S1867 approved by the Senate

S.A.M. said:
Assuming that world domination is a rational business
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No such assumption is required. Once one is in such a business, it becomes rational to spend a lot, since the consequences of failing to do so can be problematic.

If you find yourself having to resort to "irrationality" to explain the output of a huge beaurocratic process with myriad analysts and auditors and so on, you probably aren't putting enough effort into your analysis. There are systemic, comprehensible causes for these outcomes which provide much more insight than does writing off the whole thing as some exercise in inscrutible madness.

Although, let's note that this defense budget is tens of billions less than Obama requested, which itself was tens of billions less than last year's total. So we're still talking about nearly $100 Billion in reduced defense spending, in a year-on-year sense.
 
S.A.M. said:
These are not rational people you're dealing with
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Oh, that's reassuring...neither am I.:crazy:

But you assume the entire military would remain loyal to a US government bent on enforcing a police state at home.

While we raise 'em jingoistic here, I think our soldiers would start to have serious problems with rounding up large numbers of their fellow citizenry.
The police have an us vs them mentality that's easily harnessed to do this...I'm not thinking that large swathes of our military and national guard do.

So...there's no telling what's going to happen, honestly. Best prepare for lots of eventualities.
 
chimpkin said:
While we raise 'em jingoistic here, I think our soldiers would start to have serious problems with rounding up large numbers of their fellow citizenry.
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Nothing specific to "our soldiers" required there. It's totally normal and expected that armies do not like to be turned on their own citizens, and that such requires either extreme circumstances (outbreak of civil war) or the cultivation of ruthless, well-armed and ideologically committed "vanguard" forces which are charged with forcing the army to carry out such orders, typically through brutal means ("you shoot those protestors, or I shoot you!"). Note that the latter have been a pervasive fixture of repressive regimes, whose main internal threat is from populist coups launched by their "own" militaries. Recently, the "vanguard" forces of Qaddafi were on full display, and Assad's cronies are rather active in trying to hold together the Syrian military right now.
 
chimpkin said:
Oh, that's reassuring...neither am I.:crazy:

But you assume the entire military would remain loyal to a US government bent on enforcing a police state at home.

While we raise 'em jingoistic here, I think our soldiers would start to have serious problems with rounding up large numbers of their fellow citizenry.
The police have an us vs them mentality that's easily harnessed to do this...I'm not thinking that large swathes of our military and national guard do.

So...there's no telling what's going to happen, honestly. Best prepare for lots of eventualities.
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Yes, I hear that there is already a veterans movement to form an anti-government militia if the bill is passed.

The code word is Battlefield America:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/11/29/battlefield_america_us_citizens_face_indefinite

Not sure how vigilante justice is supposed to make things better and what the response of the US "justice" system will be to "insurgents" armed or otherwise, but we'll hold onto the panic signboards for the moment

quadraphonics said:
No such assumption is required. Once one is in such a business, it becomes rational to spend a lot, since the consequences of failing to do so can be problematic.
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Yeah it seems there is one born every century. Empires overextend, turn their people into poor citizens under military rule and then die.

So we're still talking about nearly $100 Billion in reduced defense spending, in a year-on-year sense.
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Well thats a relief
 
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StrawDog said:
So in your opinion... non US citizens can be held without charge, indefinitely and without due legal process, as if that is somehow not barbaric or a reflection of gross human rights abuse?
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Actually it's till the end of hostilities.

Which is what and how you treat POWs in ANY war.
 
chimpkin said:
I think our soldiers would start to have serious problems with rounding up large numbers of their fellow citizenry.
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What part of this didn't you understand?

Sec 1032 clarifies WHO falls under this provision:

(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
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Arthur
 
S.A.M:
Empires overextend, turn their people into poor citizens under military rule and then die.
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I expect that will happen here too. But we do have a huge domestic coal supply, a large supply of nuclear weapons, and a renewable supply of rightwing millenialist nutters.
180px-Major_Kong.jpg
 
I think quad, or someone, mentioned it, but the Administration is against this bill and would probably veto it (but mostly for the wrong reasons):

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/05/misreading-the-fight-over-military-detention/

Detainees treated according to the laws of war have the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They cannot be tortured. The Obama regime opposes military detention, because detainees would have some rights. These rights would interfere with the regime’s ability to send detainees to CIA torture prisons overseas. This is what the Obama regime means when it says that the requirement of military detention denies the regime “flexibility.”

