Showing posts with label Cheney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cheney. Show all posts
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Surratt, Bush-Cheney, Obama, & the Military v. Civilians
The 2010 movie, The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford, triggered my researching the case of Mary E. Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the U.S. Fed Gov't...after being tried and found guilty by a military tribunal. Mary was convicted of being one of the conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln. The prosecution case against her was flawed; as a result, a judge signed a writ of habeas corpus, ordering a new trial in civilian court. The writ was vacated by President Andrew Johnson, and Mary was hanged. Her attorney, Frederick Aiken, was so disheartened by the turn of events that he left the Law and later became the first City Editor of the Washington Post. A year after Surratt's execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision stating that military tribunals for cases against civilians were unconstitutional, and that civilians must be tried in civilian court...even during times of war.
Before going further, let's clear up what I believe is a misconception regarding Rights and the U.S. Constitution. It appears to me that too many Americans believe that our Supreme Law of the Land grants us Rights, and that only citizens of our country are entitled to those Rights in the USA. Not true. What the Constitution does is protect Rights that all people possess at birth. The Declaration of Independence states, "...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.". So, Freedom for example, is our birthright...and is not dependent upon any government grant. The former Attorney General under Dubya Bush, Alberto Gonzales, was dead wrong when he testified before Congress that people don't necessarily have the Right of habeas corpus..."because the Constitution does not grant us that Right". Everyone is entitled to the Right of habeas corpus; the Constitution doesn't grant us any Rights. They are ours at birth. It's crucial to the survival of Freedom that people understand that point.
Humans have understood the difference between troops in war and civilians for centuries. Modern day Oligarchs and their puppets have changed the rules... and muddied the waters. According to them, we now have "enemy combatants"; they aren't troops, but should be treated the same as troops...sometimes. When captured, they can be treated as neither troops nor civilians, but rather as something akin to rabid animals. According to the Plutocrats, Rights do not apply to them...even criminals are treated better than "enemy combatants". This all comes from the rulers of supposedly civilized, ethical, moral nations. Incredible. Suspects have been held in Guantanamo for years with no charges, and then released for lack of evidence. Suspects have been subjected to so-called "enhanced interrogation", and then released for lack of evidence. A German citizen, after being flown to various Black Sites around the Globe by the CIA finally was released afoot in the middle of nowhere in Germany...in the middle of the night. For months, his family had no idea where he was. Put yourself in his or their shoes. It's no wonder to me that the government of the USA (and for that matter, the UK as well) is becoming more & more hated around the world. They don't hate you for your Freedom Bush-Cheney; they hate you for your terrorism. [We'll get to Obama shortly.]
Presumption of innocence and anything resembling due process apparently are gone...or very well hidden. The use of weaponized drones against civilians (suspects) has become the new norm under our Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning President. As reported on Democracy Now!, apparently for every ONE terrorist SUSPECT killed by drones, TWENTY-EIGHT unidentified people are killed by the same means. The Administration can claim "precision" in these murders because anyone killed by a weaponized drone automatically is designated by the military as an EKIA...Enemy Killed in Action. If anyone can prove otherwise, then the person is de-listed as an enemy... of course, he/she is dead by then. A drone operator on the job for six years finally quit because he had grave doubts about how "suspects" are identified. It seems to me that it should be paramount to be certain we are not killing innocent civilians. One poor soul in Pakistan has been trying for years to get justice for the slaughter of members of his family...one a child and another a grandmother. We should all be ashamed and enraged at the same time, but very few seem to care.
