What Would You Do If Bush Declared Martial Law?

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by Jane Smiley

An editorial in the New York Times yesterday pointed out, for those of us who didn't realize it, that the Bush administration had inserted two provisions into last October's defense budget bill that would make it easier to declare martial law in the US. Senators Leahy and Bond have introduced a bill to repeal these changes, and it is important that

voters keep track of this bill and hold their Congresspeople to account on it. Along with several other measures the Bush adminstration has proposed, the introduction of these changes amounts, not to an attack on the Congress and the balance of power, but to a particular and concerted attack on the citizens of the nation. Bush is laying the legal groundwork to repeal even the appearance of democracy. Any senator who does not vote in favor of the Leahy/Bond repeal of these provisions should promptly be recalled by his or her constituents.
That said, and without underestimating the seriousness of these provisions, I have to point out that with this as with other legal maneuvers like the Military Commissions Act, I have to wonder who Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc. think they are governing. Were they planning to spring these things on us? One day, we were supposed to wake up, and martial law would be declared, and we were supposed to actually pay attention to it? Where are they keeping the troops who were going to patrol our neighborhoods? Who was it who was going to disarm the population? Who was their base going to be, when they sought public support for martial law? Who was going to round us up and where were they going to put us?

It is in these sorts of things that the byzantine thinking and strange psychological make-up of the Bushies comes out. Let's say that Bush imagines (with Gonzalez and Cheney) the enhanced joys of bringing the war home. No longer is his command "over there"--it is now "over here". He can go out onto the White House lawn and issue edicts, and then perhaps he can be driven around Washington, or over into Virginia, and watch civilians obey his orders in a way that the Iraqis seem unwilling to do. I am assuming that the purpose of such an exercise would be to renew and intensify the now-diminishing frisson Bush gets from feeling himself the boss of all he surveys. But we all know it would not work. Very few people believe Bush or take his needs and desires seriously any more. Bush, or his keepers, know this, too, or they would not have introduced these provisions secretly. There was a time, when the nation was in a panic, when he could purloin things openly, and no one dared defy him. That was the appropriate occasion for these martial law changes. Now, or even last fall, was not that time. The Republicans must have suspected that to make such provisions known would have meant jeopardizing an iffy mid-term election even more than it already was, so they hid them. But the fact that they hid them makes them a hundred times more suspect--are the Bushies planning a coup after all?

And if they are planning a coup, what's the goal? Who is going to fall in line? Arnold Schwarzenegger, my very own governor? Chet Culver? Kathleen Sebelius? Eliot Spitzer? Since the US is a corporatocracy, would we then all be forced to work for $2.00 per hour? Give up all workplace benefits? Attend the religious services of our choice on Sunday? Devote even more of our tax dollars to the war machine and the oil machine? Haven't they taken everything already? Try as I might, I cannot imagine martial law in the US, except as something the population would agree to under threat from...from whom? Correct me if I am wrong (I know you will), but the last time martial law was declared was during the Civil War, and Americans, though the threats to the Union were profound and omnipresent, didn't like it then. I can't even imagine what would happen now.

Our armed forces can't subdue Iraq. I can't imagine that Bush thinks they could subdue New England or the West Coast, much less the whole US. To imagine himself commanding such a thing seems like magical thinking at its most obvious. So, what would you did if Bush declared martial law, laugh?

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blueflame, I don't trust Bush or this congress to protect the American People. I still haven't seen any evidence to feel confidence in our government to do the right thing.

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I'd ignore him, just as i intend to ignore the writer of that silly, silly op/ed piece.

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Sententa, ignore the NYTimes editorial and the Leahy/Bond too. A bunch of sillies.

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Despite the apparent butchering of my screen name, i assume you were referring to my response. I haven't said that the medium or the author are silly, just the op/ed piece. Get over it.

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Setanta, I am over it. You're free to ignore what you want although you have responded twice which aint really ignoring. Sandra Day O'Conner warned us of a building dictatorship and legislation like the Military Commissions Act are reason enough to be concerned. It's not silly to be concerned that another "terrorist" attack could lead to drastic measures against American freedom and even lead to martial law.

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Your thread title asks a question, and i have answered it. In 1972, people on the left (particularly among college students) were insistent that Nixon intended to suspend the elections and declare martial law. Guess what?

Eisenhower warned us of the dangers inherent in the military-industrial complex. We have not heeded him. Nevertheless, no President since Eisenhower has attempted to impose martial law and suspend elections.

