Thanks to Paul, the Senate’s finally woken up to the war on terror’s “Battlefield America”
“When people talk about a ‘battlefield America’,” Paul said, around hour four, Americans should “realize they’re telling you your Bill of Rights don’t apply.” That is a consequence of the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that did not bound a war against al-Qaida to specific areas of the planet. “We can’t have perpetual war. We can’t have a war with no temporal limits,” Paul said.
This is actually something of a radical proposition. When House Republicans attempted to revisit the far-reaching authorization in 2011, chief Pentagon attorney Jeh Johnson conveyed the Obama administration’s objections. Of course, many, many Republicans have been content with what the Bush administration used to call a “Long War” with no foreseeable or obvious end. And shortly before leaving office in December, Johnson himself objected to a perpetual war, but did so gingerly, and only after arguing that the government had the power to hold detainees from that war even after that war someday ends. …
It would be foolish to presume that Paul’s moment in the spotlight heralds a new Senate willingness to roll back the expanses of the post-9/11 security apparatus. Rubio, for instance, stopped short of endorsing any of Paul’s substantive criticisms of the war. But Paul did manage to shift what political scientists call the Overton Window — the acceptable center of gravity of discussion. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), the hawkish chairman of the House intelligence committee, put out a statement that started out subliminally criticizing Paul but ultimately backing him on the central point.
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I agree.
I am not much of a fan of Rand Paul. I will not vote for him in a primary (in a general election, I will), for I am a huge Marco Rubio fan/supporter. I am a Conservative, not a Libertarian.
But hell, after that epic filibuster, if Rand Paul wants to be president after 2016, I don’t see anything right now that can stop him.
BigGator5 on March 7, 2013 at 9:12 AM
Microdrone appropriate for indoor use in areas as small as the Senate chamber spotted in San Jose.
forest on March 7, 2013 at 9:12 AM
Last night was a magnified show of the Republican party. You had the Republicans on the floor and you had the Republicans meeting with Obama. And you had one or two(Toomey and Chambliss) who played both sides. We as a party need to get on the side that was on that floor tonight. That is the winning side.
Just look at what Graham said about Paul today and you will see that it is about maintaining power and not destroying the Dems:
Not all Republicans were so enthusiastic about Paul’s performance. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the prospect of drones being used to kill people in the United States was “ridiculous” and called the debate “paranoia between libertarians and the hard left that is unjustified.”
They just don’t fricking get it..
melle1228 on March 7, 2013 at 9:34 AM
America didnt choose a global battlefield…the Jihadist did.
jp on March 7, 2013 at 9:38 AM
how quickly republicans learned to hate the drone war…
in any case, welcome aboard!
sesquipedalian on March 7, 2013 at 9:39 AM
Just wondering if “woken up” is proper usage? How about “America’s finally awakened to…”
mubando on March 7, 2013 at 9:43 AM
I am more concerned with how slowly they came around to understanding just exactly what the purpose of picking awlaki as the first American to be deliberately killed with announcements to the fact. Creating the precedence is important, from there it gets defined downward. My fellow conservatives are an embarrassing lot many days.
astonerii on March 7, 2013 at 9:46 AM
Many of us cared. Unfortunately our voices are drowned out by “war on womyn” crap. Our REPS and SENATORS have to care as well. We finally have some with some cajones that care about due process and can dumb it down enough that those Americans who thought we were going to steal their tampons last election will understand as well.
melle1228 on March 7, 2013 at 9:49 AM
interesting, when jose padilla, an American citizen, was tortured and held without anything resembling due process, conservatives had no concern with precedent setting whatsoever.
sesquipedalian on March 7, 2013 at 9:52 AM
He did have access to habius corpus and his life. He had the ability to win his freedom if he was innocent.
A dead man has no such rights. He is dead and has no voice.
astonerii on March 7, 2013 at 9:57 AM
The first citizens to be killed were at the Whiskey Rebellion by George Washington on US soil.