The Oligarchs, our President chief among them, have made sure that the psychological/emotional cost to most of us for this so-called "war" is very little to none. Even the financial cost is well hidden...it's all borrowed money, to be paid by our posterity. [They'll pay the interest on the debt; the U.S. Gov't has no intention whatsoever of repaying the principal...because that's not possible. We never could do it; the National Debt simply is too large. That's why, sometime in the future, countries of the world will reject the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Shortly after that happens, barring unforeseen circumstances, the Great Depression of the '30s will look like a picnic compared to the economy that will be experienced.] Obama claims that none of this really is war; instead, it's "counter-terrorism". That's code, or Gov't-Speak, for Perpetual War. The Oligarchs and their puppets have dropped the phrase, "WAR on Terror" or "WAR on Terrorism" (which, by the way, first was coined by the Reagan Administration) because people eventually saw through it. Now it's "counter-terrorism" or "defending the homeland". In any case, SUSPECTS are being grossly mistreated... or murdered outright. In the process, U.S. troops and other military personnel are expected to have Law Enforcement skills. It's no wonder that more vets have committed suicide than have been killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military actions encourage more terrorism; Law Enforcement actions prevent more terrorist acts.
In addition to Obama's egregious drone operations, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) assassination squads continue to operate. Where is the civilian oversight? Where is the proof of guilt relative to the victims? [I still haven't seen a shred of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Osama was responsible for 9-11. The video in which a supposed Osama was sitting around with cohorts admitting guilt was a sham. I could instantly see that was not Osama bin Laden.] Where is the accountability regarding the murder of innocent civilians by drone attacks? Are We the People so propagandized that we've abandoned all concepts of fairness and justice? Has the Fed Gov't (at the highest levels) itself become a terrorist organization? Why is it that when "they" murder innocent people, it's terrorism; but when "we" do it, it's "collateral damage", or "the price of war"?
Terrorists are CRIMINALS, not soldiers. Suspects are just that. In an ethical society, they must be accorded due process...no matter how emotionally painful that may be. Apparently we do not live in an ethical society. Obama can't seem to make up his mind. Some terrorist suspects he has taken to trial in civilian court. Others are locked down in Gitmo for a decade or so...with no formal charges. Others simply are killed. Suspects. This whole scenario is a genuine travesty... as was the case of Mary Elizabeth Surratt.
Not just my opinion. Be Well
Saturday, May 24, 2014
The Deceivers Bush & Obama, and an American Patriot, Tom Drake
The primary source for this essay is the current piece on PBS Frontline titled, "The United States of Secrets". It's the best, most detailed rendition that I've seen of how-why-where-when the Fed Gov't launched (via the NSA) its unconstitutional (& thus illegal), warrantless program of mass surveillance of Americans. It also includes many interview clips with several people formerly in the Gov't who attempted to expose what the NSA called "The Program". They tried first through proper Gov't channels, and when they were ignored, one of them became a whistleblower. That was Tom Drake.
Mr. Drake was a dedicated NSA senior executive. So was Mr. Edward Loomis... and there were some others... William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, etc. They were appalled at what the Fed Gov't was undertaking. Before getting into that, though, let's back up a bit.
The Program was conceived immediately after 9-11. Michael Hayden, the Head of the NSA, was told by Bush-Cheney to come up with a Program to prevent another 9-11 attack. Essentially he also was told to include tools that currently were not allowed by the Constitution or various Statutes. He set to work doing exactly that. It turns out that there was a program in existence prior to 9-11 that could monitor just about anyone..."ThinThread". It had automatic, electronic"privacy protections" for American citizens. The NSA stripped out those protections, thus ensuring that when The Program eventually was used, it violated the Fourth Amendment. The justification by various Executive Branch, political appointee, puppet lawyers for its use was the Article 2 (of the Constitution) phrase, "Commander-in-Chief". [Luckily, not being an attorney, I have some common sense and realize that the phrase cited does not negate other parts of the Constitution. I think most non-puppet people know the same thing.] By the summer of 2002, The Program was in full swing... doing something that never before had been allowed--- surveilling (without a proper warrant) American citizens, our phone calls, emails, financial transactions, credit card use, etc. Literally TRILLIONS of individual bits of data.
