Bush considered sending military to WNY

[samanthajane13]

Updated: Sunday, 26 Jul 2009, 3:24 PM EDT
Published : Saturday, 25 Jul 2009, 7:08 PM EDT

* Tricia Cruz

LACKAWANNA, N.Y. (WIVB) - A report in today's New York Times claims the Bush Presidential administration considered testing the US Constitution by sending in military power to arrest the Lackawanna Six.

Back in September of 2002 the FBI held a press conference to announce the arrest of five members of the Lackawanna 6.

But today sources tell us the New York Times article comes as a complete surprise and that no one in the local FBI office had even heard about the plan to bring in the U.S. Military.

The arrest of the Lackawanna 6 was preceded by an eight month investigation. Now we're finding out new specifics about the plan to break up the sleeper cell.

The New York Times reports that top Bush Administration officials were thinking about using U.S. troops to make the arrests. Souces tell News 4 no one in the local FBI office had been consulted that this could even be a possibility.

If the U.S. were to ever order the U.S. Military to make an arrest in this country some would argue that it's against the law and a violation of the constitution.

According to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 the military is generally prohibited from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property. We spoke to the President of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Dr. Qazi, in Buffalo today by phone.

"My initial reaction is I can't believe it because it's totally unconstitutional I don't believe it," said Qazi.

But according to the New York Times article some of President Bush's advisers - including Vice President Dick Cheney - disagreed in certain cases. The officials apparently argued it would have been legal because it was an issue of national security.

Dr. Qazi continued, "Certainly this should be a concern to any American."

In the end - President Bush chose not to use military force. Cordell Cooley and his family live in Lackawanna and they were here when the FBI arrested the terrorists. He says he would have supported any action taken at the time for the safety of his family.


http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/Bush_considered_sending_military_to_WNY_20090725

[samanthajane13]

Lackawanna Six Controversy

Updated: Saturday, 25 Jul 2009, 10:28 PM EDT
Published : Saturday, 25 Jul 2009, 10:28 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former President George W. Bush reportedly considered but rejected sending troops to suburban Buffalo, New York in 2002.

According to published reports, Former VP Cheney urged him to use military force to arrest a group of suspected terrorists.

(AP) ------ The Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power, The New York Times reported.

Vice President Dick Cheney and several other Bush advisers at the time strongly urged that the military be used to apprehend men who were suspected of plotting with al Qaida, who later became known as the Lackawanna Six, the Times reported on its Web site Friday night. It cited former administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The proposal advanced to at least one-high level administration meeting, before President George W. Bush decided against it.

Dispatching troops into the streets is virtually unheard of. The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

According to the Times, Cheney and other Bush aides said an Oct. 23, 2001, Justice Department memo gave broad presidential authority that allowed Bush to use the domestic use of the military against al-Qaida if it was justified on the grounds of national security, rather than law enforcement.

Among those arguing for the military use besides Cheney were his legal adviser David S. Addington and some senior Defense Department officials, the Times reported.

Opposing the idea were Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser; John B. Bellinger III, the top lawyer at the National Security Council; FBI Director Robert Mueller; and Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Justice Department's criminal division.

Bush ultimately nixed the proposal and ordered the FBI to make the arrests in Lackawanna. The men were subsequently arrested and pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, told the Times that a U.S. president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.


http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/090725_Lackawanna_Six_Controversy

[samanthajane13]

The Cheney plan to deploy the U.S. military on U.S. soil

This new report today from The New York Times' Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston reveals an entirely unsurprising though still important event: in 2002, Dick Cheney and David Addington urged that U.S. military troops be used to arrest and detain American citizens, inside the U.S., who were suspected of involvement with Al Qaeda. That was done pursuant to a previously released DOJ memo (.pdf) authored by John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, addressed to Alberto Gonzales, dated October 23, 2001, and chillingly entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the U.S." That Memo had concluded that the President had authority to deploy the U.S. military against American citizens on U.S. soil. Far worse, it asserted that in exercising that power, the President could not be bound either by Congressional statutes prohibiting such use (such as the Posse Comitatus Act) or even by the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which -- the Memo concluded -- was "inapplicable" to what it called "domestic military operations."

Though it received very little press attention, it is not hyperbole to observe that this October 23 Memo was one of the most significant events in American politics in the last several decades, because it explicitly declared the U.S. Constitution -- the Bill of Rights -- inoperative inside the U.S., as applied to U.S. citizens. Just read what it said in arguing that neither the Fourth Amendment -- nor even the First Amendment -- can constrain what the President can do when overseeing "domestic military operations" (I wrote about that Memo when it was released last March and excerpted the most revealing and tyrannical portions: here).

Today's NYT report is the first which reveals that high-level Bush officials actively considered and even advocated that the power to use the military to arrest American citizens on U.S. soil be used. In this instance, Cheney and Addington argued that the U.S. Army should be deployed to Buffalo to arrest six American citizens -- dubbed the "Lackawanna Six" -- suspected of being Al Qaeda members (though not suspected of being anywhere near executing an actual Terrorist attack). The Cheney/Addington plan was opposed by DOJ officials who wanted domestic law enforcement jurisdiction for themselves, and the plan was ultimately rejected by Bush, who instead dispatched the FBI to arrest them [all six were ultimately charged in federal court with crimes ("material support for terrorism"); all pled guilty and were sentenced to long prison terms, and they then cooperated in other cases, once again illustrating how effective our normal criminal justice and federal prison systems are in incapacitating Terrorists].

All that said, the Bush administration did use a very similar power when it dispatched FBI agents to arrest U.S. citizen Jose Padilla on American soil (at Chicago's O'Hare Airport), but then very shortly thereafter transferred him to military custody, where he was held for the next 3 years with no trial, no charges, and no contact with the outside world, including lawyers. The only thing distinguishing the Padilla case from what Cheney/Addington argued be done in the Lackawanna Six case was that the military wasn't used to make the initial apprehension of Padilla. But Padilla was then transferred to military custody and held on U.S. soil for years in a brig, incommunicado and tortured, with no charges of any kind (another U.S. citizen, Yaser Hamdi, was treated similarly until the Supreme Court ruled he was entitled to some sort of hearing, after which he was sent to Saudi Arabia).

All of this underscores why it is so important to vigorously oppose the efforts of the Obama administration (a) to continue many of the radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism programs and even to implement new ones (preventive detention, military commissions, extreme secrecy policies, warrantless surveillance, denial of habeas corpus) and (b) to endorse the core Orwellian premise that enables all of that (i.e., the "battlefield" is anywhere and everywhere; the battle against Terrorism is a "War" like the Civil War or World War II and justifies the same powers). By itself, the extreme injustice imposed by our Government on the individuals subjected to such tyrannical powers (i.e., those held in cages for years without charges or any prospect for release) should be sufficient to compel firm opposition. But the importance of these issues goes far beyond that. Even if the original intention is to use these powers in very limited circumstances and even for allegedly noble purposes ("only" for Guantanamo detainees who were tortured, "only" for people shipped to Bagram, "only" for the Most Dangerous Terrorists), it's extremely dangerous to implement systems and vest the President with powers that depart from, and violently betray, our core precepts of justice.

It's the nature of governments that powers of this type, once vested, rarely remain confined to their original purpose. They inevitably and invariably expand far beyond that. Powers that are endowed to address a limited and supposedly temporary circumstance almost always endure for years if not decades. Once a political official possesses a particular power, they almost never relinquish it voluntarily (there are exceptions -- Jimmy Carter in 1978 signed, and subsequent Presidents until Bush complied with, FISA, which barred Presidents from eavesdropping without a judicial warrant, but such instances are exceedingly rare). Perhaps most dangerous of all, detention and punishment schemes that are implemented in relatively normal times (such as now) will inevitably expand, and expand wildly, in the case of some heightened threat (such as another Terrorist attack). Put another way, once we depart for ostensibly limited purposes from our fundamental principles of justice -- in order to indefinitely detain "just some special cases" without charges -- then, by definition, we're fundamentally altering our system of justice far beyond that.

Worse still, if -- after eight years of Yoo memos and theories of presidential omnipotence and denial of habeas corpus -- a Democratic President with a Democratic Congress implements his own kinder, gentler version of such programs, then they will cease to be a twisted aberration from the post-9/11 Bush era and will instead become the new bipartisan, American consensus approach to justice. We'll have a national (rather than right-wing) endorsement of the "principle" that national security threats justify denial of the most basic rights when it comes to detention and imprisonment. When I interviewed The New York Times' Charlie Savage in May, after he wrote another article detailing the similarities between the Bush/Cheney and Obama approaches to Terrorism, this is how he put it:


Continued...

[samanthajane13]

I had this interesting conversation when I was working on this article that came out this morning with Jack Balkin at Yale Law School, and he compares this moment to when Dwight Eisenhower took over, in 1953, and after FDR and then Truman had built up the New Deal administrative state, which Republicans hated, but then Eisenhower, instead of dismantling it, just sort of adjusted it with his own policies a little bit, and kept it going. And at that point, there was no longer any sort of partisan controversy about the fact that we were going to have this massive administrative state; it just sort of became a permanent part of the governing structure of the country.

And in the same way he said in 1969 when Richard Nixon took over from LBJ, he did some adjustments to the great society welfare state that LBJ had built up, but he didn't scrap it. And at that point, Republicans and Democrats had both presided over the welfare state and the welfare state became part of just how government worked.

That in the same way, Obama now, by continuing the broad outlines of the various surveillance and detention and counter-terrorism programs, is draining them of plausible partisan controversy, and so they are going to become entrenched and consolidated as permanent features of American government as well, going forward.

Those are the stakes when it comes to debates over Obama's detention, surveillance and secrecy policies. To endorse the idea that Terrorism justifies extreme presidential powers in these areas is to ensure that we permanently embrace a radical departure from our core principles of justice. It should come as no surprise that once John Yoo did what he was meant to do -- give his legal approval to a truly limitless presidency, one literally unconstrained even by the Bill of Rights, even as applied to American citizens on U.S. soil -- then Dick Cheney and David Addington sought to use those powers (in the Buffalo case) and Bush did use them (in the case of Jose Padilla). That's how extreme powers work: once implemented, they will be used, and used far beyond their original intent -- whether by the well-intentioned implementing President or a subsequent one with less benign motives. That's why it's so vital that such policies be opposed before they take root.



UPDATE: On a mostly (though not entirely) unrelated note, here is a prime example of Digby's excellence: her commentary on the prevailing authoritarian mentality towards government and police power in the U.S., as reflected by the Gates controversy.



UPDATE II: As Kitt notes in Comments, Obama himself, as a candidate, repeatedly embraced these ideas. Here is what he said in February, 2008, after he convinced Chris Dodd to endorse him during the primary and while he tried to convince Dodd voters, who made civil liberties and a restoration core Constitutional values one of their highest priorities, to support him as well:

We know it’s time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd’s candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish.

The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I’ve been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry [GG: This was just four months before Obama would vote for a bill granting immunity to the telecoms]. Secrecy and special interests must not trump accountability [GG: This was roughly 11 months before the Obama DOJ began embracing the Bush/Cheney "state secrets" privilege to shield lawless programs from judicial review]. We must show our citizens -- and set an example to the world -- that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient. Because in America -- no one is above the law [GG: This was about a year before he announced that no Bush officials should be prosecuted for crimes because we must Look Forward].

It’s time to reject torture without equivocation. It’s time to close Guantanamo and to restore habeas corpus [GG: This was about a year before his administration began insisting that people we abduct and ship to Bagram have no right to habeas review]. It’s time to give our intelligence and law enforcement agencies the tools they need to track down and take out terrorists, while ensuring that their actions are subject to vigorous oversight that protects our freedom [GG: This was just four months before Obama would vote for a bill massively expanding warrantless eavesdropping]. So let me be perfectly clear: I have taught the Constitution, I understand the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution when I am President of the United States.

The Barack Obama who understands those things still exists. That's why the effort to induce him to act on -- rather than violate -- those principles is so imperative.



UPDATE III: As several commenters note, this revelation about Cheney sheds new light on the reason many people were concerned by prior reports that a U.S. Army brigade, for the first time, was being permanently deployed to the domestic U.S. Many of us expressing that concern were accused of indulging bizarre paranoia that the U.S. Army would ever be deployed against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. I wonder how those who made such shrill accusations feel now in light of today's revelation that Cheney was advocating for precisely that.

On a different note, I was on The Mike Malloy Show last night, with guest host Brad Friedman, discussing Obama and civil liberties. Those interested can hear the segments I did here, beginning at the start of HOUR ONE.


-- Glenn Greenwald


http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/25/military/index.html?source=rss&aim=/opinion/greenwald


There are several links to other articles on the original page...

[samanthajane13]

Lackawanna officials say troops in city was bad idea
Federal, local police arrested the six men without incident
By Lou Michel
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: July 26, 2009, 7:51 AM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney not only proposed to send U. S. soldiers into Lackawanna to arrest the Lackawanna Six but also wanted to declare them enemy combatants, which could have put them in front of a military tribunal.

Cheney and ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued that the six young men be declared enemy combatants, while former Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III successfully argued against it, a retired high ranking federal law enforcement official said Saturday.

“President [George W.] Bush was in the middle and listened to both sides and, of course, the president absolutely made the right decision,” said Peter J. Ahearn, the former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Buffalo office who went on to serve as a senior adviser to the director of national intelligence before retiring.

Bush ruled out use of military personnel and declaring the men enemy combatants.