You asked a question, and i answered it. Frankly, i don't believe for a moment that it will happen, or that anyone would cooperate with the idiot if he tried it.

Far from getting over it, you are obsessed with both conspiracy in general, and conspiracies by the Shrub and Company in particular. I have yet to see you produce a shred of credible proof for your theories of conspiracy. You really do need to get over you silly and unsubstantiated paranoias.

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Sentanta, obssessed I am ever since Nov. 22, 1963. America has killed to many innocent people in my lifetime to not be obssessed imo. It's not so much a conspiracy as it is the American way. As for Nixon there's no comparison to what was legislated then with what has been legislated under Bushie. He has been given the power to arrest any human being he chooses without charging them or giving them habeas corpus. He has the power to hold them all their lives and torture them according to his interpretations of the Geneva Convention. The Bill of Rights is lost and the new Congress supposedly will work to restore that. That's what Leahy has promised to do.

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The democrats hasn't shown any backbone yet to convince me they will improve our lives in any way. I'll believe it when I see it.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

The democrats hasn't shown any backbone yet to convince me they will improve our lives in any way. I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't see any change in my life over the last 6 years besides joining the military to fight so whacked out Muslims. Other then that my way of life has been this way for quite some time. I don't know why you people run around with the chicken little syndrome.

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Ah, depend on Baldimo to come up with a gen such as "you people." Sufficiently vague for deniability, and sufficiently pointed to heap scorn on everyone but himself.

As for Blueflame, his claims about the powers which the Shrub putatively has without reference to habeas corpus are unproven. As is the case with the Shrub's "signing statements," no such powers accrue simply because the Shrub wishes to claim that they do. Effective and successful court challenges to any powers which the administration wants to claim it has make those claims meaningless.

I must reluctantly agree with Baldimo's "chicken little" remark at least with regard to Blueflame. Otherwise, he paints with his typically too broad brush.

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Regardless of whether it is going to happen or not Set, is the title of the article not actually a fair question?

Let's take Bush out and put 'the prez' in instead.

Cycloptichorn

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By the way, Blueflame, you're really pathetic if you can't consistently just look at the page and correctly copy my screen name.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Regardless of whether it is going to happen or not Set, is the title of the article not actually a fair question?

Let's take Bush out and put 'the prez' in instead.

Cycloptichorn

I answered the titular question, Boss--it was Blueflame who got his panties in a twist thereafter.

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To the best of my knowledge Andrew Jackson and Abe Lincoln were the only presidents that managed to suspend habeas corpus, Jackson suffered for it and Lincoln probably would have had he lived.
In the two months immediately following the Battle of New Orleans, however, Jackson put his glory in jeopardy, keeping a tight grip on civil liberties and seeming to take personally the restlessness of those under his control. He censored a newspaper, came close to executing two deserters, and jailed a state congressman, a judge, and a district attorney. He defied a writ of habeas corpus. Jackson was fined for his actions, and, for the rest of his life, was shadowed by the charge that he had behaved tyrannically.
In 1861, Lincoln had already suspended civil law in territories where resistance to the North's military power would be dangerous. In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law.

Among the 13,000 people arrested under martial law was a Maryland Secessionist, John Merryman. Immediately, Hon. Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States issued a writ of habeas corpus commanding the military to bring Merryman before him. The military refused to follow the writ. Justice Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled the suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional because the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress. President Lincoln and the military ignored Justice Taney's ruling.
Finally, in 1866, after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.

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In fact, the Constitution does allow for the suspension of habeas corpus:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

(Article I, Section 9, second paragraph)

Lincoln's orginal suspension of writs was challenged by Mr. Justice Taney, not in his capacity as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but acting in his capacity as a Federal Circuit Court justice, when he ordered General Cadwalader to present a Mr. Merryman (a citizen of the State of Maryland and slavery sympathizer, as was Taney) for Taney to judge the legality of Merryman's detainment. Cadwalader refused, to which Taney responded by holding him in contempt of court, and his (Cadwalader's) field police refused to allow a Federal Marshall to serve a writ on the general. Thereafter, Lincoln issued a formal proclamation of the suspension of habeas corpus in 1862, with the approval of the Congress, suspending writs in all territory occupied by Federal forces and legally under martial law.

