Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Is this the beginning of the end?
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331-335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.
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.”
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Unfortunately, this past week, the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.
Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007’s Defense Authorization Act contained a “widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation’s governors.”
Wake up America, or else there will be no America left to wake up to.
San Francisco’s Indymedia Center has this report posted as well.
on November 5th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
This was received from a WWII vet we met at a MoveOn meeting at our house a few years ago. Walter is a former conservative who realized Iraq was wrong before the war was started. Now in 2006, at the nadir of their approval and within one month’s time, Republicans deny habeas corpus and then “Posse Comitatus.”
By statute now, there is very little remaining of the Bill of Rights. And it used to be that conservatives were the ones most concerned about government intrusion. It must have been because they knew if THEY were in charge, the government would become the fearsome horror they have made it. Somehow they always projected this fear of government on Democrats, which seemed laughable. But now, without dissent or debate, they have overturned most the provisions that make a country civilized. At this point, it’s a law enforcement issue.- add these laws to the Halliburton detention camps being built by Homeland Security within the US:
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77
And you see why we like Canada.
Peace, Peter
Cc:
Subject: When The U.S. Military ATTACKS Americans
WILL THIS ELECTION BRING A BRIGHTER DAY OR THE END OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
SUPPORT THE PEACE TEAM CANDIDATES NOW: http://www.peaceteam.net
If there were ever a more urgent reason to replace each and every member of Congress virtually without exception, one need only look at the breathtaking new martial law powers granted to the Bush administration this month. It has always been a sacred tenet of our Democracy that the U.S. military should not be deployed AGAINST American citizens. But literally in the dead of night and almost without comment, an amendment to the Insurrection Act was slipped into the just passed Defense Authorization bill stating, and get this:
“the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when . . . the President determines that domestic violence has occurred”
So let’s just say for example that the electronic election results in 8 days are so far out of line with pre-election and exit polling data so as to defy credulity. And let’s just say that people organized massive peaceful protests of the theft of their elections. And let’s just say that the Bush administration provoked “police” riots, or even had their own provocateurs commit violent acts so as to justify a military crackdown. Voila . . . now you have American soldiers shooting at otherwise peaceful political protesters. And you thought Kent State was a party!
And if you don’t think that could ever happen, then why the hell have they pushed for such changes, which are now the law of the land?
The whole concept of the president as an unaccountable determiner, or “decider”, insulated from any kind of oversight by Congress or the Courts has been the hallmark of the Cheney/Bush executive coup, which just keeps steamrollering along while our presumptive protectors in Congress are asleep at the switch, or cowering in their cloakrooms.
Shame on each and every member of Congress who allowed this to happen with hardly as much as peep or a whimper. Shame on them for their lack of diligence and lack of oversight. Shame, shame, shame on Democrats as well as Republicans. Are there any, any at all worth keeping, who will actually fight for the people and their rights? The list of keepers must now be short indeed.
But there are some candidates who ARE fighting to be the people’s voice. There are candidates who were calling for our troops in Iraq to start coming home, and standing strong on that call, BEFORE the general public began to realize the scale of the Iraq disaster, doomed as it was from the start by its illegal and immoral underpinnings.
And what we are asking you to do, in this last 7 days before the upcoming election, is to donate anything you can, if you have not done so already, to help the brave candidates on the Peace Team to get their Lie/Die TV spots on the air, so the people know that there is at least somebody out there taking a stand on principle.
SUPPORT THE PEACE TEAM CANDIDATES NOW: http://www.peaceteam.net
So far you have contributed over $60,000 in just the last couple weeks to this valiant effort. It may not be the millions of dollars that other candidates may throw around, but it has made a real difference. Because of you, the courageous Peace Team candidates are getting a hearing they would have otherwise had. A number are definitely within striking distance if only we do everything we can to support them.
But most of all we thank you for your own courage in continuing to speak out, which will be all the more important regardless of who wins particular elections in this round. We must always keep the heat on the members of Congress we may be stuck with for the time being, until we can replace them with somebody better.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours.
To be added to the list go to http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm