newsviewsnolose@yahoogroups.com on behalf of dick.mcmanus
"To act outside officially declared war zones"
November 10, 2008 The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed
attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan, and
elsewhere, according to senior American officials.
These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations
forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of
President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the
military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere
in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in
countries not at war with the United States.
According to a senior administration official, the new authority was
spelled out in a classified document called "Al Qaeda Network Exord,"
or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the
military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the
past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a
case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours
to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the
green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said,
The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria,
Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and several other Persian Gulf states,
where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought
sanctuary, a senior administration official said.
NOTE: Since when do Congress declare "war zones"? There has never been a Congressional declaration of war against al Qaeda any where on earth. Or has there?
WAR is declared against nation states. Britain declared war against Germany after Hitler invaded Poland. The British had made a come-to-your-aid or defense treaty with Poland. The Germans were given a warning by the British that they would declare war, if Poland was invaded. The Germans invaded on Sept 1, 1939 and Britain declared war on Sept. 3, 1939.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush issued a classified order
authorizing the C.I.A. to kill or capture Qaeda militants around the
globe.
NOTE: The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists , enacted September 18, 2001, Joint resolutions passed by the United_States_Congress on September_18, 2001, authorizing the use of United_States_Armed_Forces" against those responsible for the "Attacks_on_September_11_2001.
NOTE: This does not say the use of the CIA or FBI? What is meant by those responsible? Saudi Arabians who financed Al Qeada?
The somewhat or sort-of declaration to invade Iraq was signed by Congress in early 2003.
Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 October 2002.
The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Military of the United States "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" in order to "defend the National security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."
But there was no UN resolution to invade
.
History: July 7, 1798, when Congress rescinded treaties with France, can be considered a semi-official beginning of the Quasi-War. The act was followed two days later with Congressional authorization to attack French vessels. NOTE: not a declaration of war or to invade France.
And Pres. Clinton bombed the Serbs in Kosovo without a declaration of war and shot cruse mission into Afghanistan. Bush the first invaded Panama, and Reagan invaded Grenada and Honduras - the later ended up just being a show of force with no shots fired.
( Continuing)
The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.
Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate
under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal
rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without
those countries' consent.
What does "conduct operations" mean? Does it mean to set up supply bases in conjunction with an attack in a third country without this country's appeal or knowledge? Also an act of war ... invading or crossing a country's border.
To attack inside Somalia need at least the approval of the defense secretary.
Comment: What we have not had is a debate about the whole issue of what is meant by Congress having the power to make WAR. Is kidnapping people in another country an act of WAR?
Yes, I think it is a good thing to kill or arrest al Qeada terrorists. But who decides when there is enough evidence that some person or persons in a group of Afghani tribesmen are terrorist? Who gives the kill order? The attack on the USS Cole was a military target, not terrorism. Killing civilians at the targets, is terrorism.
And lastly, I have a lot of questions as to whether or not Al Qeada did 9/11. The facts don't add up. The big question is...would we have invaded Iraq for oil without 9/11?
In September 2001, Pres. Bush gave the green light to J. Cofer Black (the CIA officer in charge of the CIA's Counter-terror Center) to begin inserting special operations forces into Afghanistan. Before the core CIA team, JAWBREAKER, deployed on September 27, 2001, Black gave his men a direct order. "Gentlemen, I want to give you your marching orders, and I want to make them very clear. I have discussed this with the President, and he is in full agreement, " Black told covert CIA operative Gary Schroen (who must have been in this group of men). "I don't want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead... They must be killed..." Schoen said it was the first time in his thirty year career he had been ordered to assassinate an adversary rather than attempting a capture. (p. 268)
NOTE: A nice way to say MURDER and to violate the law of land warfare - taking no prisoners.
The covert operation Black organized immediately after 9/11 relied heavily on private mercenaries. answering directly to him, rather than active-duty military forces. Black's men recruited about sixty former DELTA Force, ex-SEALs, and other special forces soldiers /CIA operatives as independent mercenaries of the initial mission, making up the majority of the first Americans into Afghanistan. (p. 270, Blackwater, The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.by Jeremy Scahill, 2007)
On November 21 2001, around 8,000 Taliban soldiers and Pashtun civilians surrendered at Konduz to the Northern Alliance commander, General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Many of them have never been seen again.
As Jamie Doran's film Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death records, some hundreds, possibly thousands, of them were loaded into container lorries at Qala-i-Zeini, near the town of Mazar-i-Sharif, on November 26 and 27. The doors were sealed and the lorries were left to stand in the sun for several days. At length, they departed for Sheberghan prison, 80 miles away. The prisoners, many of whom were dying of thirst and asphyxiation, started banging on the sides of the trucks. Dostum's men stopped the convoy and machine-gunned the containers. When they arrived at Sheberghan, most of the captives were dead.
The US special forces running the prison watched the bodies being unloaded. They instructed Dostum's men to "get rid of them before satellite pictures can be taken". Doran interviewed a Northern Alliance soldier guarding the prison. "I was a witness when an American soldier broke one prisoner's neck. The Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them." Another soldier alleged: "They took the prisoners outside and beat them up, and then returned them to the prison. But sometimes they were never returned, and they disappeared."
Many of the survivors were loaded back in the containers with the corpses, then driven to a place in the desert called Dasht-i-Leili. In the presence of up to 40 US special forces, the living and the dead were dumped into ditches. Anyone who moved was shot. The German newspaper Die Zeit investigated the claims and concluded that: "No one doubted that the Americans had taken part. Even at higher levels there are no doubts on this issue." The US group Physicians for Human Rights visited the places identified by Doran's witnesses and found they "all... contained human remains consistent with their designation as possible grave sites".
Source: George Monbiot
March 25, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk
Can the military indefinitely detain, without charge, a U.S. citizen or legal resident seized on U.S. soil?
09 Nov 2008 Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was whisked to a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., where he has spent more than five years. His case raises a question with vast implications for presidential power and civil liberties: Can the military indefinitely detain, without charge, a U.S. citizen or legal resident seized on U.S. soil? The Supreme Court is now being asked to consider the legality of Marri's detention, which is one of the broadest and most controversial assertions of executive authority.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Marri, said his client's detention "is the broadest and most radical assertion of detention power. That the president can order the military to seize someone from their home, their business, from the streets and lock them up in jail potentially forever, without trial, goes against 230 years of American precedent and the basic idea that this country was founded on."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/08/AR2008110802266.html
"Conspiracy" just means, more than one person being involved in something
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