The Commander in Chief has a duty in regards to repelling insurrectionist and Rebellions or when citizens become traitors and join ranks with the Nazis or Al Qaeda like Al Awalki did
jp on March 7, 2013 at 10:00 AM
First off you are painting with an awfully broad brush. Secondly, hypocrisy works BOTH WAYS. Dems were absolutely hysterical over Padilla and waterboarding and yet both left the “sufferer” unharmed and with no permanent injury. Being killed by a drone is permanent and the person has no recourse in court because they are dead. Padilla was able to fight his imprisonment thus get his due process because he remained ALIVE.
melle1228 on March 7, 2013 at 10:01 AM
padilla’s treatment was no less unconstitutional than awlaki’s.
conservatives pick and choose sides of any issue only to oppose the president. today, they’re against the drone war and rand paul is their hero. a very principled stand, this.
sesquipedalian on March 7, 2013 at 10:05 AM
They were all killed holding guns and pointing them at the federal authorities when they were killed. Does riding in a car meet that criteria?
astonerii on March 7, 2013 at 10:05 AM
Openly siding with AQ and plotting attacks on US for goal of a glogal Caliphate makes one immediatly a traitor and by law an Enemy Combatant
Law of war invoked
jp on March 7, 2013 at 10:11 AM
I never supported enhanced interrogation of American Citizens until they are found guilty of being a member of the enemy forces. But the major difference between the two is that one person is alive and one person is dead. The person alive got justice in the end, the person dead, we will never know if he got justice, he was never allowed a defense. In the end, Padilla got due process, because he was alive to pursue it. Could it have been done cleaner? Sure.
I also do not support the recent war authorization that says the government can hold people indefinitely without charge and never being required to say they have them.
I do not support the strip and grope TSA either or pretty much any aspect of the Department of Homeland Security.
I do not like the wire tapping of American citizens without a warrant.
In fact, pretty much every aspect of the growing power centralized in Washington pisses me off.
astonerii on March 7, 2013 at 10:14 AM
So, when you go for a business trip overseas and some smart ass makes up a BS CG of you joining the enemy and sending it to the White House, you are OK with your imminent death?
astonerii on March 7, 2013 at 10:16 AM
Wow and all we need as proof is the governments word? Rand Paul’s point is if that we catch someone flipping off the safety of a weapon ready to attack or engaged in an attack we can off him. If he is simply talking about an attack then you have to arrest him and bring him to trial. That makes perfect sense.
We are supposed to be different from the enemy.
Besides this whole idea of endless war against a faceless enemy is a construct of the Bush administration. If we discarded that foolishness and adopted the reality we could win this war immediately.
We are at war with radical islam. Any governent that supports radical islam is our enemy and gets taken down immediately. We don’t try to nation build. We destroy the government and leave with the warning that if they support terrorists again we will return. List of countries that get’s taken down in the first 10 days?
1. Iraq – Done supported terror and was involved in 9/11 Bush did good here.
2. Iran – Been supporting terror strikes since at least 1983 been killing Americans since. Take them down…
3. Pakistan – Provided weapons and training to Al Qaeda…take them down.
4. Saudi Arabia – Take them down and appropiate their oil. They are camel herders and had we not GIVEN them the oil refineries and kept them up they would have no idea how to do it themselves.
5. Yemen – Take them down
Go after the countries that support terror. Make the terrorists and their supporters miserable instead of all the Americans whose lives are invaded and disrupted by this foolishness call Homeland Security.
PierreLegrand on March 7, 2013 at 10:24 AM
What about Pakistan nukes?
I like your idea.
astonerii on March 7, 2013 at 10:29 AM
We wait long enough and one of Pakistan’s nukes will find its way here without any provocation.
This endless war crap is dumb. It was forced upon us by the multicultural crazies.
PierreLegrand on March 7, 2013 at 10:33 AM
Not exactly. Article One, Section Eight: [Congress shall have the power] To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
PersonFromPorlock on March 7, 2013 at 10:36 AM
Actually, we can. The Constitution puts no temporal bounds on war — that’s the job of our enemy.
As for Senator Paul, well — we once had a Civil War in which the power of the United States was unleashed against civilians in rebellion against the United States.
Even the Constitution recognizes that our rights may be curtailed in time of war. That was the justification made by the Supreme Court in upholding FDR’s Executive Order 9066 issued when the Democratic state government of California demanded that its entire state be cleared of anyone of Japanese ancestry — citizen or not. Regardless of the motives behind 9066, it held up under Supreme Court scrutiny.
Holder is, sadly, on far firmer Constitutional ground than Paul.
unclesmrgol on March 7, 2013 at 11:04 AM
You’re trying to make this a Conservative thing – this is a human thing.
Under President Bush, Senator Obama protested raising the debt ceiling. Then President Obama asks for it multiple times. I don’t remember him ever having a “come to Jesus” moment on it where he explained why his thinking changed. The only thing that changed was which side of the table he was on when it was proposed.
