Comments on: Missing the Deployed Military for the Trees

By: PJEvans

PJEvans — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:20:43 +0000

I’ve added those hosts to the content-filter in my system. (It was under ‘banner ad blocking’.)

Thanks!

By: cinnamonape

cinnamonape — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:11:26 +0000

One other critical difference is that the National Guard, at least when deployed domestically cannot create a military tribunal system for civilians, the Governor cannot void habeas corpus, and there likely could not be extradition beyond the boundaries of the state. That might be possible if the National Guard was “Federalized”, but I still doubt that it would be easily possible.

IMO Bush didn’t go with the Cheney plan on Lackawanna for the most simple of reasons. Such use of the military for domestic purposes would very rapidly have been played out in the courts. Bush wasn’t into “testing” the shaky legal opinions of John Yoo n the Federal Courts. They wanted to keep the actions hidden and only rely on the legal legerdemain as a fall back justification IN the courts. The actions would likely be over-ruled, but the legal vagueries might keep them out of jail.

By: Hmmm

Hmmm — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:11:22 +0000

Oh I dunno, there’s a nice sort of direct corporate accountability factor mixed in there too.

By: acquarius74

acquarius74 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:23:12 +0000

Here’s the wiki link on National Security Agency. They are the code-breakers and, as bmaz states, under DOD.

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:17:58 +0000

OT - Privatization gone wrong.

By: bmaz

bmaz — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:53:56 +0000

Yes

By: rapier

rapier — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:39:53 +0000

Is the NSA officially part of the DOD? It may almost be a distinction without a difference but legally I want to know if it is.

By: Hmmm

Hmmm — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:45:28 +0000

Ah, thx for clarifying. I guess I was reacting to the “not deniable” part of “…any military activity by definition is not deniable”, whereas it sounds like you were kinda working on the “is” part. (Clintony, I like it.)

By: Rayne

Rayne — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:41:26 +0000

This is where being a political activist or not becomes obvious.

The reality to those of us who are political activists is that some people who appear to be Democrats are not. We can see that right now in our inability to pass real health care reform with a public option.

There were even fewer real Democrats in the 110th Congress, i.e., impeaching anybody who didn’t get caught in flagrante delicto with a live boy, dead girl, aborted fetus, or a Democrat while getting a blow job was simply not going to happen.

Would it be nice and the right thing if it had? Hell yeah. But not grounded in reality now that we can see all the cards on the table.

By: Rayne

Rayne — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:35:49 +0000

Well, let me back up a moment and say that under the Bush/Cheney regime, the definition of “war” changed to any organized activity by a group against the nation/state of the U.S., regardless of whether the activity was inside or outside of the U.S.

The only time military resources should be deployed is outside of the country against a nation-state , or in concert with other impacted nation-states in an enforcement capacity outlined by international law or by law of other impacted countries.

A military action against an organized group outside of the U.S. without the consent of the country in which the action takes place is tantamount to an act of war. This was one of the problems with JSOC-based covert ops in “friendly” countries — we cannot deny that we were violating their sovereignty since we did not have either overt or covert permission to be there. So far we’ve gotten off the hook. Or at least it appears we have, in spite of major fuck-ups in Kenya and Paraguay, to name two locations.