By Paul Craig Roberts
November 11, 2010 "Information Clearing House"
-- -- The United
States Department of Justice (sic) routinely charges and convicts innocents
with bogus and concocted crimes that are not even on the statutes book.
The distinguished defense attorney and civil libertarian, Harvey A.
Silverglate, published a book last year, “Three Felonies A Day: How the
Feds Target the Innocent,” which conclusively proves that today in
“freedom and democracy” America we have punishment without crime.
This same Justice (sic) Department, which routinely frames and railroads
the innocent, argued in Federal Court on November 8 that the US
government, if approved by the president, could murder anyone it wishes,
citizens or noncitizens, at will. All that is required is that the government
declare, without evidence, charges, trial, jury conviction or any of the due
process required by the US Constitution, that the government suspects the
murdered person or persons to be a “threat.”
The US Justice (sic) Department even told US Federal District Court
Judge John Bates that the US judiciary, formerly a co-equal branch of
government, has absolutely no legal authority whatsoever to stick its nose
into President “Change” Obama’s decision to assassinate Americans. The
unaccountability of the president’s decision to murder people is, the US
Justice (sic) Department declared, one of “the very core powers of the
president as commander in chief.”
The argument by the Justice (sic) Department that the executive branch
has unreviewable authority to kill Americans, whom the executive branch
has unilaterally, without presenting evidence, determined to pose a threat,
was challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center For
Constitutional Rights.
The outcome of the case will determine whether the neoconservative and
Israeli stooge, president George W. Bush, was correct when he said that
the US Constitution was nothing but a “scrap of paper.”
It is my opinion that the American people and the US Constitution haven’t
much chance of winning this case. The Republican Federalist Society has
succeeded in appointing many federal district, appeals and supreme court
judges, who believe that the powers of
the executive branch are superior to the powers of the legislature and
judiciary. The Founding Fathers of our country declared unequivocally
that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches were co-equal,
However, the Republican brownshirts who comprise the Federalist Society
have implanted the society’s demonic ideology in the federal bench and
Justice (sic) Department. Today the erroneous belief is widespread that the
executive branch is supreme and that the other branches of government are
less than equal.
If Americans have a greater enemy than neoconservatives, that enemy is
the Federalist Society, a collection of incipient Nazis.
Disagree with me as you will, but now let’s look at this development from
another perspective. I am old enough to remember the Nixon years, and I
was a presidential appointee, confirmed by the US senate, in the Reagan
administration. For those of you too young to know and those who are to
old to remember, President Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment simply
because Nixon lied about when he learned about the burglary of the
Watergate office of the Democratic party.
Nixon lied about when he learned of the burglary, because he knew that
the Washington Post would make an issue of the burglary, if he launched
an investigation, to defeat his re-election. The military/security complex
and the black ops groups in the US government were angry at Nixon for
smoothing US-China relations. The Washington Post, long regarded as a
CIA asset, hid behind its “liberal” image to bring Nixon down. Woodward
and Bernstein wrote thriller-type reports of midnight meetings with “deep
throat” in dangerous parking garages to get the scoop on the date of
Nixon’s knowledge of the meaningless burglary.
Let’s assume that I have it all wrong. The fact remains that Nixon was
driven from office because of the Watergate burglary. No one was
harmed. Nixon did not kill anyone or claim the right to kill, without proof
or accountability, American citizens. If the dastardly President Nixon had
a Justice (sic) Department like the present one, he simply would have
declared Woodward, Bernstein, and the Washington Post to be a threat and
murdered them by merely exercising the power that the Obama
administration is claiming.
Nixon might be too far in the past for most Americans, so let’s look at
Ronald Reagan.
The neoconservatives’ Iran/Contra scandal almost brought down President
Reagan. It is unclear whether President Reagan knew about the neocon
operation and, if he did, whether he was keep in the loop. But all of this
aside, what do you think would have been President Reagan’s fate if he, or
his Justice (sic) Department, had declared that Reagan had the power as
commander in chief to murder anyone he considered to be a threat?
Instantly, the media would have been in an uproar, law schools and
university faculties would have been in an uproar, the Democrats would
have been demanding Reagan’s impeachment, and his impeachment
would have occurred with the speed of light.
Today in Amerika, approximately 25 years later, the ACLU has to go to
federal court in order to attempt to affirm that “if the Constitution means
anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable
authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an
enemy of the state.”
In reply, the Justice (sic) Department told the court that murdering
American citizens is a “political question” that is not subject to judicial
review. The “freedom and democracy” government then invoked the
“state secrets privilege” and declared that the case against the
government’s power to commit murder must be dismissed in order to
avoid “the disclosure of sensitive information”
If the Obama Regime wins this case, the US will have become a
dictatorship.
As far as I can tell, the “liberal media” and most Americans do not care.
Indeed, conservative Republicans are cheering it on.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions
