Bush signs bill enabling martial law

[Djohn]

For those of you who actually care, the section of the bill referenced in the article reads as follows:

Sec. 1076. Use of the Armed Forces in major public emergencies.

That's extremely vague, but it's not exactly saying that he can declare martial law either, and I really don't think that it would fly well if he did so.
Also, Leonix has a very good point:

Frankly, if he had signed a bill that allowed him to declare martial law, wouldn't you think that we would have heard it from a more reputable source, and much sooner than eleven days afterwards?

not to mention the fact that such a bill would have to go through congress and there would most likely be a HUGE debate over it (assuming that anyone was actually in favor of it)

[Charla]

Too late guys, Kaiseran wins the thread.

And Jerseyprophet, which country are you referring to, Afghanastan or Iraq? To answer you explicit question, we should have done exactly what we did in Afghanastan, then made sure the UN or something stuck around to keep it together there. Then after Saddam got caught we should have got Iraq to figure something out without disbanding their damn military.

Ask yourself what action he could've taken that would've been right, ultimately. Take no action? No, something had to be done. Go to war? The world is full of bushy eyed kittens and flowers - no wars! I respect 'em for sticking to his guns in the first place. If you say you're gonna do it, do it.

Something had to be done about Osama, which we did. And then we went back later and did something about Saddam. Whether we were right or wrong to do it, we screwed it up.

Crap, did I just derail the thread?

[Syn]

Gun control is being able to hit your target, Xavier. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them.

You have to know what martial law is intended for before assuming that it planned for like, next tuesday. Martial law is the use of our armed forces in times of DIRE emergency and NEED of protective forces - to assist and defend our people.

The man is actually ensuring your safety in the time of need, if there ever is.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You dont have to agree with our president, but the man still is the president. His position deserves respect. He is very pro-military, and god damn it we needed it. This is coming from someone who has spent a christmas in the desert, someone who has had to carry out his critized agenda.

Ask yourself what action he could've taken that would've been right, ultimately. Take no action? No, something had to be done. Go to war? The world is full of bushy eyed kittens and flowers - no wars! I respect 'em for sticking to his guns in the first place. If you say you're gonna do it, do it.

We should've leveled that country in the first place. Mail Osama his children's body pieces UPS ground to him.

Osama has more kids than years you'll ever live.

[Foustian]

For those of you who actually care, the section of the bill referenced in the article reads as follows:

Sec. 1076. Use of the Armed Forces in major public emergencies.

That's extremely vague, but it's not exactly saying that he can declare martial law either, and I really don't think that it would fly well if he did so.

I thought that too, then I realized that's just a table of contents heading, which refers to this.

SEC. 1076. USE OF THE ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMER-
GENCIES.
(a) USE OF THE ARMED FORCES AUTHORIZED.--
(1) IN GENERAL.--Section 333 of title 10, United States
Code, is amended to read as follows:
`` 333. Major public emergencies; interference with State and
Federal law
``(a) USE OF ARMED FORCES IN MAJOR PUBLIC EMERGENCIES.--
(1) The President may employ the armed forces, including the
National Guard in Federal service, to--
``(A) restore public order and enforce the laws of the United
States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or
other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or
incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the
United States, the President determines that--
``(i) domestic violence has occurred to such an extent
that the constituted authorities of the State or possession
are incapable of maintaining public order; and
``(ii) such violence results in a condition described in
paragraph (2); or
``(B) suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic
violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy if such insurrec-
tion, violation, combination, or conspiracy results in a condition
described in paragraph (2).
``(2) A condition described in this paragraph is a condition
that-- ``(A) so hinders the execution of the laws of a State or
possession, as applicable, and of the United States within that
State or possession, that any part or class of its people is
deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named
in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted
authorities of that State or possession are unable, fail, or refuse
to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that
protection; or
H. R. 5122--323

``(B) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the
United States or impedes the course of justice under those
laws.
``(3) In any situation covered by paragraph (1)(B), the State
shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the
laws secured by the Constitution.

There's a lot more, but that seemed to be the real meat of it.

[Daahan]

The man is actually ensuring your safety in the time of need, if there ever is.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You dont have to agree with our president, but the man still is the president. His position deserves respect. He is very pro-military, and god damn it we needed it. This is coming from someone who has spent a christmas in the desert, someone who has had to carry out his critized agenda.

Ask yourself what action he could've taken that would've been right, ultimately. Take no action? No, something had to be done. Go to war? The world is full of bushy eyed kittens and flowers - no wars! I respect 'em for sticking to his guns in the first place. If you say you're gonna do it, do it.

We should've leveled that country in the first place. Mail Osama his children's body pieces UPS ground to him.

Yea sure, and the next thing you know, he's wearing a black cape with a hood with a scarred face, standing in front of Senate and Congress and yelling something about creating an empire. Throw in a bald blue woman and a dude with two tentacles growing out of his face to add depth to the speech.

Aside from the North Korea issue, I don't understand why we have to agree with his pro-military stance. There is some success as far as Afghanistan goes (I like to call it the "forgotten war") in that many terrorists have been captured, but I still don't understand what Iraq has gained us. This is not a smart ass or rhetorical question, it's a serious one: Can anyone honestly give me a rational answer as to what the Iraq war has gained for the United States? I don't want to hear bullshit about "Saddam is out of power and he was going to use WMD on us" because we already know that although this might have been the case in the future, it wasn't at the time of the invasion.

I also don't understand why we have to respect someone just because he's president. I don't want to respect a person who has made some of the worst national decisions of our lifetimes.

[Eternus]

Iraq has done nothing at the moment for the US. I saw it as inevitable since the whole Iran-Contra, Desert Storm, Desert Fox progression lead us to where we are now. Saddam had WMDs in Desert Storm in the form of SCUD missiles, either he used all of his chemical weapons up in that war or they disappeared mysteriously afterwards. Some say Clinton's bombings in Operation Desert Fox of Saddam's palaces might have taken out some chemical weapons storage (in palaces? lol). Our country wasn't necessarily in fear of Saddam using chemical weapons directly on the US (his delivery systems weren't sophisticated enough). We were more concerned with the terrorist cells in his country (like Al queda) purchasing them from him, then using them on US soil with their more unconventional methods of delivery.

Afterall the US sold Saddam his WMDs initally anyways lmao... then he used them on the Kurds as we all know. If you didn't see this war coming, then you are blind. The Democrats voted for the war too, most of them are acting like they changed their opinions just to use this war as a tool to get more Democrats elected. They are all politicians playing politics.

[Demosthenes11]

The man is actually ensuring your safety in the time of need, if there ever is.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You dont have to agree with our president, but the man still is the president. His position deserves respect. He is very pro-military, and god damn it we needed it. This is coming from someone who has spent a christmas in the desert, someone who has had to carry out his critized agenda.

Ask yourself what action he could've taken that would've been right, ultimately. Take no action? No, something had to be done. Go to war? The world is full of bushy eyed kittens and flowers - no wars! I respect 'em for sticking to his guns in the first place. If you say you're gonna do it, do it.

We should've leveled that country in the first place. Mail Osama his children's body pieces UPS ground to him.

Yea sure, and the next thing you know, he's wearing a black cape with a hood with a scarred face, standing in front of Senate and Congress and yelling something about creating an empire. Throw in a bald blue woman and a dude with two tentacles growing out of his face to add depth to the speech.

Aside from the North Korea issue, I don't understand why we have to agree with his pro-military stance. There is some success as far as Afghanistan goes (I like to call it the "forgotten war") in that many terrorists have been captured, but I still don't understand what Iraq has gained us. This is not a smart ass or rhetorical question, it's a serious one: Can anyone honestly give me a rational answer as to what the Iraq war has gained for the United States? I don't want to hear bullshit about "Saddam is out of power and he was going to use WMD on us" because we already know that although this might have been the case in the future, it wasn't at the time of the invasion.

I also don't understand why we have to respect someone just because he's president. I don't want to respect a person who has made some of the worst national decisions of our lifetimes.

For the most part, the reason into going into Iraq was no to free the peoples, or for oil or anything. We knew the middle east is a very dangerous place and is a breeding ground for anti-american propoganda that spawns terrorists that fly planes into buildings. The only way to get rid of this thinking is to slowly assimilate that part of the world with the western world. After seeing how quickly we basically took afghanistan, we said "well, that was easy, I wonder if we could do this to anyone else here to remove this hatred from teh region." Our intelligence pointed at Iraq. They felt Saddam would fall quickly, and we could instate elections rather swiftly as well. If you put free societies of peace in afghanistan and Iraq, you put a lot of pressure on Iran and Syria, for then they are in it alone.

