and circuses you get health care and HDTV.
kay
@blogreeder:
The New York Times article leaves out the most important detail in the story. They write only that the men were convicted (they pled) to “terrorism-related charges”.
They pled to “material support”, and received sentences of less then ten years each. They were not big players, or the state was unable to prove they were big players, so made a deal, and that’s reflected in the charge and the eventual sentence.
That’s important.
They weren’t interested in fighting terrorism, or this individual case.
They were interested in setting a precedent, and they grabbed a chance at literally the first opportunity, post-9/11. This move was preemptive, and it wasn’t based on any kind of emergency, because there was no emergency.
The men pled to charges that carry a ten year sentence using the tools and laws that exist now.
They were reaching for the first excuse that landed on their desk, not in pursuit of terrorists, but in pursuit of changing the existing framework. It’s using a cannon where a pistol would suffice. Why would they reach for the cannon at the first opportunity? Because access to the cannon was the point.
wilfred
In all the talk about legal abuses committed under Bush’s reign almost nothing is said about the Material Support for Terrorism clause, from 1996, which has kept many Iraqis from obtaining asylum in the US, even when they are forced to pay money to kidnappers. It was also invoked by Pipes, et al. against Tariq Ramadan, who gave money to a Palestinian relief organization before it was put on the terrorist list – an action always without proof, btw – and illustrative of the quantum nature of American law when applied to dark skinned people. No white person has ever suffered because of this.
I
HRW comments:
ironranger
And NOW conservatives are freaking out about gov’t/prez/adm takeovers. Before Nov 2008, they were whistling, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.
Brick Oven Bill
Cheney was wrong to authorize military operations on US soil.
Now that he has been out of office for six months and the Commander in Chief is a Democrat, and the House of Representatives is controlled by the Democrats, and the Senate has a filibuster-proof Democratic majority, it is good to see they will fix this.
Oh wait, never mind.
By the way, that last comment attributed to me last night on the NRO thread was a dumb fake.
Nethead Jay
@Montysano: Hey Montysano, wanna form the official BJ Tour de France fanclub? Today was a beautiful day. Even though I’m a Schleck/Saxo Bank fan and don’t like Contador much, it’s been a grand ride.
And of course it’s not possible to be too cynical about the Bush and his cohorts.
Warren Terra
At the risk of responding to a BoB comment: what are you proposing that the Democratic Congress do to “fix this”? What requires fixing? Should they write a law reiterating that Posse Comitatus still applies? Do you really think it’s likely that an updating of Posse Comitatus would improve it?
bjones
@kay:
Because access to the cannon was the point.
Yes. This is the boiled down sentence summary of Bush’s White House- an imperial executive with unlimited access to the levers of power over its perceived enemies.
However, in regards to the memo portions highlighted by Greenwald, I have to say that I’m not too upset about it because yeah, if there was an armed and violent insurrection in the United States we definitely would use military force to quell it. Now, I know there isn’t any chance in hell this would really happen, but suppose the Freepers managed to jog off the Cheetos and double bacon cheeseburgers and organized an actual rebellion in the state of Texas or some such. Suppose Perry actually went through with secession yammerings and aided these “patriots” with access to military bases and equipment. They would still be American citizens, but Obama or any President wouldn’t hesitate to send in the 82nd Airborne to smash armed rebellion and restore public order. Wouldn’t that be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act?
So I don’t think that the theoretical use of the military in domestic situations is necessarily tyrannical, but I will say that what Cheney and Addington wanted to do was pretty vile, considering the threat that those guys in Buffalo actually posed.
kay
@Warren Terra:
The Democratic Congress already did. This is the Act:
Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007” (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”
The changes described above were repealed in their entirety by HR 4986: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (full text).
All changes have been repealed, and have changed back to the original state of the Insurrection Act of 1807.
Awesom0
What requires fixing?
Democrats won’t do it either; they’re also addicted to power. What we need is a constitutional amendment (by popular referendum) seriously curtailing the power of the presidency and forcing congress to take its obligations seriously. They’ve been kicking the can for far too long now…
Brick Oven Bill
I would like to see our government dissolve the Northern Command Warren Terra. We do not need a domestic standing army to handle ‘man made emergencies’. See the Declaration of Independence.
This is why we have the National Guard and local police forces.
asiangrrlMN
@robertdsc: You win for the thread. I’m just going to stroll along with you. I am not cynical about the Bushies because I had zero expectations about them from day one. In fact, I don’t think we’ve reached the bottom yet.
As for Cheney Jr., fuck her and her vile, putrid, toxic Oedipus-complex.
Oh, and blogreeder, if you’re trotting out the Japanese internment camp as an excuse for this latest atrocity, then you’re really on very weak ground, considering how completely horrible the former action turned out to be.
