[Peace-discuss] High crime

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

As this list indicates, motives for voting against the NDAA (perhaps  
best called the Indefinite Detention Bill, to indicate its  
unconstitutionality) were various. Some senators wanted to put the  
incarceration of (suspected) terrorists into the hands of the military  
precisely to take it out of the hands of the administration (an  
interesting distinction in itself).

That - and nothing else - is  what Obama objected to & led him to make  
his veto threats. His signing statement makes that clear.

Some of these senators voted no because the bill didn't clearly  
delimit the administration & empower the military.

Actually, that might have been a good idea: to require military  
custody is to admit that the suspected terrorists must be regarded as  
prisoners of war, and thus treated in accord with the Geneva  
Conventions.

The Bush administration invented the category of "unlawful combatant"  
to avoid that, and of course the dodge was continued by the Obama  
administration.

Obama is intending to violate both the Bill of Rights and the laws of  
war, as Bush did. No wonder he doesn't want to prosecute Bush & co.  
for war crimes: he's committing all of them himself.


On Jan 1, 2012, at 11:39 AM, David Johnson wrote:

> The 13 senators who voted against the bill were Dick Durbin (D- 
> Ill.),Ben Cardin (D-Md.),Al Franken (D-Minn.),Tom Harkin (D- 
> Iowa),Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.),Ron Wyden (D-Ore.),Bernie Sanders (I- 
> Vt.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho),Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah),Jim  
> DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: C. G. ESTABROOK
> To: sf-core
> Cc: Peace-discuss List
> Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 10:42 PM
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] High crime
>
> "Obama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve"
> By davidswanson - Posted on 01 January 2012
> http://davidswanson.org/node/3508
>
>
> On Dec 31, 2011, at 9:39 PM, Carl G. Estabrook wrote:
>
>> Obama has signed the clearly unconstitutional Military Detention  
>> Bill (NDAA) - quietly, on New Year's Eve, while on vacation in  
>> Hawaii.  He and the congressional representatives who voted for it  
>> have violated their oath to uphold the Constitution. It's not too  
>> much to suggest that this bill resembles the Enabling Act of 23  
>> March 1933.
>>
>> "Will the bill hurt Obama? Probably not too much, if at all.  
>> Liberals are never very energetic in protecting constitutional  
>> rights. That’s more the province of libertarians and other wackos  
>> like Ron Paul  actually prepared to draw lines in the sand in  
>> matters of principle" [Alex Cockburn].
>>
>> "Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written  
>> provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere  
>> force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any  
>> clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of  
>> view, justify revolution - certainly would, if such right were a  
>> vital one" [Abraham Lincoln].
>>
>> All the more so if a minority - 1% - should through its agents  
>> deprive the majority of a "clearly written constitutional right":  
>> the bill Obama signed today  is a direct assault on the First,  
>> Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments.
>>
>> --CGE
>>
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>
>
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