Obviously, Iraq ended up NOT being a pushover, and thus we are still there. If you do not feel that is a valid reason for going to war, fair enough, I find it perfectly valid. This war does not mean the end to america though, nor has he even kind of made the worst decisions in our lifetime. Bill Clinton sat on his ass and did nothing, and now we have a crisis with a NUCLEAR country. I find that a little more of a problem than Iraq. Either way, taking down Saddam, a dictator that basically said "Fuck America, I wish I could blow them to pieces," was within our best national interests. He didn't have them now? Does that mean we need to wait until he hits us with one to go to war?

[Zigma]

Bush enables Marshal Law?!

http://pspupdates.qj.net/uploads/art..._dr50_0217.jpg

So, Gore invented the internet, Bush invented Tekken??

lol

[Darkvalentine]

martial law also Gives the Military The rigth to Kill americans Our own ppls.
There was a Moive that Came out about 6 years ago with Bruce wills.
On How martial law Goes wrong in a Hands of a Radical Person. shit i cant remeber the name of it . when i find the name ill post it.

[Foustian]

The Seige, with Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington.

Oddly enough it was about a terrorist attack from a Middle Eastern cell.

[Brien]

OMG ITS 24 IRL

[Kyreth]

Bush enables Marshal Law?!

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/m/marshlaw.jpg

So, Gore invented the internet, Bush invented a leather clad freak with guns??

Fixed that image error for you.

[Daahan]

The man is actually ensuring your safety in the time of need, if there ever is.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You dont have to agree with our president, but the man still is the president. His position deserves respect. He is very pro-military, and god damn it we needed it. This is coming from someone who has spent a christmas in the desert, someone who has had to carry out his critized agenda.

Ask yourself what action he could've taken that would've been right, ultimately. Take no action? No, something had to be done. Go to war? The world is full of bushy eyed kittens and flowers - no wars! I respect 'em for sticking to his guns in the first place. If you say you're gonna do it, do it.

We should've leveled that country in the first place. Mail Osama his children's body pieces UPS ground to him.

Yea sure, and the next thing you know, he's wearing a black cape with a hood with a scarred face, standing in front of Senate and Congress and yelling something about creating an empire. Throw in a bald blue woman and a dude with two tentacles growing out of his face to add depth to the speech.

Aside from the North Korea issue, I don't understand why we have to agree with his pro-military stance. There is some success as far as Afghanistan goes (I like to call it the "forgotten war") in that many terrorists have been captured, but I still don't understand what Iraq has gained us. This is not a smart ass or rhetorical question, it's a serious one: Can anyone honestly give me a rational answer as to what the Iraq war has gained for the United States? I don't want to hear bullshit about "Saddam is out of power and he was going to use WMD on us" because we already know that although this might have been the case in the future, it wasn't at the time of the invasion.

I also don't understand why we have to respect someone just because he's president. I don't want to respect a person who has made some of the worst national decisions of our lifetimes.

For the most part, the reason into going into Iraq was no to free the peoples, or for oil or anything. We knew the middle east is a very dangerous place and is a breeding ground for anti-american propoganda that spawns terrorists that fly planes into buildings. The only way to get rid of this thinking is to slowly assimilate that part of the world with the western world. After seeing how quickly we basically took afghanistan, we said "well, that was easy, I wonder if we could do this to anyone else here to remove this hatred from teh region." Our intelligence pointed at Iraq. They felt Saddam would fall quickly, and we could instate elections rather swiftly as well. If you put free societies of peace in afghanistan and Iraq, you put a lot of pressure on Iran and Syria, for then they are in it alone.

Obviously, Iraq ended up NOT being a pushover, and thus we are still there. If you do not feel that is a valid reason for going to war, fair enough, I find it perfectly valid. This war does not mean the end to america though, nor has he even kind of made the worst decisions in our lifetime. Bill Clinton sat on his ass and did nothing, and now we have a crisis with a NUCLEAR country. I find that a little more of a problem than Iraq. Either way, taking down Saddam, a dictator that basically said "Fuck America, I wish I could blow them to pieces," was within our best national interests. He didn't have them now? Does that mean we need to wait until he hits us with one to go to war?

