BF2S Forums WACO Branch Davidian Raid, What did You make of it ?

B.Schuss wrote:

I agree that the soldiers took an oath. but it is obviously up to the government to decide who they should fight against, and for what reasons. That decision is not made by constitution.

The governement decides on the laws of the land ( including regulations on weapons, for example ) and they also decide who to wage war against. Why should any responsible citizen have to right to question decision no. 1, but not decision no. 2 ?

As you have said, the oath says "protect the country "from enemies both foreign and domestic"". Now, who judges on that ? The constitution ? No, the government does.

You elect the officials to make these decisions for you in a democratic election. Either you stick to that principle, or you don't.

B.Schuss wrote:

I hope you are not comparing speeding to opening fire at Federal Agents. The implications are obviously a lot different.

B.Schuss wrote:

what I meant to say was that some arguments made here seem to imply that any crime ( even murder ) could be justified by simpy saying "well, sir, I was of the opinion that the law was unconstitutional and so I reserved my right not to abide it and killed the f*****.."

B.Schuss wrote:

Sticking to the principle means sticking to it whatever the circumstances. If you argue that soldiers follow orders given to them by the elected government because the law requires it ( even if they think that decision is unconstitutional ), you will also have to acknowledge that this principle must be upheld for every law, including those that led to the raid at Waco.

B.Schuss wrote:

whatever happened after the ATF agents tried to execute search and arrest warrants for the ranch was a tragedy, and maybe the Fed's are to blame for the end result. But if the davidians had abided the law and allowed the search to be conducted, the whole situation could have been avoided in the first place.

Last edited by Beatdown Patrol (2006-01-18 11:28:09)

B.Schuss wrote:

you mean the soldier can question a particular order if it is against the law / human rights, but cannot question the overall decision made by his government to go to war ?

Could - in theory - the war itself not be unconstitutional ? Maybe you can provide some insight into what the constitution says about war and under which circumstances it is justified.

US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 wrote:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

B.Schuss wrote:

Horseman 77 wrote:

The Constitution gives and Lists certain " God given Rights"  that " shall not be infringed. "

To Interpret them, you need only to read it.

Beatdown Was lost, He kept making References to

" Search warrants and police procedures " the point everyone  acknowledges is that for some reason these Exact  and Worthy procedures were not followed.

with all due respect, horseman, even you will have to acknowledge that the constitution was created by humans, not conveived by god. So if you don't argue that the constitution was handed down to the founding father by god directly, you will also have to acknowledge that those "god given rights" were simply images of what the founding father believed to be "natural/god given rights".

Has the possibility of them being wrong here and there never occured to you ?

Now, as far as Waco is concerned, I wasn't there when ATF agents tried to execute those search and arrest warrants. My guess would be you weren't either. Accordingly, the question at hand will be what sources each one of us uses to back up his arguments, and how credible those sources are.

I'll see what I can find.

rgds,
B.

FeloniousMonk wrote:

B.Schuss wrote:

you mean the soldier can question a particular order if it is against the law / human rights, but cannot question the overall decision made by his government to go to war ?

Exactly. Someone in the armed forces is only allowed to question an order when it's obviously illegal. "Marine, execute this prisoner." <- that would be an example

Saying "Sir, I know I've been ordered to report to Fallujah but I don't agree with this war so I'm not going to go." will earn you some time in Leavenworth. Being a "conscientious objector" doesn't fly and is nothing more than a cowardly cop-out. It's used as a sad excuse by kids that joined the military to get money for school but then realized they don't have the cojones to put their lives on the line.

Could - in theory - the war itself not be unconstitutional ? Maybe you can provide some insight into what the constitution says about war and under which circumstances it is justified.

Technically if this was officially a "War" is would be unconstitutional because only Congress can declare war. But Congress fully approved the invasion with the exact same intelligence given to the administration. Bush did not invade Iraq, the United States government did.

US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 wrote:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Despite this, the Supreme Court has ruled a few times that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to deploy troops in times of international conflicts, in direct defense of US sovereignty, and in other circumstances for limited periods of time. The War Powers Clause gives the President the authority to deploy troops for three months for certain actions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invas … q#U.S._law

B.Schuss wrote:

Well, as far as I know ( and please correct me if I am wrong ), the Congress has never formally declared war on Iraq, although it was a sovereign nation at the time the US troops invaded - I am sorry, liberated - that country.
And why should they have done that, since Iraq did not pose a direct threat to the USA ?

EDIT: Wikipwedia states: "On October 11, 2002, the United States Congress passed the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002", giving U.S. President George W. Bush the authority to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)."

I don't know wether that would qualify as a declaration of war.

B.Schuss wrote:

Well, as far as I know ( and please correct me if I am wrong ), the Congress has never formally declared war on Iraq, although it was a sovereign nation at the time the US troops invaded - I am sorry, liberated - that country.
And why should they have done that, since Iraq did not pose a direct threat to the USA ?

EDIT: Wikipwedia states: "On October 11, 2002, the United States Congress passed the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002", giving U.S. President George W. Bush the authority to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein did not give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)."

I don't know wether that would qualify as a declaration of war.

B.Schuss wrote:

FeloniousMonk wrote:

Now while I'm not one to say that the invasion/liberation (because it is most certainly both) was the right thing to do or that it's being handled well but not a single one of you can deny that the general population of Iraq now has the ability to choose its' own leaders and decide the course of their nation. If they decide to go back to a dictatorship in the next ten years it will be their own damn fault but as it stands they have the option of living in a society that does not kill its' people for mere dissent.

strangely enough, the seem intent to keep killing each other with bombs and suicide attacks. This is obviously an attempt to destabilize the political landscape. My guess would be that this country won't be able to successfully govern itself peacefully for at least another ten to fifteen years.
Why ?
Because the iraqis don't have a huge democratic tradition. They have lived in a society which was dominated by tribes and local religious or military clan leaders. It will take maybe generations until a certain sense of democracy and freedom has developed within the iraqi people.
I don't want to quote xanthpi here , but can you name one muslim country with a stable democratic government ? maybe islam and Democracy just don't go together.
The US is obviously trying to establish a western-style democracy in iraq, at the heart of the middle east.
And as much as I admire that effort, I don't think the people there are ready for it just yet.

One cannot force democracy or freedom upon people. A wish for those things needs to develop from within them, just like it did in the major western nations including the USA. Germany, France, Britain once were ruled by tribes ( later monarchies ) and it took a couple of hundred years for those countries to get to the point
in their political development at which they are now.

Why does anyone think the US can simply send a couple of thousand marines there, remove Saddam and then tell everybody "here you go, you are a democracy now, remember to be nice to each other and forget about the hundreds of years of tribal rule and ethnic unrest." ?