The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Politics & RKBA => Topic started by: tombogan03884 on July 25, 2009, 08:58:06 AM
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090725/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_terror_domestic_raid
Report: Bush mulled sending troops into Buffalo
WASHINGTON – 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 S. Mueller III; 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.
In fact, right off the top of my head I can think of 2 cases where the military has been "deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War."
1) The Wounded Knee stand off with members of AIM in 1973
2) The Waco massacre
As for "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." That may be the case if you are an ignorant reporter with an agenda and no knowledge of American history. The rest of us are aware that Washington deployed Federal troops to both Mass. and Western Virginia to suppress Shays rebellion in Mass which was put down by Ma. Militia before they arrived. and the "Whiskey Rebellion which saw fighting between farmers and soldiers, burning of homes, and seizures of private property.
The informed are also aware of the use of Federal troops to put down the Civil War era "Draft Riots", and to maintain order after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, an action that saw not only warrentless arrests and seizure of private property but possibly hundreds of looters shot with out arrest or trial. In a somewhat different vein the Army took over the Airmail routes in the 1920's and the US Marines were responsible for railroad Mail security during the same era.