The simple fact that our president and colleagues thought that almost completely turning a country upside-down would be a pushover is a reason itself not to respect our president. Afghanistan and Iraq are two entirely different countries, even when it comes to the level of terrorism. Anti-American sentiment in the Middle East is not going to die for a very long time. Our grandchildren won't even see it's death. There is anti-American propaganda and sentiment all over the Middle East; including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Pakistan too, but Pakistan is technically South Asia (I find it amusing how post-9/11 maps display Pakistan as a region of the Middle East; ignorance is bliss). There are a lot of countries that don't have weapons capabilities but despise America, should we go invade them too so they don't attack us in the future? Nothing personal and I don't want this argument to become a hate-fight between me and you, but saying that the regime had extreme anti-American sentiment is a weak reason to go to war.

A majority of political and historical scholars from all over the world will tell you that Iraq is no better than it was before America toppled Saddam's regime. America hasn't exactly benefited from the war either.

I totally understand, and to a certain extent agree with operations in Afghanistan, and I also agree that the military should be ready in case Kim Jong-Il's insanity reaches a peak, but Iraq is still a blank war.

[Raineer]

This thread reminds me of campaign commercials where one candidate has a commerical like "MY OPPONENT VOTED AGAINST BABIES EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW, VOTE FOR ME AND SAVE YOUR BABIES" because the guy voted against a washing machine amendment where some idiot tried to say "hi" to his newborn kid in some stupid rider.


If you really think that our democratically-elected leader is trying to get everyone to wear white hoods then we need to overturn roe v wade for you.

[Demosthenes11]

The simple fact that our president and colleagues thought that almost completely turning a country upside-down would be a pushover is a reason itself not to respect our president. Afghanistan and Iraq are two entirely different countries, even when it comes to the level of terrorism. Anti-American sentiment in the Middle East is not going to die for a very long time. Our grandchildren won't even see it's death. There is anti-American propaganda and sentiment all over the Middle East; including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Pakistan too, but Pakistan is technically South Asia (I find it amusing how post-9/11 maps display Pakistan as a region of the Middle East; ignorance is bliss). There are a lot of countries that don't have weapons capabilities but despise America, should we go invade them too so they don't attack us in the future? Nothing personal and I don't want this argument to become a hate-fight between me and you, but saying that the regime had extreme anti-American sentiment is a weak reason to go to war.

A majority of political and historical scholars from all over the world will tell you that Iraq is no better than it was before America toppled Saddam's regime. America hasn't exactly benefited from the war either.

I totally understand, and to a certain extent agree with operations in Afghanistan, and I also agree that the military should be ready in case Kim Jong-Il's insanity reaches a peak, but Iraq is still a blank war.

Obviously, thinking Iraq would be a pushover was a mistake. It hasn't been, and has now turned to a disaster. I really fail to realize how this would make you disrespect our president though. Intelligence told him what they though, and he acted based upon that which was put in front of him. Afghanistan WAS a pushover, and we quickly took it due to a great plan. The plan for Iraq was similar, however we did not anticipate the amount of terrorism that would still be rampant in the streets all over the country. We wanted to remove at least some of the anti-americanism, for it doesnt just dissapate by itself. Saddam was a man with the means to get WMDs, and we thought he had them, as did several other world-leaders. This made Iraq the obvious choice for a beginning for change in the middle east, and made them different and less-dangerous than some of the other countries.

And you are right, Iraq is not a better place than it was before. We are trying to change that, but it will definately take time. Can't pull out now, really doesn't matter what the reason for going there was now.

I like this discussion and take no personal offense, I hope you dont either :D

[Charla]

Clinton did not sit on his ass and do nothing. He tried to get the same thing done without getting Americans involved, so we just didn't notice.

At least for North Korea, I'm not quite sure about Iraq. As for that I'm gonna use a FFXI analogy again. We haven't tried vrtra in a while, because we know we don't have enough people online for it at once. We could use some of the drops, we'd like to have at least 1 vrtra kill just because, but we also recognize the limitations imposed by our numbers. Now, we had the numbers to take Iraq, but we didn't have the numbers to keep it from killing itself afterwards. Colin Powell said so (more or less) before we started, and apparently he was right. On top of that, we disbanded their military.