Drake and the others were kept out of the secret loop at the NSA regarding The Program, but eventually it was leaked to them that their ThinThread Program had been altered and was being used in an illegal manner. In addition, the major phone companies in the USA were turning over customer phone call records to the NSA. Apparently, these words from the Fourth Amendment are not understood by the Executive Branch: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, PAPERS, and EFFECTS..." (emphasis added). [In actual fact, I believe those words are understood by the Feds; they had/have another agenda--- expansion of Power in the U.S. World Domination Game, what Brzezinski once called "American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives". From their perspective, 9-11 was a fortuitous excuse to run amok.]
Bill Binney, getting nowhere in the NSA with his concerns met with Diane Ruark, a top Congressional Staffer with 17 years of experience in the Intelligence field. A "Conservative" Republican, Ruark nonetheless was extremely concerned that the NSA had "gone rogue". She launched a campaign to inform Congress. Of course, by then it was too late--- the White House already had brought Congress on board. Oversight of the NSA was basically dead. Porter Goss was Ruark's boss; he sent her to Michael Hayden, NSA Head. He basically evaded her questions, but in a politically incorrect manner, she persisted. Finally he essentially told her to mind her own business because he had authority for The Program from the highest level (the "Commander-in-Chief"). Keep in mind that she was on the Congressional Committee for Intelligence OVERSIGHT. Checks and Balances in our Gov't, for all intents and purposes, were gone.
A few attorneys in the Executive Branch opposed The Program due to its unconstitutionality. They basically were thrown under the bus, so to speak. The Program grew, despite the fact that the Justice Dept. determined part of it to be illegal. Because I don't have the time for all the essential details, I highly recommend that people watch the Frontline piece. It is a feature-length film, but fascinating and well worth the watch.
Eventually, some knowledge of The Program reached the public. Bush and Hayden were pretty much forced to say something publicly. Both were deceitful; only a tiny part of the operation was justified... the part dealing with specific terrorist suspects. The public was propagandized. Bush eventually lied about warrantless surveillance of innocent Americans by an agency forbidden to spy on Americans. A couple of dissidents in the Gov't attempted to get the story published in the New York Times. Despite what the Right Wing in the USA thinks, the Times often kow-tows to the Feds. They did.
A year later, a reporter essentially forced (see the film) the Times to reconsider. Bush and Hayden tried to intervene; they were unsuccessful. The story was published in December, 2005. It "shocked the world", according to one commentator. Bush again went public and again was deceitful about The Program; nothing was said about monitoring trillions of emails, phone calls, etc. Hayden lied, saying, "Not a single employee of the NSA has expressed any concerns about...blah-blah-blah.". [Hayden is known as a masterful propagandist... evasive, deceitful, and totally loyal to the Institution.]
Enter Tom Drake. After four years of exhausting all in-house means of expressing concern, he contacted The Baltimore Sun and blew the whistle...anonymously. All the documents he used were UNCLASSIFIED. USA Today published another leak from a different whistleblower. The Times came out with another story. Cheney went crazy, that is, crazier than his usual. He was determined to stop the leakers (of unclassified info). A massive manhunt was launched by the FBI and it was led by Alberto Gonzales, former White House Counsel and then currently the Attorney General. Long story short, the FBI raided the homes of several people (Binney, Wiebe, Ruark, Loomis, etc., pretty much destroying their careers), but found nothing. They finally, six months later, got around to the home of Tom Drake. They seized a trove of UNCLASSIFIED documents, and he was charged under the Espionage Act. He faced possibly life in prison... for exposing Gov't unlawfulness. The seized documents were altered... "unclassified" was crossed out and they were marked "secret".
As the investigation proceeded, the Govt's cases began to fall apart. In 2008, enter Barack Obama. "No more secrecy!" Another quote: "The most transparent government [what his Administration, if elected, will be]". "Whistleblowers are good for government; they will be protected by my Administration [if elected]." "No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens [if elected]." Obama becomes President. He continues The Program. Prior to that, though, Bush reverses himself and decides he needs Congress to make The Program permanent. His Administration pushes through an Amendment to the FISA law. He claims it's "reform", but Intelligence insiders know that it gives the NSA unprecedented powers. The Program is expanded, made worse from the standpoint of the Constitution. The Amendment Bill had to be read extremely closely in order to figure out exactly what it said. Insiders expressed the opinion that Congress had little clue as to what the Bill really said. [Even if they had understood it, politicians seem to count on Americans being unaware of the fact that no law supercedes the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment cannot be negated by any Act of Congress.]
