War on Terror - The Battlefield is Here, the Enemy is Us

The “War on Terror” is the largest, most despicable hoax of our time. It is a “war” in which the enemy is anyone who believes that the individual has rights that the government cannot take away.

Today, the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has asserted the following: 1) The President doesn’t need congress to declare war; 2) When the President declares war the Congress and the Supreme Court have no authority to deny him any powers that he (the President) decides are required to win this “war”; 3) If the President decides that to win this war the rights of American citizens have to be violated, the Congress and the Supreme Court have no constitutional authority to stop him.

These three assertions are unprecedented in the history of the United States. When Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, it was subject to the Supreme Court’s decision on the matter. When Franklin D. Roosevelt interred American citizens of Japanese descent, both Congress and the Supreme Court could have ended that program. Both of these earlier presidents acknowledged the power of the other branches of government to place checks and balances on their powers. This current president allows no such possibility. According to him, and to his top legal officer (Gonzalez), the other branches of government have absolutely no power to place any checks on his powers, powers which he claimed for himself without the need for a vote by Congress or approval of the Supreme Court. This is no less than a coup d’tat by the sitting President.

The only power that the President admits could possibly place a damper on his absolute control over the military and the intelligence apparatus is the ability of Congress to stop appropriations. In other words, Congress could cut off the funding. One thing makes this impossible, and that’s the fact that Congress could only cut off the ENTIRE appropriation for military spending. It cannot cut off the funding for a particular offensive program, but can only stop the payments for all military spending. Do you think there’s a single senator or representative that would be willing to cut off the paychecks of millions of American military families, or stop the payments to military contractors, or fuel for warships sitting in the middle of the ocean? That’s what they’d have to do if they want to use their only tool to stop a President who by his own admission has broken the law.

If our Republic, our Constitution survives this crisis, we will look back at this period as the darkest in our history, as horrible and damaging to our Nation as the Civil War, as a period when our great land walked right up to the very precipice of Totalitarianism and looked into the eyes of an enemy to our freedom greater than any terrorist or madman dictator. This enemy is the current Administration, which has betrayed the Nation, disgraced our Founders, disdained our History.

If there is a group of people who can be expected to understand the dire circumstances we find ourselves, it is the community of this forum. We are people who have been able to stare directly down the twisted road of history and contemplate the abuse of power throughout that history. I don’t question our ability to see the truth or to Name the Enemy. We believe in Liberty as a condition of Nature and in Freedom as our Birthright. The man who has seized the controls of the most powerful military engine ever has declared war… on Us.

Could you post a date and time or even a url to where these statements were made? I missed the statement whereever it came on.

Unbelievable. This is your loving government people! This is what they think of the Constitution.....which states ONLY congress is allowed to declare war.

These people are traitors. They need to be dealt with.

Thanks for posting this thread, the truth needs to come out.

How can our president declare war when the constitution says that congress shall declare war.

I don't believe it.....yet.

Sure, they have been attacking the constituion, but they can't erase it - can they?

After 9/11, George Bush passed a law that gave his administration ''executive powers'' away from the hands of congress......that includes the ability to declare war.

See how terrorism helps Bush and the New World Order? Who has the real motive for terrorism? Who profits? Who stands to gain?

All the proof is obvious....Bush and his minions and masters stand to gain....

Originally posted by godservant
How can our president declare war when the constitution says that congress shall declare war.

I don't believe it.....yet.

Sure, they have been attacking the constituion, but they can't erase it - can they?

The constitution says alot of things.

-The constitution says that only CONGRESS has the right to print money, while a private group of bankers are in control.

-The constitution says that we have the right to free speach, yet you can be thrown in a black prison indefinatly

1)President not needing Congress to declare war comes from his assertion of the War Powers Act.

2) He asserts that the Supreme Court and Congress have no power to block his actions in "prosecuting the war" in several of his famous "signing statements" to laws. See for example, his signing statement of the Iraq war resolution. He has also been asserting, as has Cheney, Gonzalez and several members of his cabinet, that he is a Constitutional officer with the same power to decide if something is Constitutional or not as the Supreme Court. If you go to Whitehouse.gov and read the last three weeks' of Press Briefings, you'll see that this is exactly what's been put forth by the administration. Or, just google "Bush, constitution, war, powers, intelligence" Be careful not to google Bush and Intelligence by themselves, because you might break the search engine.

3) Here's a very telling exchange from a Gonzalez press conference:

QUESTION: Attorney General Gonzales, if the Senate does not reauthorize this provision for the Patriot Act, does the president have the authority under Article 2 and the authorization of use of force to give the go-ahead for these procedures on his own?

TextGONZALES: What I will say is we continue to have hope that these provisions will be reauthorized. To the extent that they're not reauthorized, we will look at the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies throughout the government to see what authorities do exist. And we will do what we can do under existing authorities to continue to protect America.

In other words, he's saying "If the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot act and the NSA wiretapping orders are denied us by Congress or the Courts, we'll just find a way around that".

The transcript of that press conference, with many other chilling quotations, can be found here: www.whitehouse.gov...

But there are far stronger assertions of Bush's fantasy of executive power. All I ask is that you spend 10 minutes searching them out. Read the transcripts on Whitehouse.gov. And then come back here and tell me that what I've asserted in the original post in this thread is wrong in any way.

Why would Bush cite the War Powers Act? I'm sure any political scholar in the world will assure you the 1973 War Powers Act is unconstitutional, because it intereferes with the Executive's power as Commander in Chief. This is knowledge everyone is taught in freshman intro to polisci. That's the only reason why the congress has not invoked its provisions.

ed - typo.

[edit on 25-1-2006 by AlphaHumana]

I am going to say something many of you may not believe. It is not only the citizens that oppose our attempted Dictator Bush. The fact that he is overstepping many government agencies causes the people in charge of them to become very angry. If he attempts to gain the power he wants, it will make anyone in any sector of justice and intelligence departments CIA, FBI, supreme courts even the different arms of the military branch vulnerable as well.

There are people there who do not want to give up the power they have attained so easily to an over-zealous dictator who couldnt control it all even if he wanted too. It may not be very long before we begin hearing about the secret wars between different agencies and direct attacks against leaders of the administration as well.

[edit on 1/25/2006 by DYepes]

Harry Truman set a precedent that Presidents go to war without Congress's permission since the start of the Korean War. Since then many of the Presidents feel that they have the power to go to war without asking for a declaration of war from Congress. Even after the Vietnam war, a President still can go to suppose conflict without a declaration of war, it has happened from the Reagn admin to Bush to Clinton and to Bush again. Don't be surprise. I guess all of our Presidents are dictators eh?

While I won't go so far as to say that the US government is to blame for the war on terror and that our own Pres and governing bodies are the bad guys, I will say that there is historicall precedent for such acts against the constitution as many on this thread have cited.

Abraham Lincoln, revered though he is, is the biggest example of an Imperial presidency.
Not only did he suspend the writ of Habeus Corpus but he found a rather unique way of getting around the whole ONLY CONGRESS SHALL DECLARE WAR thing.
He waited until the annual congressional recess before calling up the militias of the loyal states. Which in and of itself caused Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina to join the SOuthern COnfederacy.
He jailed the memebers of the Maryland state legislator before they could vote on secession
(Although it might not have passed in the very split Maryland)
and his generals did the same thing to the legislators in Missouri who also tried to join the Confederacy.
He jailed members of the press who were outspoken critics of his policies, he imprisoned average citizens for voicing their disagreement with the administrations policies
He even tried to have a memeber of the Supreme Court jailed as well!!
Luckily for Lincolns somewhat undeserving reputation, the US Marshall assigned this duty balked and refused.

So unfortunately we do have historical precedent for this sort of thing, I'm just not sure this is whats going on now.
If you want to read more on Lincoln I have two suggestions
"The Real Lincoln" by Thomas DiLorenzo a professor at maryland University
and
"When in the course of Human events: Arguing the case for southern secession" by Douglas Adams an economic historian