Now, W. can truly say (or, more likely, Cheney), “Rule of Law, my ass!”
Mission accomplished, indeed.
kay
@bjones:
What sticks out about Yoo’s work to me is how BROAD it is. That’s a “tell” as far as I’m concerned. He wasn’t interested in specific emergency authorizations or responding to threats. He was interested in enacting his own dogma.
“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said.
“International or foreign” so includes US citizens, and did. I mean, can we get any broader than “international”?
“Interplanetary”. “In this solar system”. It’s the polar opposite of restraint.
Ash
Sort of related, can someone explain to me what ” War on Terror aka GSAVE® ” means exactly? Or how it came about?
me
Google “global struggle against violent extremism”.
Warren Terra
After about three or four years, when it became clear that we weren’t likely to defeat an abstract noun, the Rumsfeld pentagon decided that rather than rethink its global strategy of invading unrelated countries and letting them mire in chaos, thereby creating more terrorists, it would be a lot easier to come up with a new brand name for the same old strategy.
Thus, the War On Terror became the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.
This lasted about a fortnight, because G-SAVE is so patently absurd, and doesn’t even have the emotional resonance of “War On Terror”. But for that fortnight the Rumsfeld pentagon were very smug about how smart they were, how they clearly knew what they were doing.
A Mom Anon
@asiangrrlMN:
All that internment crap is really”lookie what a demoncrat president did,take that libtards!”
me
Try again. Cheney never authorized anything, allegedly he wanted Bush to authorize it and he refused. So there is nothing for Congress to fix.
OriGuy
Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. They have to change the name every once in a while to keep the plebes from catching on.
Edit: Warren beat me to it. I should remember to refresh before commenting.
Brick Oven Bill
I would also like President Obama to cancel President Bush’s National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20.
These would make Janet the National Continuity Coordinator at the snap of the President’s fingers. One of her jobs in this capacity would be to “ensure the public’s confidence in its financial systems”, by giving her complete extra-Constitutional power, with zero oversight. It also eliminates all Constitutional limits on her use of force.
Unlike the early Romans, this power grab requires no vote of the legislature. The Executive just takes over when he sees fit. The Democrats, if they were true to their ‘word’, would end this.
kay
@me:
They got it through under a different guise immediately prior to the 2006 elections, and then it was repealed in 2008.
What wasn’t repealed was the right wing dogma from whence it sprung.
I’ve been reading right wing sites on the health care bill and they make me laugh. They’re looking at specific provisions, and interpreting them in ways that are ridiculously broad. They’re terrified. They take the narrow language and expand it to include all sorts of nonsense.
This from people who backed a President who sought virtually unlimited authority, and the discussion and decisions were made secretly. THAT they weren’t afraid of. Bush-language is just as broad as can be. THAT’S what’s scary.
If Democrats are bureaucrats, Republicans are ideologues, and ideologues are much, much scarier.
If they’re too stupid to know what to be frightened of, they’re really freaking hopeless.
Robertdsc-iphone
BOB, you know what the Dems can do? They can confirm Dawn Johnsen to head the OLC so stupid opinions like Yoo’s can never again be used to support Executive branch power grabs. The problem? Your GOP asshole buddies in the Senate have put an anonymous hold on her nomination.
Real smooth.
Awesom0
So there is nothing for Congress to fix.
Except the power to kidnap, detain, torture and murder citizens without right to trial which still exists under US law.
We need to eradicate this entire mindset that the government as “the one” which knows what is best for us. Democracy is messy and imperfect, but to paraphrase Winston Churchill, it is “the worst system of government, except for all the rest that have been tried.”
So long as we protect against the tyranny of the majority (which we are currently experiencing), then I trust the American people will make the right decision.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@kansi: Yes.
Of course “Sure he was a huge dickwad who took regular dumps on the Constitution, turned every federal agency into Jesus Camp, ate cake while New Orleans turned into hell and started a needless war just because he could, but he wasn’t as big a bastard as Dick Cheney,” isn’t much of a rehabilitation.
Anne Laurie
Liz Cheney, quite literally, would not have been born if her daddy hadn’t needed another deferment. That’s not the answer she’d give to your question (at least, not on camera), but it does go to the heart of the issue for her.
MattF
Five fucking deferments… Sheesh. If I’d known that was a way to get a deferment I wouldn’t have bothered with the heart murmur.
burnspbesq
There is an interesting post over at Balkinization, speculating about the reasons why the detention policy task force asked for additional time to complete it’s work. Sure hope the author is correct, because what she is in effect suggesting is that this whole exercise is just another example of Obama playing rope-a-dope with the Right.