There are countless instances of people that were against the wars under Bush being strangely silent under Obama. There are also instances of people being fine with the war under Bush opposing it now (though, to be fair, many of them have explained that they have war fatigue from the endless wars which is a bit different than having an opinion based on who’s in charge).
And as I mentioned, this isn’t just an American thing. In India a few years ago, there were protests in two neighboring states against the ruling political party. In both instances, they were protesting a newly proposed tax. In both instances the ruling party claimed the tax was necessary to pay the bills. In both instances the opposition party claimed that it wasn’t necessary and the other party was taking advantage of the poor. Nothing inconsistent there, right? Except that the roles played by the parties were switched from one state to the other. The national parties were simultaneously putting out materials in support of the tax in one state and against it in the other.
It serves as more of a gotcha than anything meaningful.
Additionally, pointing the finger at all conservatives isn’t even accurate. Go back in time and you’ll never find every single one of them agreeing to the TSA or the Patriot Act or going to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. It just didn’t happen. And, in some cases, even the people that were for it were against certain problematic aspects of it (e.g. “I’m fine with droning a terrorist but not so sure it’s alright if that terrorist is a U.S. citizen….even if they’re on foreign soil).
I suppose it allows you to ‘score points’ by picking and choosing which comments you want to remember and/or address, but, it does nothing to actually resolve an issue which would seem to make it a giant waste of time. Perhaps I’m wrong though….is there any value in the “Gotcha Game” on blogs?
JadeNYU on March 7, 2013 at 11:09 AM
Addendum: The curtailment of rights within the sovereign territory of the United States is bounded to those places where the courts cannot function.
We have several examples from the Civil War, all relating to newpapers and the right to habeas corpus:
Merryman, and
Vallandingham, and
Milligan (in which the right to habeas corpus was restored):
Justice David Davis presented, as part of the Opinion of the Court in Milligan, this:
In other words, things do indeed change when you are at war.
unclesmrgol on March 7, 2013 at 11:13 AM
What did Iraq have to do with 9/11?
Do you think we have the military resources, men, or money to attack the countries listed?
Govt spending is bad, except trillions on these military misadventures. Will you be the first to sign up to fight?
Seven Seas on March 7, 2013 at 11:21 AM
When Sesqui arrives, strawmen abound.
fossten on March 7, 2013 at 11:29 AM
I hear they burn quite nicely when tied to a stake…
I’ll bring the marshmallows.
MelonCollie on March 7, 2013 at 11:32 AM
Start with the Saudi hijackers. The photos and names released by the U.S. government match flight manifests with visa files from U.S. consulates. But the only pictures of the hijackers from security cameras are of persons other than the ones in the visa files and flight manifests. Indisputably, the hijackers used stolen identities. That is a mark of a major-league intelligence service. (The Saudi government prevented independent investigation of who the hijackers really were.)
The hijacking itself bore marks of professionalism: the hijackers used sophisticated chemical sprays and methods of rapid entry into the cockpits, they had mastered navigation beyond what had been taught them in their U.S. flight schools, and they had turned off the planes’ transponders — which also had not been taught them in the flight schools.
Then there is the $100,000 that financed the U.S. part of the mission. Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, reportedly got it after a meeting in June 2000 in Prague with Ahmed al Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer who specialized in handling terrorists. The account from which the money came had been professionally scrubbed of the owner’s identity. On April 9, 2001, Atta made a 72-hour trip to see al Ani again. Two weeks later, the trained “soldiers” in the hijacking left Saudi Arabia for America. Did the two terrorists talk about the lingerie business?
From all this, a reasonable person — also knowing that Iraq has a facility where terrorists train to take over Boeing aircraft — might conclude that September 11 had been organized by Iraq, with connections in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
But the CIA paid attention to trails that the hijack operation had chosen not to cover. On September 9, Atta wired $15,000 back to a different account. This one had an unhidden owner — an associate of Osama bin Laden. Osama had done it! And Atta had left his flight manual in a car he had rented in his own name. He only knew what he learned in flight school! See? An amateur operation planned in one of those fabulous Afghan caves.
If we don’t try to build a nation…yes. And the benefit would be ending this endless war…just how much money would that save. Not to mention saving our constitution and civil rights.
Right now we are all supposed to be scared for life. Right now a terrorist may strike us at any moment…hence the need to grope my wife, daughters and son when I fly.
I propose ending this war by winning it. That is something we used to know how to do.
PierreLegrand on March 7, 2013 at 12:04 PM