Lackawanna officials and citizens in the city’s First Ward, home of the Lackawanna Six, uniformly said it would have been a serious mistake to send soldiers into the city, pointing out that federal and local police succeeded in making the arrests in 2002 without incident.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less of the Bush administration,” Lackawanna Mayor Norman L. Polanski Jr. said in reacting to Cheney’s proposal to send in the troops. “The federal agents did their job and the Lackawanna police did their job. We didn’t need the military coming in. The community reacted cautiously, and nobody got out of hand or made outrageous statements.”

Relatives and acquaintances of the Lackawanna Six expressed shock that Cheney would consider such drastic measures.

“You can’t send the Army into the streets unless it is a major, major thing and this wasn’t even minor. It was nothing,” said Amin al-Bakri, the twin brother of Mukhtar al-Bakri, a member of the Lackawanna Six.

Ahearn said he and former U. S. Attorney Michael Battle, who respectively oversaw the local investigation and prosecution of the Lackawanna Six, strenuously disagreed with classifying the men as enemy combatants.

“There was a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on, people outside the FBI who just didn’t understand the process and the law, and that included the Department of Defense, the CIA and others,” Ahearn said, adding he was never involved in any discussions on troops but was kept in the loop on talks about declaring the men enemy combatants. “It was more the issue of military justice versus the rule of law.”

If the Lackawanna Six had been declared enemy combatants, they could have experienced a much rougher ride once they were taken into custody.

Like Jose Padilla, the al-Qaida suspect from Chicago who was accused of plotting to explode a dirty bomb of nuclear material somewhere in the United States, they would have been sent to a military brig in Charleston, S. C. Padilla, during his three years there as an enemy combatant, claimed he was tortured, which the government denied. And instead of having their cases handled in federal courts, the Lackawanna Six would have come under the military justice system, which does not provide the same constitutional rights private citizens are granted.

With revelations released in a New York Times story Saturday about Cheney’s desire to have the active military carry out the arrests, Ahearn filled in additional details of the behind-the-scenes debate.

The idea of using the military, Ahearn said, apparently came up at some point in a larger discussion on whether to have Bush declare the Lackawanna Six enemy combatants for attending Osama bin Laden’s terrorist training camp in the spring of 2001.

Using the military, according to Ahearn and other law enforcement officials, would have violated the federal law known as Posse Comitatus, which restricts the Armed Forces from performing law enforcement operations inside the United States.

As for enemy combatant status, Ahearn said, “There was the Department of Justice and the FBI that were basically saying this was an issue of rule of law. Why would we be doing this when we are inside the borders of the United States and this is domestic? Treating them as combatants, to me, was unnecessary. They were American citizens.”

As it turned out, approximately 130 federal agents and local police from the Western New York Joint Terrorism Task Force made the arrests the night of Sept. 13, 2002. The arrests were made without major difficulties in the city’s First Ward, where many residents— including the Lackawanna Six —are of Yemeni ancestry.

“If you bring in the military, you create a panic,” Lackawanna Police Captain Ronald Miller said. “If you look at our history, the military, the National Guard, are brought in during times of extreme emergency, like [Hurricane] Katrina and securing New York City after 9/11.”

“I was really kind of surprised,” First Ward resident Patricia Barco said in reacting to Cheney’s proposal. “I’m glad cooler heads prevailed because everything went smoothly. Living in this neighborhood, we all get along and I don’t care what anyone’s nationality is.”

Bobby Green, a lifelong Lackawanna resident, said Cheney’s idea was “kind of crazy.” Amin al-Bakri, the brother of Mukhtar, said the actions of the Lackawanna Six were blown out of proportion.

“They were young and their brains were played with by people who came here,” he said of al-Qaida recruiter Kamal Derwish, who was eventually killed by a hellfire missile fired from an unmanned aircraft in Yemen.

“It’s like a gate that has a sign ‘do not enter.’ Some kids will enter anyway,” he said in explaining the wrong decision the six made by traveling to the training camp in Afghanistan.

All of the Lackawanna Six took plea deals and were sentenced to federal prison. So far, Faysal H. Galab, the first to take a plea and receive the shortest sentence, seven years, is out of federal custody and living in the Detroit area under his own name.

Yahya A. Goba, Sahim Alwan and Yasein A. Taher accepted deals to enter the federal witness protection program and are living under aliases while they complete their time behind bars.

Shafal A. Mosed is in a federal halfway house in Rochester working as a day laborer and plans to return to Lackawanna and rejoin his wife and child in September, according to members of the Yemeni community in Lackawanna.

Mukhtar al-Bakri is the only member of the Lackawanna Six still incarcerated at a highly secure special unit at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. He is not expected to be released until early 2011.

Ahearn, in offering a final thought, said the Lackawanna Six are finishing up their sentences and it is time to move on.

“It’s time to heal,” he said.


http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/744712.html?imw=Y