Actually, they didn't have to bid!

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I just found this. Makes for very entertaining, if scary, reading.

http://mondoglobo.ning.com/group/que...3ATopic%3A2937

The President has long held the authority to do many things when we are under attack or in peril. He/She can, for example, initiate a nuclear war without Congressional approval, and the President must have this authority if we choose to fight rather than die.

My concern is not that the President has this authority but rather how that authority has been exercised.

I am at a loss to understand why a US attorney would feel the need to argue the US's right to kidnap a British citizen (and why would a British court care about a US Court decision anyway?). Britain is not a terrorist state, but a long and trusted ally with a history of consistent cooperation in these matters. What's the point? Where's the common sense? And, the case is not about a terrorist and our national security is not being jeopardized by the individual (s) we want to bring to justice. It's absurd.

This is not political.... I'm no fan of either party and will likely vote for an independent if one can get on the ballot.

I think I'm with aehurst on this one. It shouldn't be a matter of restricting the power of the executive branch. We need to put ourselves in a situation where we can elect people who will only use the powers they need to, when they need to. Some might say this is against human nature, but I've always been a bit of an idealist, and would love to see a day when this can happen. You know, so we can at least have a politician who exercises some common sense, if nothing else.

Ideally it wouldn't be, but our founding fathers knew that eventually somebody in the executive branch would overreach their authority. I'm only a little bit surprised to see it happen so easily, and with so little opposition from congress.

I dunno, it's been years in the making if you think about it. There was a story I heard on NPR about the power of the "Office of Legal Council", and how it had been abused by Cheney way back in the 70's, though he never got to use it. It was attached to some book...wish I could remember what it was called.

All I'm saying is that this kind of change has been years in the making. If our founding fathers were to look at our government today, they would die of a heart attack! Not because it's necessarily bad (though some might argue that), but because it's soooooo different from what it was back then. 200 years will do that to any government.

Well, that was during the Nixon era, which was also known as the "Imperial Presidency." Funny how Nixon was spiteful with those who didn't agree with him, and this president doesn't have anyone in his administration that disagrees with him, until they leave, at which point they become disgruntled. :rolleyes:

I agree that this is the real issue here.

As an individual, one has the right to kill others in the defense of one's family (legal self-defense) in specific instances. However, after the fact, an individual has to be able to justify to the satisfaction of some legal process, that the action was justified. Further, if one believes that someone may, at some undefined time and in some undefined manner, want to harm that individual, he does not have the right to seek out and kill the alleged perpetrator-to-be, and will face the full force of the law if he does so.

In an analogous sense, the executive can violate the letter of the Constitution in the defense of the nation. However, the scenario with the individual in self-defense and the executive in national defense should not be that different in a qualitative sense.

History (and not just recent history) has shown that the executive branch acts in many ways contrary to the letter (unarguably) and the intent (at least according to a large school of thought) of the Constitution by stretching the definition of "national security", "imminent danger", "public good" and similar terms beyond what many would consider to be reasonable. The fact remains that the executive has rarely been held to account for these actions by either of the other two branches that are supposed to provide a counterbalance to executive branch usurpations.

I think the portion of your last paragraph that I've made bold text is the key, Pete. Certainly, in order to respond to a threat to the nation, the executive must be able to respond as the Commander-in-Chief, but at some point later, it seems to me, both houses of the legislative branch should review that.

The "trick" here was to declare a "War on Terror". That declaration doesn't specify an enemy to be dealt with, so an "Enemy" was conjured up to be the focus of that war for what have since been recognized as false pretenses.

While 9/11 was a heinous crime without a doubt, it did not equate to an attack by a sovereign nation to which the Executive had to respond immediately. That's where it went off the rails in my view.

I think it went off the rails in Florida in 2000. I seem to remember Sheriffs getting lost while delivering ballots. ;)

Stand up and do everything possible. Principle would demand it. As an example, Ron Paul is often the ONLY person voting against unconstitutional laws, and speaking strongly against them. That's principle. The democrats sat silently, and are accomplices. In fact the democrats often left Paul, a republican, as the only man standing against these things.

That's difficult enough for one man to do. It's impossible for any large group to do, especially when that group is facing voters who are easily manipulated into voting against their own interests! Ron Paul didn't have to fight against appeals to religious bigotry, scare tactics (vote for us, or you're helping Al Qaeda), or other base human emotions in order to hold onto his seat.

It's tempting to blame both parties and call it a day, but the real problem is the people who voted for the politicians that pushed for our current policies.

And that's the bottom line: a very large majority of our politicians, of either stripe, place a higher value on getting re-elected than on principle. But this has been discussed before, in this and other threads.

There's the rub. Even at the height of the Cold War, very few reasonably knowledgeable people felt animosity towards the Russians: the animosity was primarily directed toward the Soviet government that was unelected, and therefore not accountable to the population.

The people of the US, on the other hand, are directly responsible for the actions of their government because they elect, and re-elect, the people responsible for the policies that are pursued. The fact that the people are easily led, manipulated, and/or gullible does not lessen their culpability. We are extremely fortunate that, thus far at least, the animosity of much of the world is largely directed at our government and not at the American people.

I moved to Florida the day after that election. There were SO many voting irregularity stories on local channels that never made the national news.

Mike Gravel is also a man with such backbone, but with a much better understanding of the importance of government, what it should be involved in and what it shouldn't.