“We want to lock them up forever without trial, we really do, but our Panel of High-Falutin Experts says that pesky Constitution gets in the way.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/07/struggles-of-obamas-detention-policy.html
Montysano
@Nethead Jay:
In terms of eye candy, IMHO there’s not another sporting event that approaches it. Toward the end today, the peloton came downhill into an 11th century village. At the fountain in the center of town, they split evenly around it on each side, at speed. It was breathtaking.
blogreeder
@kay
Similar to my point; a cannon is a bigger hammer. I think it’s very hard to convict someone of being a terrorist through due process. Especially before they’ve actually done anything yet.
@asiangrrlMN
The difference between the internment and this is that FDR actually used it on 100,000 people. Bush used his on what, 7 people?
The point I was making was what Salon said about the memo.
I assumed they were referring to the internment.
Montysano
@Awesom0:
Which every wingnut will tell you “That’s not true, libtard!1” Except, of course, that it is. Correct me if I’m wrong: I’ve never heard Obama speak directly to this, or even mention the Military Commissions Act.
The preznit is a radical? Gimme a break.
Montysano
OT, but: Gates and Crowley invited to join Obama for a beer at the White House.
Once again, our blackedty-black-black Mooslem Soc1al1st president snatches the meme away from the wingers and proceeds to beat them over the head with it.
HRA
First of all they were not in or from Buffalo. That is why they are called the Lackawanna 7. Lackawanna is a city 8 miles from downtown Buffalo. I have lived and worked in both places.
After my initial surprise about this news and during my sense of outrage as I posted in another thread, I could not even continue my thoughts further on to the chaos that would have ensued throughout the entire region here. It was unsettling to read of one of them residing close to my own home back when the news hit the media. At that time we had no inkling of the possible danger these men posed to our communities or our nation. Considering how much was not told then and is filtering out in bits and pieces has me wondering if there is a rest of the untold story yet to be revealed.
I am not surprised about Cheney at all. Something about him always made me uneasy. I am very grateful that GW stood up to him in this respect and about pardoning Scooter.
I suspect his Cheney’s deferments were for going to college.
ominira
@Montysano: Yeah, it’ll be fun to watch Gates and Crowley play the dozens after throwing back a few ;). I’m sure each one is thinking up their best “your mama” jokes as we speak. And Gates and Crowley can reflect on their mutual Irish heritage (they’re cousins!) while quaffing Guinness. Everybody wins. And we never get to talk about police abuse of power again. Yay!
Montysano
@ominira:
So cynical…. so jaded.
Yeah, it would be so much better to do nothing and just let this smolder. Better yet: a Gates and Obama photo-op, in Mumia tee shirts and black gloves.
ominira
@Montysano: It’s going to take a lot more than a beer at the WH but don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what Obama’s trying to do. I actually laughed out loud when I found out that Gates and Crowley are distant relatives. I could say something about Irish temper but that wouldn’t be PC.
AhabTRuler
No, it would be much so much better to have an honest discussion about the way that our society has institutionalized police abuse of power (Taser, Inc., bitchez!), but I understand why Obama must dissemble on the subject of police and race.
The Next-to-last samurai
My computer is putting the ads over half the text. This is annoying, and downright frightening when the first ad that pops up is Ann Coulter. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Now to business. After much pondering, I think the only way to fix the U.S. is for every citizen to vote for the 3rd party candidate, whether he’s running for president or city council, or anything in between. Even if he’s an idiot. If there is no 3rd party candidate, vote out the incumbent. My reasoning is that no matter how stupid the newbies are, they will at least not have had time to become as corrupt as the Republicans and Democrats. We may have a short window of time when the newbies will actually represent the people who elected them, and in that short window of time we may have a chance at solving some national problems. What do you all think?
If that fails, I think our only alternative is to form the Democratic Republic of Tunchistan. (By the way, has President-for-Life Tunch lost any more weight?) We may have to buy some land from the U.S. if John’s yard isn’t big enough for us all to build houses, but that’s OK; the U.S. needs money, they’ll sell. I propose that JSF be our ambassador to the U.S. I am not aware of any particular qualifications he has, but it sure would be fun. (“Vice President Biden, may I present Ambassador Fuckhead.”)
Somebody on a previous topic was looking for light summer reading and good movies. A couple of items I didn’t see anyone else mention. First, Patrick McManus has written several collections of funny stories about hunting, fishing, and camping; they’re funny even if you don’t do any of the above. I feel that if God had meant us to live in tents on vacation, he would not have created the Hampton Inn on the 6th day, and I love McManus. His (McManus’s, not God’s) earlier collections are the best. On movies, I suggest you rent “Twilight Samurai.” It’s about a frazzled single father with two crappy jobs who not only has to take care of his little girls, but his senile mother and a mentally retarded man. Will he get a raise and find true love? If you go to the video store, it’ll be in the foreign language section.