Senator Obama supported the Amendment. So even before he was elected President, the public should have had a clue that he was, at the very least, insincere in his campaign rhetoric concerning wiretapping (with no probable cause) of Americans. At most, he was lying.
President Obama's Administration continued the case against Tom Drake. So much for protection of whistleblowers. Drake's career was over, his finances were decimated (because of legal defense expense), his life more or less trashed. To get the whole thing over with, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor (they never had any espionage case) and received a minor fine and community service.
The Program continues to this day... a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, and "justified" by a law. In the bizarro world of DC, apparently laws do supercede the Supreme Law of the Land. Amazing.
Who cares? Why is any of this important to Americans, especially non-political Americans. Here's one reason why: the whole scenario is Soft Fascism. It violates our Constitution and our Rights. It has been implemented by both major political parties, and there's little reason to believe that more of our Rights won't be trashed down the line somewhere. As Lord Acton said long ago, "Power corrupts, and...".
Finally, our Gov't is doing this worldwide. Particular Snowden documents have revealed that the NSA is even spying on the economic meetings of our allies. That has nothing at all to do with terrorism. We're losing any reputation we ever had as a great nation. Worse, our Govt's NeoImperialistic methods are making enemies of people who once admired our country. In their attempts to dominate the world, our Gov't is over-reaching... not only making enemies, but bankrupting us in the process.
I hope many of you watch the Frontline piece. The content should inform and disturb you. In any case, I salute Tom Drake and the other people in the film who tried, at great personal cost, to wake up both Congress and the public to our Govt's grossly unlawful activities. Kudos to you all. The same praise goes to Edward Snowden. His story is in Part Two of the film.
Be Well
Mr. Drake was a dedicated NSA senior executive. So was Mr. Edward Loomis... and there were some others... William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, etc. They were appalled at what the Fed Gov't was undertaking. Before getting into that, though, let's back up a bit.
The Program was conceived immediately after 9-11. Michael Hayden, the Head of the NSA, was told by Bush-Cheney to come up with a Program to prevent another 9-11 attack. Essentially he also was told to include tools that currently were not allowed by the Constitution or various Statutes. He set to work doing exactly that. It turns out that there was a program in existence prior to 9-11 that could monitor just about anyone..."ThinThread". It had automatic, electronic"privacy protections" for American citizens. The NSA stripped out those protections, thus ensuring that when The Program eventually was used, it violated the Fourth Amendment. The justification by various Executive Branch, political appointee, puppet lawyers for its use was the Article 2 (of the Constitution) phrase, "Commander-in-Chief". [Luckily, not being an attorney, I have some common sense and realize that the phrase cited does not negate other parts of the Constitution. I think most non-puppet people know the same thing.] By the summer of 2002, The Program was in full swing... doing something that never before had been allowed--- surveilling (without a proper warrant) American citizens, our phone calls, emails, financial transactions, credit card use, etc. Literally TRILLIONS of individual bits of data.
Drake and the others were kept out of the secret loop at the NSA regarding The Program, but eventually it was leaked to them that their ThinThread Program had been altered and was being used in an illegal manner. In addition, the major phone companies in the USA were turning over customer phone call records to the NSA. Apparently, these words from the Fourth Amendment are not understood by the Executive Branch: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, PAPERS, and EFFECTS..." (emphasis added). [In actual fact, I believe those words are understood by the Feds; they had/have another agenda--- expansion of Power in the U.S. World Domination Game, what Brzezinski once called "American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives". From their perspective, 9-11 was a fortuitous excuse to run amok.]
