Bush’s Critics Say Threat of Martial Law in The United States is ‘Real’

I think the frequency of these articles popping up is alarming; do they 'know' something we don't?

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/29/2845/

Bush’s Critics Say Threat of Martial Law in The United States is ‘Real’
by Kaleem Omar

Two issues are being debated concurrently in the United States these days. On the one hand, critics of the Bush administration say that, from the look of things, the Bush/Cheney regime has been working assiduously to pave the way for a declaration of military rule in the US, such that at this point, in the words of one critic, “it really only lacks the pretext to trigger a suspension of Constitutional government.” In an article published by CommonDreams.org on July 27, 2007, Dave Lindorff, author of the book “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), says that Bush and Cheney “have done this with the support of Democrats in Congress, though most of the heavy lifting was done by the last Republican-led Congress.”

On the other hand, talk of impeachment is getting louder. In an article published by the Seattle Post Intelligencer on July 27, 2007, Hubert G. Locke, former dean of the Daniel J. Evans Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, says that “on the eve of a congressionally mandated assessment of the unending madness in Iraq, strange and ominous signs are beginning to appear in all sorts of odd and curious quarters that this nation (the US) should not have to endure another 18 months of the George W. Bush administration and that, if we do, it might well be at the nation’s peril.”

As Locke notes, “Much of the current dismay swirls around Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is busily ignoring rules of government he doesn’t like and declaring his office to be beyond the purview of anyone’s scrutiny, while actively setting about to demolish any government agency that has the impertinence to suggest otherwise.”

snip//

Former Reagan-era associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein is not an alarmist. He says he doesn’t see martial law in the US coming tomorrow. But he is also realistic. He says, “This is all sitting around like a loaded gun waiting to go off. I think the risk of martial law is trivial right now, but the minute there is a terrorist attack, then it is real. And it stays with us after Bush and Cheney are gone, because terrorism stays with us forever.”

Bush claims that the 2001 AUMF makes him commander-in-chief of a “borderless, endless war on terror.” It may be significant that Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for president, has called for the revocation of the 2002 AUMF against Iraq, but not for the revocation of the 2001 AUMF.

As Locke notes in his article in The Seattle Post Intelligencer, the US “media are also speaking these days of a looming constitutional crisis as committee chairs in the House and Senate confront a White House refusal to provide requested documents regarding the firings of US attorneys by the Justice Department.”

© 2007 The International News

everyone in my family thought I was insane when I talked about Bushco
declaring Martial Law. They do not think that way any more.

is for some of the X-Bushie's to come foreword and speak out about this Administration. They need to realize that regardless of the risk that they will take, it is much better than the alternative that we face.

ww

I can't believe these people---who could speak out and correct so much wrong---really think theat BushCo will protect them against their own machinations. When dealing with autocrats, "loyalty" only runs in one direction...the underlings' families are in as much danger as the rest of us if this all goes unchecked.

:(

Because terrorism stays with us forever and has been around forever. The introduction of martial law would indicate a reaction to Chaney's loss of unpopular actions in a last attempt to choke off decent but would be disastrous for them, they don't have the following anymore to support it and another 911 followed by martial law would make this all even clearer.

far the Bush mob will go? What wouldn't they do? There is nothing, nothing beneath them...

You'll be attacked by some DUers for being a "crackpot" and they'll use their little smileys :eyes: and :tinfoilhat:. Some people can't wrap their minds around the fact that there's NOTHING that this regime wouldn't do to gain more wealth and power regardless of how many people have to die. Bushco would gladly sacrifice each and every one of us here at DU for just one more dollar, one more barrel of oil. And what the tards over at Free Republic don't get is that they're just as expendable to this regime.

I doubt it. They don't need to, all that is required to be very, very scared is to know a little history, know what the Bush admin has put in place and (and this is the one that gives many people problems) divorce oneself from that fucking American Exceptionalism which says "we're special, it could never happen here".

Every time this comes up, someone offers to bet me that the next election will happen. That's a sucker bet. Literally anything could happen between now and then. Bush could die, grow a conscience (nah, no chance of that), decide he couldn't get away with it, be kidnapped by aliens, anything. For the same reason, even a peaceful handover of power wouldn't prove Bush wasn't preparing for martial law, it would only prove that he didn't go through with it.

Some say the public wouldn't tolerate such an act. I say that after 9/11, extraordinary renditions, the suspension of most of the BoR, the legalising of torture (torture, for Satan's sake!), Afghanistan, Iraq, possibly Iran in the near-future, the blatant criminality of warrantless wiretapping and ignoring subpoenas, the public will put up with anything. Oh, they might grumble but their nightly news will tell them how wonderful everything is and they'll lull themselves back to sleep again.

There seems to be this disconnect with Americans that even the ones who hate Bush are incapable of understanding quite how bad he is. And what is to stop them? BushCo have packed the courts with idealogues specifically chosen for their canine fidelity to the admin's viewpoint (who will give his actions a figleaf of legality); minimised Congress's influence and ignored it when that doesn't work; demonised any form of international cooperation; provably stole one election and probably stole a second and we're apparently supposed to believe they will develop some respect for the rule of law or the political process and peacefully leave office when their time is up? If they had so little regard for the process through two elections, why should they have any more at the end of their term?

I grasp that this too could happen? I guess I just don't want to believe they could/would do it. :(

I'm a Brit so it's maddening to know that most Americans wouldn't question it if I said this was happening in, say, Nigeria or Argentina but won't accept that it could happen in their own backyards.

I guess I can understand it though. I think all of us are sometimes prone to thinking the world is as we would wish it rather than as it actually is.