Due Process Was Overrated, Anyway
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this executive order, which el Presidente signed a few days ago.
Unitary Executive Summary: if Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury determines that you’ve been “threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq” or are likely to, then he just needs to “consult” with the Secretaries of State and Defense (it doesn’t say they have to agree with him, and he can have all your property seized. Also that of your friends and anyone else who helps you, including your defense lawyer (except, of course, if past behavior is anything to go by, you won’t get a lawyer).
Nobody will disagree with the idea that it’s a good idea to seize Al Qaeda assets to prevent those assets from being used to bomb us. But I could’ve sworn that there were already law enforcement agencies in charge of doing just that, and laws allowing them to do it. In fact, I may be misremembering, but I seem to remember a time when warrants were involved. Something about those pesky 4th and 5th amendments or something.
(Note: the 5th amendment only forbids taking private property for public use. There’s nothing in there about seizing your bank account and giving it to one of Cheney’s cronies.)
Remember: they hate us for our freedoms. So if we don’t relinquish our freedoms, the terrorists will have won.
Meanwhile, the sum total of the Post’s coverage seems to consist of a three-paragraph blurb that merely says that this order will be used in the War on Terra (how’s that working out, by the way?), and a passing mention in an op-ed piece.
So, would advocating the pull-out of US troops sooner rather than later constitute “threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq”? I can see how that argument could be made….
I think the only reason they wouldn’t do that is that it would be too blatant. It would remind the frog that it’s being boiled, and people might actually stand up to the Cheney administration.