Bill Binney, getting nowhere in the NSA with his concerns met with Diane Ruark, a top Congressional Staffer with 17 years of experience in the Intelligence field. A "Conservative" Republican, Ruark nonetheless was extremely concerned that the NSA had "gone rogue". She launched a campaign to inform Congress. Of course, by then it was too late--- the White House already had brought Congress on board. Oversight of the NSA was basically dead. Porter Goss was Ruark's boss; he sent her to Michael Hayden, NSA Head. He basically evaded her questions, but in a politically incorrect manner, she persisted. Finally he essentially told her to mind her own business because he had authority for The Program from the highest level (the "Commander-in-Chief"). Keep in mind that she was on the Congressional Committee for Intelligence OVERSIGHT. Checks and Balances in our Gov't, for all intents and purposes, were gone.
A few attorneys in the Executive Branch opposed The Program due to its unconstitutionality. They basically were thrown under the bus, so to speak. The Program grew, despite the fact that the Justice Dept. determined part of it to be illegal. Because I don't have the time for all the essential details, I highly recommend that people watch the Frontline piece. It is a feature-length film, but fascinating and well worth the watch.
Eventually, some knowledge of The Program reached the public. Bush and Hayden were pretty much forced to say something publicly. Both were deceitful; only a tiny part of the operation was justified... the part dealing with specific terrorist suspects. The public was propagandized. Bush eventually lied about warrantless surveillance of innocent Americans by an agency forbidden to spy on Americans. A couple of dissidents in the Gov't attempted to get the story published in the New York Times. Despite what the Right Wing in the USA thinks, the Times often kow-tows to the Feds. They did.
A year later, a reporter essentially forced (see the film) the Times to reconsider. Bush and Hayden tried to intervene; they were unsuccessful. The story was published in December, 2005. It "shocked the world", according to one commentator. Bush again went public and again was deceitful about The Program; nothing was said about monitoring trillions of emails, phone calls, etc. Hayden lied, saying, "Not a single employee of the NSA has expressed any concerns about...blah-blah-blah.". [Hayden is known as a masterful propagandist... evasive, deceitful, and totally loyal to the Institution.]
Enter Tom Drake. After four years of exhausting all in-house means of expressing concern, he contacted The Baltimore Sun and blew the whistle...anonymously. All the documents he used were UNCLASSIFIED. USA Today published another leak from a different whistleblower. The Times came out with another story. Cheney went crazy, that is, crazier than his usual. He was determined to stop the leakers (of unclassified info). A massive manhunt was launched by the FBI and it was led by Alberto Gonzales, former White House Counsel and then currently the Attorney General. Long story short, the FBI raided the homes of several people (Binney, Wiebe, Ruark, Loomis, etc., pretty much destroying their careers), but found nothing. They finally, six months later, got around to the home of Tom Drake. They seized a trove of UNCLASSIFIED documents, and he was charged under the Espionage Act. He faced possibly life in prison... for exposing Gov't unlawfulness. The seized documents were altered... "unclassified" was crossed out and they were marked "secret".
As the investigation proceeded, the Govt's cases began to fall apart. In 2008, enter Barack Obama. "No more secrecy!" Another quote: "The most transparent government [what his Administration, if elected, will be]". "Whistleblowers are good for government; they will be protected by my Administration [if elected]." "No more illegal wiretapping of American citizens [if elected]." Obama becomes President. He continues The Program. Prior to that, though, Bush reverses himself and decides he needs Congress to make The Program permanent. His Administration pushes through an Amendment to the FISA law. He claims it's "reform", but Intelligence insiders know that it gives the NSA unprecedented powers. The Program is expanded, made worse from the standpoint of the Constitution. The Amendment Bill had to be read extremely closely in order to figure out exactly what it said. Insiders expressed the opinion that Congress had little clue as to what the Bill really said. [Even if they had understood it, politicians seem to count on Americans being unaware of the fact that no law supercedes the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment cannot be negated by any Act of Congress.]
Senator Obama supported the Amendment. So even before he was elected President, the public should have had a clue that he was, at the very least, insincere in his campaign rhetoric concerning wiretapping (with no probable cause) of Americans. At most, he was lying.