The stretch Blueflame is involved in here is the Shrub's 2001 declaration that anyone involved in terrorist activites could be seized and held without reference to writs. There has yet to be a direct challenge to this, but in fact, the original legislation (yes, it was passed by Congress) only applied to writs presented on behalf of non-citizens. This New York Times article, which must be purchased, points out that many of the powers of detention alleged by the administration to be within the executive purview, have been ignored or denied by the Supremes.

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Setanta, I misspelled your name. Not on purpose. You came here with a snit as you usually do on my posts. I dont care about that ever. The question I asked is a good one because the threat is real. The NYTimes shows concern and so do Leahy/Bond and others in Congress along with many millions of Americans. My "claims about the powers which the Shrub putatively has without reference to habeas corpus are unproven?" And yet the legislation to reverse the legislation that clearly do give Bushie rights that destroy the Bill of Rights in the minds of many more Americans than I.

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Set, The problem with "those involved in terrorist acitivy" is so broad, only the Bush wackos interpret that. Look at all the innocent people that have been taken under custody without any rights to a lawyer, and taken to places like gitmo without having been charged with any crime.

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And most of us are now aware of the innocent Italian citizen who was kidnapped by the CIA, taken to Egypt, and tortured - then released.

Judge orders CIA agents to be charged
Richard Owen in Rome
February 18, 2007

AN Italian judge has ordered 26 Americans, most of them believed to be CIA agents, to stand trial for the kidnapping and torture of a Muslim cleric.
In the first criminal court case arising from the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, the judge also indicted five Italians, including the former head of Italy's military intelligence.
The trial threatens embarassing revelations over the CIA program in which terror suspects were seized in one country and taken to another. The tactic has been one of the most controversial in the US led War on Terror.

Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar, was allegedly kidnapped on a Milan street in February 2003 by CIA agents in collusion with their Italian counterparts. He was flown from Aviano to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and then to Egypt, where he claims that he was tortured. He was released in Cairo this week.

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Restoring a Right
The detention and treatment of foreign prisoners still needs to be reformed.
Thursday, February 15, 2007; Page A26

washingtonpost.com Editorial
LAST SEPTEMBER, President Bush used the leverage of a midterm election to pressure Congress into granting his administration broad powers to detain, interrogate and try "enemy combatants" in the war on terrorism. The hastily considered bill had many flaws, but perhaps the most serious was a provision stripping foreign detainees of the right of habeas corpus, by which they could appeal their detentions, their treatment or the fairness of their trials to U.S. courts. With Congress under their control, Democrats have the chance to correct this serious breach of liberty. They should move quickly.

Two substantial pieces of legislation have been introduced in the Senate so far. One is a bipartisan measure backed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and his predecessor as chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). Their bill would simply and straightforwardly restore the habeas right -- which is spelled out in Article I of the Constitution and has been a fundamental guarantor of freedom in Anglo-Saxon common law since the 12th century -- for all foreign prisoners in U.S. jurisdiction. The measure was narrowly defeated last year in the Senate by a vote of 51 to 48. Since then the elections have changed the arithmetic, and supporters believe a comfortable majority is within reach, though some compromises may be necessary to overcome a filibuster.

A much broader bill was introduced Tuesday by a group of Democrats led by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who is a candidate for president. In addition to affirming the habeas right, the Restoring the Constitution Act would correct many other problems with the military commissions law. It would prevent the administration from introducing evidence at the trials that was obtained through coercion; close loopholes that might allow the CIA to use abusive interrogation techniques; and improve the appeals process. The measure would also narrow -- in our view excessively -- the current law's overly broad definition of who can be defined as an "enemy combatant" subject to trial by a military commission. At present, even legal residents of the United States who do no more than "support" a terrorist group could be tried as enemy combatants; under Mr. Dodd's bill, only al-Qaeda members connected to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and fighters captured in "a zone of active combat against the United States" would be covered.

Most of the Dodd bill's reforms are badly needed. But many could be addressed through the courts if the habeas right were restored. Over the past several years, court supervision has proved essential to curbing the Bush administration's excesses in holding and interrogating prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Court rulings or the imminent prospect of them have caused prisoners held incommunicado to be granted attorneys and hearings, trial procedures to be improved and abusive treatment to be curbed. There is much still to do to reform foreign detentions; Congress needs to put the federal court system back into the process. It can do so by guaranteeing detainees the basic human right to appeal their imprisonment.

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What Would You Do If Bush Declared Martial Law?

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