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US Military Designates Julian Assange an "Enemy of State"
First time accepted submitter Cute and Cuddly writes in with some new Julian Assange news. "The U.S. military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States — the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with 'communicating with the enemy.'"
That's not their job, is it? Wouldn't this be up to Congress, the courts, the State Department?
I guess its official. We are being run by a military junta.
Have gnu, will travel.
Actually, you're wrong but not in a good way. After Vietnam Congress passed the War Powers Act which was supposed to severely limit the president's ability to wage war. Basically, the president could send emergency troops for 30 days then if Congress didn't declare war he had 30 days to bring them back.
However, at the behest of small-government president George W. Bush Congress passed the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). It says, not joking, the president may use the force he deems necessary against those he determines to be terrorists. That's not an exact quote, but it is scarily close. It really does say the president can basically go to war, sans declaration of war by Congress, against those he determines to be terrorists.
So, unfortuneatly, the part your're wrong about is that Congress has to do anything at all. They've already ceded power to the president when it comes to war. Now, to me, this is an over delegation of authority and is unconstitutional. The power to declare war was vested in Congress for a reason, but it's not been brought to court to be struck down. The closest was Doe v. Bush but that was ruled to not be a case or controversy even though it was one week before invading Iraq. (And had they brought it after invasion it probably would have been moot).
*sigh* I just made myself sad.
They're doing this to go after Bradley Manning. If they don't, no crime, or at least a lessor one, was committed by Manning.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
who's going to charge Obama with anything?
Certainly not any Ruling Party politician. Obama let Bush's torturers walk, so it would seem that there's an agreement between the Ruling Party brands to let each other's crimes go unpunished.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Since misprision of crime trumps compartmentalisation? To conceal evidence of a crime behind "military secrets" - remember this shit has already happened - is a penal offence almost as serious as the act itself.
Assange did the American People a favour by exposing what their Government were doing in their name. The Joint Chiefs should all be sacked, all elected officials impeached, house cleaned and a paper election called immediately. And while we're at it, let's have a full and public paper audit of all intelligence services, starting with the CIA.
Come get me, Obama.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Well, that is certainly "Change".
If it came down to two shitty choices, I guess I'd rather be waterboarded than blown up with a missile.
Did Bush execute any US citizens without due process? Hell, did he waterboard any US citizens without due process?
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
It's not just in foreign countries. There are still some questions about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Connell
Don't be silly.
Obama could already order him killed without any official designation as enemy of state.
Even if he was a US citizen.
I realize that our civil rights are changing rapidly, Do please try to keep up.
This space available.
This probably isn't about Assange in it's intent. They most likely found issues with the Manning prosecution and decided to make it easier to to apply more stringent penalties and get easier convictions with less effort if someone discloses information again.
Hollywood goes to great pains to portray enemy combatants engaged in this tactic.
In the movie "Saving Private Ryan", there's a sniper in a building with a Karbiner 98K, taking chunks out of one soldier in the middle of the street and dropping anyone who tries to go help him.
IIRC a similar scene in "Band of Brothers" when they're moving to secure a bridge (episode 3/4?)
Didn't Ed Harris' character do the same thing in "Enemy At The Gate"? If I remember correctly, the British media had joygasms reporting a similar situation in Afghanistan in April; a "Taliban sniper" was apparently picking off members of 3 Bat. Rifles (including taking a sniper out by shooting him in the eye - through his own scope). I don't buy him being a Taliban sniper personally; more likely he was an ex-British Forces sniper gone rogue or freelance (how many British servicemen have actually deserted during this campaign of terror, anyway?) or a local trained in another country (Bosnia?). Back to the movie; isn't it wonderful that Jude Law's character had nothing but one-shot-kills the entire movie? I wonder how the Germans would have portrayed him, had they made the movie instead?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The chances of a person being killed by a terrorist attack are by far lower than the chances of dying from a traffic accident or a heart attack. Actually they are far less than the chances of an innocent person to die accidentally shot by a police officer.
Tell that to the Iraqis, who suffer bombings and assassinations daily, and for whom truck bombings in market places was a regular hazard for years.
Or maybe you can tell it to the FBI for that matter. The make regular arrests and attain convictions for plot after plot after plot. I will show a few at the end of the post.
The only reason it is rare, is the United States takes active, effective measures against it, not because there aren't people trying to conduct attacks. Frankly, your post makes as much sense as saying that statistics show so few deaths from food poisoning that it obviously isn't a problem, so we should do away with refrigeration.
40 Americans Have Joined Al Qaeda Group
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 9, 2011
FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending December 2, 2011
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
What's funny is I've been telling people for years that all these efforts to "help people in oppressive countries get around The Great Firewall" (via TOR etc) are technically an "act of war," and people keep telling me it's not an "act of war" because they're just "restoring basic human rights." Well here we have a man "restoring basic human rights" for us, giving us access to information -that- -the- -government- -doesn't- -want- -us- -to- -have-, and ... it's an act of war!
Part of state security is keeping information out of the hands of its own people so they don't turn against the state. In China, they have site filters to keep news about bad shit their government does or political opinions they don't favor out of the public mind. In the US, we have all this classified information that we don't see a strategic reason for classifying. In both cases, the strategic reasoning is that the government doesn't want its people to know!
Not that that's a good thing, but it's still an act of war to disseminate information against the national security interests of the state.
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Strong PRC Allies: Mongolia, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea
You obviously know NOTHING about Mongolia.
Mongolians are can be pretty racist about Chinese; Mongol politicians can lose votes for 'looking too Chinese'. If you actually do have Chinese blood you can forget about politics.
Mongol people hate and distrust China immensely. I don't know how you can put them in the 'Strong PRC allies' category. Its just nonsense.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.