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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (125120)	2/26/2004 3:10:44 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<As far as declarations of war are concerned, the legalities are a bit obscure to me...> Jefferson was quite clear about it: "The lamentable resource of war is not authorized for evils of imagination, but for those actual injuries only which would be more destructive of our well-being than war itself." --Thomas Jefferson, 1801. (my comment: "evils of imagination = Iraqi WMD) James Madison: ". . . The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature . . . the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war." (1793.) "The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war to the Legislature." (Letter to Jefferson, c. 1798.) Alexander Hamilton: ". . . .'The Congress shall have the power to declare war'; the plain meaning of which is, that it is the peculiar and exclusive duty of Congress, when the nation is at peace, to change that state into a state of war. . . ." (C. 1801.) What part of, "Congress shall have the power to declare war", don't you understand?

To: carranza2 who wrote (125120)	2/26/2004 3:46:13 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<you will be very pleasantly surprised at the ultimate result of the Padilla case> Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied. Padilla has been in solitary in a military brig for 2+ years now. Even if he were released unconditionally today, with the same apology we eventually gave to the WW2 Japanese-American internees, he has already been imprisoned unConstitutionally. He was originally arrested, and sent into the civilian justice system. Then, when our government decided they wouldn't be able to convict him of anything that way (or interrogate him whatever way they wanted to), they re-labelled him as an "illegal combatant". If the Constitutional provisions for habeas corpus and the right to a trial, were still in force, Padilla should have been released long ago. If the government's claims about Padilla are correct, then it should be possible to: 1. strip him of his citizenship, since he served in the forces of a hostile foreign power. By American law, someone who does that, has renounced his citizenship. I have no problem with expanding the definition of "foreign power" to include, not just nation-states, but organizations such as Al Queda. 2. alternately, he could be treated as an American citizen who spied for a foreign power. That seems to be the most accurate description of what he has done (if Ashcroft's claims are accurate). 3. I also have no problem with keeping secret much or all of the trial, for national security reasons. Judges make gag orders, and seal testimony, all the time. But there should be a trial, and it should be conducted according to laws passed by Congress, in the regular court system. BTW, I am still waiting for justice for the torturers who beat to death those prisoners at Bagram Air Base. And waiting for justice for the Special Forces (and their superiors) who helped Dostum's militia slaughter thousands of Taliban prisoners. I'm still waiting for Calley to serve time (in jail, not house arrest) for his My Lai murders. And for Kissinger to be held responsible for the murder of Allende and thousands of other Others. And for all the statues to come down, of George "Town Destroyer" Washington, and Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson. Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.