The Bush/Obama regimes have evaded the Geneva Conventions by declaring that detainees are not POWs, but “enemy combatants,” “terrorists,” or some other designation that removes all accountability from the US government for their treatment.

By requiring military detention of the captured, Congress is undoing all the maneuvering that two regimes have accomplished in removing POW status from detainees.

A careful reading of the Obama regime’s objections to military detention supports this conclusion. The November 17 letter to the Senate from the Executive Office of the President says that the Obama regime does not want the authority it has under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Public Law 107-40, to be codified. Codification is risky, the regime says. “After a decade of settled jurisprudence on detention authority, Congress must be careful not to open a whole new series of legal questions that will distract from our efforts to protect the country.”

In other words, the regime is saying that under AUMF the executive branch has total discretion as to whom it detains and how it treats detainees. Moreover, as the executive branch has total discretion, no one can find out what the executive branch is doing, who detainees are, or what is being done to them. Codification brings accountability, and the executive branch does not want accountability.
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Despite a tremendous, last-minute outcry from both sides of the political aisle, the U.S. Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 by a vote of 93 to 7 on December 1.
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In fact, a comparison of the two versions of the Bill, that from prior to passage and that which was amended and ultimately passed the Senate, shows that the measure still seems to apply to American citizens rather than exempting them as Levin claims.

In its original form, the Bill specified that “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”

As we pointed out in our earlier coverage of this measure, this language may not “require” military detention of American civilians without trial, it does not rule it out of bounds either.

As passed by the Senate, the measure contains the same language.
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http://www.themoralliberal.com/2011/12/05/defense-authorization-bill-still-savages-the-constitution/

So...the question is...do we trust the presidency with the power to have anyone locked up indefinitely for any reason?
They already have done it unofficially, and I'm not happy.

According to this blogger at Forbes:
It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”

An amendment that would limit military detentions to people captured overseas failed on Thursday afternoon. The Senate soundly defeated a measure to strip out all the detention provisions on Tuesday.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai...est-threat-to-civil-liberties-americans-face/
 
StrawDog said:
Ah. Of course you realise that notion rests firmly on "declared" wars between distinct nations.
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I don't think that the "distinct nations" bit has any relevance. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the US Civil War, without transforming the USA into a permanent military dictatorship.

Likewise, the wars in question are as "declared" as wars get these days.

The main concern should be with whether the hostilities are finite in time. If there's an expiration date on this stuff that's one thing, but in the context of a permanent war it's much more problematic.
 
chimpkin said:
As we pointed out in our earlier coverage of this measure, this language may not “require” military detention of American civilians without trial, it does not rule it out of bounds either.
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BS

It doesn't use that terminology at all.
Indeed the language in the Bill is VERY clear.
It doesn't extend to US Citizens.

Sec 1032 clarifies WHO falls under this provision:

(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
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StrawDog said:
Ah. Of course you realise that notion rests firmly on "declared" wars between distinct nations.
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Maybe once it did, but 9/11 proved it has nothing to do with either of those things.

So all it has to do with is how you deal with Prisoners you acquire in Combat operations.

And like every country everywhere, you detain them until the Hostilities are over.

Tough luck for these guys but it's not our problem that Al Qaeda won't stop their declared war and fighting agains us.

They could you know.

But until they do, there is little reason to turn these guys back over to them to fight against us some more.
 
quadraphonics said:
Recently, the "vanguard" forces of Qaddafi were on full display, and Assad's cronies are rather active in trying to hold together the Syrian military right now.
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On full display only in the eyes of Western Media. I am sure you are aware that both Gaddafi did, and Assad is, facing significant elements of armed insurrection? Also not on full display by the Western Media was the grotesque murders of pro Gaddafi troops and black Africans by the Western backed NTC.
 
adoucette said:
Maybe once it did, but 9/11 proved it has nothing to do with either of those things.

So all it has to do with is how you deal with Prisoners you acquire in Combat operations.

And like every country everywhere, you detain them until the Hostilities are over.

Tough luck for these guys but it's not our problem that Al Qaeda won't stop their declared war and fighting agains us.

They could you know.

But until they do, there is little reason to turn these guys back over to them to fight against us some more.
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Then Barbarism and disregard for the rule of law it is. Undeniably. Enjoy your future.
 
StrawDog said:
Then Barbarism and disregard for the rule of law it is. Undeniably. Enjoy your future.
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Nothing at all barbaric about holding prisoners of war until the hostilities are over.

Indeed doing so helps you to enjoy your future.
 
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