The Next-to-last samurai
…er, that’s “but also his senile mother…” etc. Hard to type when you can’t see half of what you’re typing and your kid is yelling at you to get off the Internet already. That reminds me. Hello Mom Anon! My kid’s autistic too. It’s a tough handicap to deal with, but he keeps plugging away. I hope your boy doesn’t get too discouraged.
Chuck
@bjones:
No. I haven’t read the text of the act, but I tend to think Posse Comitatus makes a wee bit of an exception for actual instances of *armed rebellion*.
Patrick
I have heard the story of a man who would rather climb a tree and tell you a lie rather then stand there on the ground and tell you the truth.
Cheny strikes me that way on constitunal issues. If there two ways to effectifly do something, in this time arrest someone– trample the constitution, or use constitunional means to carry out the action, Cheney gos for the trampling of everytime. It seems to go beyond mere assertion of executive power into nyah nyah, you can’t make me!.
Mr Furious
Violate the Constitution, the law and everything the country stands for by using the military in this country against it’s own citizens? That’s a feature not a bug for a sick fuck like Cheney! Short term it gives the impression of action, then it helps intimidate and frighten the populace (a plus!) and long term it probably advances the gun nut 2nd amendment position of the right—see? You need to be able to go up against the government with everything they have…
I’m about at the end of the line with Obama’s willingness to let this shit slide.
Cheney needs to be on fucking trial YESTERDAY.
blogreeder
@The Next-to-last samurai
I think the third-party candidate also has to promise not to run for re-election. That will keep them more honest, I think.
I’ve heard the -stan suffix denotes that the country is Islamic.
burnspbesq
Way, waaaaaaaaaay OT:
I am listening to “Dark Side of the Moon” right now, for the first time in at least 20 years (remastered, audiophile 180g pressing, yada yada yada), and I’m sorry to report that it’s not nearly as interesting when you’re not stoned.
Still sounds great, though. Those EMI engineers were wizards, and what they got out of the gear they had to work with is nothing short of miraculous.
henqiguai
@The Next-to-last samurai (#53):
Which browser’re you using ? If it’s IEeeeeee, try zooming the text to ever larger sizes (what I do in the office, ’cause while Anne Coulter is creepy, the, as someone else called them, sex tourist ads to the left are just distracting (recall, please, that universal truth – men, are dogs…).
If you’re using Firefox, try View -> Zoom -> Zoom Text Only.
Jackmormon
Bush’s legacy will probably go through a few revisionists fits before settling into “in way the fuck over his head”—but I’d bet anything that within ten years Cheney will have become the bogeyman.
someguy
The posse comitatus act forbids the use of the federal military for civilian domestic law enforcement activities.
If you take Glennn’s first excerpt seriously, he seems to think that if an armed militia group seized land, that the proper response is to send out the constabulary armed with a 4th Amendment compliant warrant. I know he only highlights the conclusory sentence about the warrant being unnecessary, but for Christ’s sake the one just before that discusses armed insurrection. I’m pretty sure the 4th Amendment is inapplicable if you’re in a group that just declared civil war. And for what it’s worth, the Anti-Insurrection Act already expressly authorizes the President to do exactly that, to put down revolts. There’s nothing in there about needing further congressional approval; if the wingers rise up, the President is already authorized to slap ’em down – and there is a non-trivial argument that the President is inherently authorized to do so under the Commander-in-Chief power. If you think smashing the Missouri Militia when they seize control of St. Joe or using the Air Force to shoot down an Al Qaida commandeered 707 before it hits the Capitol Building requires congressional authorization and legal due process first…
Well, okay, fine. If that’s the argument we’re going with to screech about Cheney today, fine. But it sort of undercuts our credibility with anybody who has read the actual laws in question, and importantly, with the people who are sitting in office today asking, “what do I do if AQ hijacks a plane tomorrow, or if a bunch of teabaggers show up with guns and Newark hostage? I appreciate what Glenn is trying to do but it’s not a very strong argument. Other than the Oooga-booga side of it, which he could have raised just as effectively by posting a picture of Cheney.
someguy
Damn, edit got zapped.
My point being I can see POTUS preferring to send out a SEAL team to take down say an AQ training facility – fully weaponed up – rather than sending out a bunch of ATF agents. Face it, civilian law enforcement doesn’t exactly have a great record with that. Of course if Cheney was considering using the military to make arrests generally, that’s just f***ing insane…
Ken
Well, as a Buffalonian, I’m glad the US did not invade us a few years back. On the other hand, we really could have used the billion$ in reconstruction funds.