[pjnews] U.S. Sailors Would Bear Brunt of Potential Iran Conflict
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=2581983C=navwar Eyes on Iran: U.S. Sailors Would Bear Brunt of Potential Conflict, Experts Say By William H. McMichael The attack would probably come by air. Waves of U.S. cruise missiles and warplanes loaded with smart weapons would swoop into Iran from the sea and land bases to destroy key nuclear facilities. Out in the Arabian Gulf, the U.S. Navy would wipe out Irans Navy in a matter of days. Irans air defenses could possibly take out a few higher-flying U.S. Air Force and Navy tactical jets before being located and destroyed. In short, the first round would go decisively to the United States. But it wouldnt be without serious repercussions. And the U.S. Navy would likely take the brunt of those. Its the unconventional threat that would vex U.S. sailors. An American public that has turned solidly against the war in neighboring Iraq 63 percent of those polled oppose sending more troops to Iraq and 56 percent feel the war in Iraq is hopeless, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted Feb. 12-15 may find it hard to believe that the possibility of attacking much larger, more formidable Iran is even being broached. But the Bush administration claims Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and has vowed to prevent that from happening. More recently, senior military and intelligence officials say elements within Irans government are smuggling to Iraqi dissidents components for ever-more-powerful roadside bombs and are using them to kill U.S. troops. The administration backed up its tough talk by deploying the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group a week earlier than planned in January and, in a surprise move, also surging the Ronald Reagan to the west Pacific and dispatching the Stennis to the Middle East. Stennis joined the already-deployed Dwight D. Eisenhower group in the 5th Fleet area Feb. 19, doubling the Navys combat power in the region. Five squadrons of Air Force fighters are already in the area, engaged in missions over Afghanistan and Iraq; thats in addition to B-1B Lancer bombers and a host of tankers and airlifters. However, the Air Force has not forward deployed to the region its stealth F-117 and F-22A fighters or the B-2 bomber. Before striking Iran, the United States would need permission from Arab and Central Asian nations to stage attacks from their bases and use their airspace. That could present a problem. During the early phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, one Arab country allowed U.S. aerial tankers to use its airfields but prohibited bomb-laden jets. Iran has reacted with angry words mostly by hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and recent missile tests near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Arabian Gulf. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Feb. 8 that Iran would strike U.S. interests worldwide if attacked, and a leading Iranian cleric said the following day that the United States was within Irans firing range. The Bush administration and military leaders deny that a war plan is in the works. The Stennis deployment was simply, in the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, to underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential adversaries in the region, that the United States has considered the Persian Gulf and that whole area the stability in that area to be a vital national interest. As with many other contingencies, the Defense Department has plans for an attack on Iran the Navy reportedly updated its plans in September at the direction of Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of naval operations. But there appears to be little enthusiasm for such a move within the Navy. And none of the analysts and experts interviewed thinks an attack will take place. People go to the most dramatic case, said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, who has written about Irans conventional military capabilities as well as its weapons of mass destruction. But seapower, and military power in general, is often about containment, intimidation, dealing with limited cases. So I would look at the spectrum, not what is the most dramatic thing we could do. The less dramatic spectrum of possible operations, he said, includes beefing up airstrike support for NATO troops in Afghanistan, keeping an eye on Somalia and demonstrating U.S. strength to gulf allies. The Attack No one knows precisely what it would take to light the fuse, or where in Iran the United States would choose to strike if the standoff came to blows. Would it be a factory where deadly roadside bombs are made? Irans publicly known, dozen-odd and perhaps dozens more key nuclear facilities? Ballistic missile launching sites, to preclude retaliatory strikes against U.S. or Israeli interests in the region? The U.S. Army wouldnt be a factor
[pjnews] Repeal the Military Commissions Act
Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0212-24.htm Repeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most American Human Right by Thom Hartmann The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. -- Winston Churchill The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws. Habeas corpus is roughly Latin for hold the body, and is used in law to mean that a government must either charge a person with a crime and allow them due process, or let them go free. Last autumn the House and Senate passed, and the President signed into law The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, which explicitly strips both aliens and Americans of the right of habeas corpus, the right of recourse to the courts (as provided in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments to the Constitution), and denies appeal through mechanisms of the Geneva Conventions to those designated to lose these rights by the President. As the most conspicuous part of a series of laws which have fundamentally changed the nature of this nation, moving us from a democratic republic to a state under the rule of a unitary President, the Military Commissions Act should be immediately reversed. When a demi-tyrant like Vladimir Putin begins lecturing the United States, as he did just a few days ago, on how our various behaviors over the past five years have nothing in common with democracy, we should pay attention. This attack on eight centuries of English law is no small thing. While the Republican's (and 13 Democrats in the Senate) purported intent was to deny Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp detainees the right to see a civilian judge or jury, it could just as easily extend to you and me. (Already two American citizens have been arbitrarily stripped of their habeas corpus rights by the Bush administration - Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi - and there may be others.) Section 9, Clause 2, of Article I of the United States Constitution says: 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. Alberto Gonzales testified on January 18th before Congress that there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is [only] a prohibition against taking it away. While there are many countries in the world where all power and all rights are reserved to the government, and then doled out to the people by constitutional, legislative, or executive decree, the first three words of our Constitution clearly state who in this country holds all the power and all the rights: We the People. Our Constitution does not grant us rights, because We already hold all rights. Instead, it defines the boundaries of our government, and identifies what privileges We the People will grant to that government. When Gonzales suggested we have no habeas corpus rights because the Constitution doesn't grant them, his testimony betrayed a breathtaking ignorance of the history and meaning of the United States Constitution. And, because his thinking probably reflects that of his superior, George W. Bush, Gonzales' testimony demonstrates the urgency with which Congress must act to repeal the many laws, signing statements, and executive orders that have been issued by this administration. But particularly, and first, with regard to habeas corpus. Abraham Lincoln was the first president (on March 3, 1863) to suspend habeas corpus so he could imprison those he considered a threat until the war was over. Congress invoked this power again during Reconstruction when President Grant requested The Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to put down a rebellion in South Carolina. Those are the only two fully legal suspensions of habeas corpus in the history of the United States (and Lincoln's is still being debated). The United States hasn't suffered a Rebellion or an Invasion since Lincoln's and Grant's administrations. There are no foreign armies on our soil, seizing our cities. No states or municipalities are seriously talking about secession. Yet the Attorney General says we have no rights to habeas corpus, and the Military Commissions Act now backs him up. The modern institution of civil and human rights, and particularly the writ of habeas corpus, began in June of 1215 when King John was forced by the feudal lords to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Although that document mostly protected freemen - what were then known as feudal lords or barons, and today known as CEOs and millionaires - rather than the average person, it initiated a series of events
