National security policy on detainees in Washington seems finally to have gelled:
This is the upshot of the detention language in the defense policy bill that Mr. Obama signed this month and has received too little media attention. Congress has confirmed the power claimed by both the Bush and Obama Administrations to detain and question members of al Qaeda or “associated” groups whenever or wherever and for however long the executive deems proper. Enemy combatants will get their day in court but won’t be treated as common criminals who can invoke Miranda rights.
And guess what: That sound you don’t hear is the lack of a political uproar. The U.S. seems to have arrived at a political consensus that is far closer to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld rules than their critics want to admit…
While Mr. Obama sought to hamstring the Bush Administration while he was in the Senate, in this negotiation he fought and won executive leeway. Under the bill, a President can still issue various “waivers,” including on the requirement for military detention. And the President will still be able to choose whether the military or civilian authorities interrogate and eventually try a suspect.
Congress also accepted the Obama Administration’s expansive definition of “associated” terror groups, which the White House has used to legally justify ramped-up drone strikes on terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere who aren’t necessarily card-carrying members of al Qaeda. Whatever happened to all those cries about the Imperial Presidency?
Well, everything’s different now.
I’ve been saying to my wife for years that
“Things are different when you are a dimocrat”.
Laws don’t matter, truth is what they say it is and
don’t ask for any verification.
As Professor Reynolds says, “They told me if I voted for John McCain…”
Hey, let’s not be too hasty – just wait to see what NPR has to say about it tomorrow morning, okay?
Who was the gloating idiot who wrote this hack piece? Typical of the WSJ to completely ignore that these new rules now direct the US military not only to detain foreign attackers like the underwear bomber, but US citizens as well once designated (by whom?) as “terrorists” and “enemy combatants” and who will be deprived of their rights as US citizens right here on US soil.
Fools.
“Wait a minute, those are OUR planes now.”
Well, things certainly are different. You see, we are no longer at war with Islamic Extremists. Even though they are at war with us. So, who are we at war with? “Violent extremists”. A much more subjective description, innit?
Just who gets to make that subjective determination? Obama and Holder. “Violent extremism” may very soon be a designation for someone whose description is already familiar to us. White male, veteran, believes in limited government and the Second Amendment. What a handy thing, to have stumbled across a subjective term that can be used to describe one’s political enemies AND one can assert describes our country’s enemies.
Senior leadership in uniform has been thoroughly vetted to behave much like a cocker spaniel that seeks his master’s approval. Cartwright at USNI West in 2010 talked openly of the Constitutional limitations imposed by Title 10 as an impediment to mission accomplishment rather than a safeguard to individual liberty.
Yes, everything’s different now. Change, and all that.
Oh, and I should add, this from a candidate who ran on closing Guantanamo Bay, because holding illegal combatants who were captured while trying to kill Americans in Iraq and AFG was inhumane.
Change.
What happens when a President decides that the NRA or the AFL-CIO are violent extremists?
The NRA being labeled “violent extremist” is all but a certainty on this path.
American Federation of Labor? Never, ever happen.