[Hyjynx]

Obviously, thinking Iraq would be a pushover was a mistake. It hasn't been, and has now turned to a disaster. I really fail to realize how this would make you disrespect our president though. Intelligence told him what they though, and he acted based upon that which was put in front of him. Afghanistan WAS a pushover, and we quickly took it due to a great plan. The plan for Iraq was similar, however we did not anticipate the amount of terrorism that would still be rampant in the streets all over the country. We wanted to remove at least some of the anti-americanism, for it doesnt just dissapate by itself. Saddam was a man with the means to get WMDs, and we thought he had them, as did several other world-leaders. This made Iraq the obvious choice for a beginning for change in the middle east, and made them different and less-dangerous than some of the other countries.

And you are right, Iraq is not a better place than it was before. We are trying to change that, but it will definately take time. Can't pull out now, really doesn't matter what the reason for going there was now.

I like this discussion and take no personal offense, I hope you don't either :D

lol I really hate to water down your conversation with a stupid question but I fail to understand why you think we have to respect someone simply because of their title or duty?
If I feel like the guy is a total moron (even though I'm not sure what I'd do if I were president... but I wouldn't be running for president in the first place so I guess that's a moot concern) I see no reason why I have to respect the man simply because he's the president. In fact, if anything it makes me lose faith/respect in the people that put him there (arguably) twice.


[edit]
As far as the lol"Anti-Americanism" I guess you could say they wanted to remove some of the "Anti-Middleasernism" on this side of the world and thats why they did what they did on 9/11.

I'm not trying to waterdown the problem or make light of the struggle that's going on right now. Personally I think its going to get A LOT worse before it gets better. It will be decades if not generations of conflict in more places than just the USA before this even starts to dissapate.

[Alleya]

You don't have to respect anyone who hasn't earned it in your eyes. The notion that "he's our president, therefore we owe him something" is ridiculous and borders on cultural brainwashing. The government exists to serve us. Office is a privilege that we the people offer to our peers who express an interest in leadership and demonstrate that they have solutions for our problems. They have authority that we the people alone should invest in them, and bills like this fly in the face of democracy and civil rights. The government has no authority over us that we don't allow it, and failures of the media (I heard nothing about this bill, even on extremely liberally biased media) and failures of cultural activism and motivation is what will allow people like Bush to slowly erode our control over the government, not their 'intrinsic evil' imposed on them by political extremists.

[-Omni]

Bush didn't win the 2000 election. He lost the popular vote and stopped the recount in Florida. The electoral college is broken, as is politics in general. The Republicans have fucked themselves over with the help of right-wing religious groups who now have no interest in touching politics because of bad publicity, thus ensuring little to no support of conservatism in politics. Conservatism is a huge hypocracy that is now based on big money and big business. The war in Iraq was hasty, unprepared, unnecessary, and advised against. North Korea is still openly threatening the U.S.A. with nuclear missiles, yet Bush feels diplomacy is the most important thing regarding North Korea because we're so shit-fuck deep in Iraq that we can barely defend our own borders. We're using the same strategy that we used in Vietnam, and it's too late to change it now because we've been there long enough for insurgents to get used to us. We are losing the war, no matter how you want to look at it.

Democrats have no candidates that are competent enough to handle the situation in the White House right now. They have no strategy other than criticizing the Republicans while at the same time offering no ideas or support to help clean up this mess because they would rather campaign harder against the Republicans so they can win by default rather than by addressing the issues. Politics is undermining the real issues, such as the defecit that grows larger every day. Tax rises seem to be the only way to counter this problem, but nobody has the balls to propose a flat tax because they're more concerned with getting elected than fixing the mess that is America.

Vladmir Putin is trying to dismantle the democracy in Russia, China is severely overpopulated and still communist, Britain is openly attacking Tony Blair from every angle, Japan is remaining neutral due to its now-bustling economy, Spain is... I don't know what the fuck Spain is doing, North Korea is still threatening the world, Mexico is moving into America, Africa is still engaged in civil war and genocide, the Middle East is a mine field, America is sinking further into shit every day, and France is smoking a cigarette and laughing at "ze silly Americahns."

Something's gotta give.

[Eternus]

Technically you aren't losing a war when you have the ratio of our deaths to the deaths of the enemy that we have. We are losing the war of our own public opinion. General thought was that our populace had no resolve to see a war through to its finish. This was the case with every war after Vietnam. My grandfather who fought in WW2 thinks America is pathetic in this regard. No matter how you got into a war, you have to finish it in a convincing fashion or you will be seen as weak.