I worry that a Libertarian will get into office, since many of our economic troubles can be traced to deregulation. I'm also not fond of that party's tendency to overlook the parts of the Constitution that allow for change to that document.

Still, I am hopeful that Paul can follow up his loss in the primaries with enough support to pull a Lieberman and run as an independent (or a Libertarian), and then do for the Republican party what Nader did for the Democrats in 2000.

Party affiliation seems to be one of convenience in recent years. Clinton (either one) is a moderate conservative. Even before his exit from the party Lieberman demonstrated that he was a conservative.

Extremely fortunate.

We live in a very dangerous world. Even though I am not yet old enough for Medicare..... just in my life time we've endured World War II in Europe and the Pacific, the Korean War, Viet Nam War, two Gulf Wars, dozens of incidents involving military intervention and a couple decades of the Cold War with a nuclear exchange hanging in the balance. In my lifetime, there has been genocide in several locations, massive occupations of territory, and more wide spread atrocities than can ever be documented. Remember Blackhawk Down, Beirut, the USS Cole, and 911? Remember our embassy being occupied and our diplomats/staff being held prisoner by a hostile nation for over a year? Remember the crew of one of our naval vessels being held and, apparently, tortured for a year? The world is no safer today than it has been the past 64 years and, in fact, may be more dangerous.

The US (and our allies) has shown remarkable restraint through any number of incidents that could have been quickly resolved by bringing the full force of our military arsenal to bear. We (and our allies) have held to a measured response, even though sometimes we didn't look good doing it.

I am willing to let our leadership have a little leeway as they negotiate a most difficult and hostile course into the future. I trust our friends can do the same. I hope our future leaders can do even better.

It was our restraint that showed showed our strength, preserved peace and kept our position in the world as an example for others to follow. Until 911, that is. Since then, our leadership has made all the wrong moves as we can see from the results. Osama is still a threat, Iraq is a mess, so is Afghanistan, our economic outlook is worse than bleak with boomers about to retire and good jobs continually being replaced with low wage service jobs and the national deficit and debt both soaring. I think the last people we can afford to give leeway to are our current leaders, who've gotten us into this position.

Your argument might be a little better if your examples included more than the "sound bite" descriptions. Just a few examples:

The United States got involved as a defender of the French colonialist status quo following WWII, in direct contravention of international agreements that supported Indo-Chinese independence. Eventually, we sided with absolutist military dictatorships against forces who had turned to Communist support because we had supported the French colonialists against the nationalistic independence faction. We fomented coup after coup against leaders who didn't march to our tune.

Gulf I. We decided to support one autocratic thugucracy (Kuwait) against what many in the region felt was a justfied invasion by another thugocracy (Iraq). (Read up on the formation of Kuwait as well as on the Kuwaiti slant-drilling into the Iraqi Rumeila and other oil fields. Continue to read up on the US gov't lies regarding babies thrown from incubators and Iraq threatening to attack Saudi Arabia. To cap it off, recall Madeline Albright's comments on killing Iraqi children being OK.)
Gulf II. We invaded to defend the world from Iraqi WMD. We all know how that turned out.

We lost a bunch of troops by trying to pick winners and losers in an internal civil war.

Again, getting involved in trying to force an outcome favorable to Israel in an internal civil war. Don't forget all of the Lebanese we killed by lobbing naval artillery into villages.

And you're surprised that people opposed to the autocratic thug leaders we support take action against the main supporter of those leaders?

Read the full text (not just the sanitized version in the US press) of Bin Laden's declaration well before 911 to get a feel for what might have brought that on.

Yeah, I remember well. They had just overthrown a reviled dictator who was installed and supported for years by the US after we had deposed their democratically elected government. Yeah, real hard to figure out why they were hostile to us.

And then you might look into things like the '73 overthrow of Allende in Chile, the US involvement in Central and South America's wars/coups throughout the last century, our active support of brutal dictatorships throughout the world, support of colonialist British and French regimes, suppression of nationalistic freedom/independence movements in countries whose dictators we happened to like, bribery, threats, and sanctions to force countries to do our bidding, support of ethnic cleansing, occupations, and atrocities (so long as it's done by our friends), etc., etc.

Chalmers Johnson calls it "blowback". But, of course, they actually hate us for our freedom.

Given that our "leaders" (both parties, both left and right) have used the leeway as they have for well over a century, with no indication that they have learned any lessons from history, I suggest that giving them no leeway is the better course.

By calling them 'people' you give the impression that they are some sort of freedom fighters. They are not. They're theocratic thugs who would be far more oppressive than any of the regimes we've supported, should they get the chance, as they did for a time in Afghanistan.

I did not mean to create that impression. Nonetheless, they are people.

And while I agree that some of the "theocratic thugs" are likely to be worse that some of the "non-theocratic" thugs, there are two things to keep in mind.

First, supporting one side or another in what are essentially internal foreign conflicts will often "blow back" to the external involvee (if there is such a word), as we are experiencing.

Secondly, to a very large extent, the religious element of many of the current conflicts is used by demagogues on both sides as justification for factional power struggles. Consider the European wars of the past thousand years or more, or, as a more recent example, while the Northern Ireland situation was often characterized as a Catholic vs. Protestant issue, it was at its core a nationalism-based issue, with religion being used as a means to secure support/opposition by the two sides.