President Obama's Administration continued the case against Tom Drake. So much for protection of whistleblowers. Drake's career was over, his finances were decimated (because of legal defense expense), his life more or less trashed. To get the whole thing over with, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor (they never had any espionage case) and received a minor fine and community service.
The Program continues to this day... a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, and "justified" by a law. In the bizarro world of DC, apparently laws do supercede the Supreme Law of the Land. Amazing.
Who cares? Why is any of this important to Americans, especially non-political Americans. Here's one reason why: the whole scenario is Soft Fascism. It violates our Constitution and our Rights. It has been implemented by both major political parties, and there's little reason to believe that more of our Rights won't be trashed down the line somewhere. As Lord Acton said long ago, "Power corrupts, and...".
Finally, our Gov't is doing this worldwide. Particular Snowden documents have revealed that the NSA is even spying on the economic meetings of our allies. That has nothing at all to do with terrorism. We're losing any reputation we ever had as a great nation. Worse, our Govt's NeoImperialistic methods are making enemies of people who once admired our country. In their attempts to dominate the world, our Gov't is over-reaching... not only making enemies, but bankrupting us in the process.
I hope many of you watch the Frontline piece. The content should inform and disturb you. In any case, I salute Tom Drake and the other people in the film who tried, at great personal cost, to wake up both Congress and the public to our Govt's grossly unlawful activities. Kudos to you all. The same praise goes to Edward Snowden. His story is in Part Two of the film.
Be Well
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
97 Days in Hell
A fellow by the name of Vance was held in a U.S. secret military prison, in solitary, for 97 days. He was allowed no attorney, no contact with the outside world whatsoever...and was hooded & shackled at various times. [Try to put yourself in this guy's place---he had no idea if he would be held for 97 minutes, 97 days, 97 months, or 97 years!]
Vance is an American citizen, a Navy vet, who was working as a civilian in a private Iraqi security company. He noticed huge stockpiles of small arms at the company, and began to think they were being provided to promoters of Iraqi sectarian violence. He contacted the FBI, and became an informant for a few months...supplying the Agency with info.
Then one day he was arrested, told he was under suspicion of terrorist activities, and was spirited off to the secret prison. After 97 days of becoming emaciated and sleep deprived, they cleaned him up and dumped him at the Baghdad Airport. No explanation.
He is suing the Govt. [Some folks think that one cannot sue the Govt successfully. Randy Weaver sued and won...well, the Govt settled out-of-court.]
I guess my point in relaying this story (from NBC Nightly News netcast) is that suspecting someone of criminal activity is understandable, but denying the suspect access to an attorney and habeas corpus is not permitted in a free society. Claims that a "terrorist" is different from a criminal are nothing more than sleazy attempts to avoid due process. The whole thing is an outrage.
That whole generic procedure was probably engineered by the brilliant logician [:)], Dick Cheney, who claims that his office is not in the Executive Branch. [He not only acts as if he's psychotic...he is psychotic.]
Vance is an American citizen, a Navy vet, who was working as a civilian in a private Iraqi security company. He noticed huge stockpiles of small arms at the company, and began to think they were being provided to promoters of Iraqi sectarian violence. He contacted the FBI, and became an informant for a few months...supplying the Agency with info.
Then one day he was arrested, told he was under suspicion of terrorist activities, and was spirited off to the secret prison. After 97 days of becoming emaciated and sleep deprived, they cleaned him up and dumped him at the Baghdad Airport. No explanation.
He is suing the Govt. [Some folks think that one cannot sue the Govt successfully. Randy Weaver sued and won...well, the Govt settled out-of-court.]
I guess my point in relaying this story (from NBC Nightly News netcast) is that suspecting someone of criminal activity is understandable, but denying the suspect access to an attorney and habeas corpus is not permitted in a free society. Claims that a "terrorist" is different from a criminal are nothing more than sleazy attempts to avoid due process. The whole thing is an outrage.
That whole generic procedure was probably engineered by the brilliant logician [:)], Dick Cheney, who claims that his office is not in the Executive Branch. [He not only acts as if he's psychotic...he is psychotic.]
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