Having held Private First Class Bradley Manning prisoner for nine months, under conditions tantamount to torture and beyond doubt intended to break his will, the US Army recombobulated its allegations against him on Wednesday, adding 22 counts to an already lengthy charge sheet.
As a practical matter, these changes probably don’t make a lot of difference to Manning. He’s faced a likely life sentence for nearly a year now. Since the Army’s prosecutors claim they won’t seek the death penalty provided for in one of the new counts, the consequences for him, if convicted, remain pretty much the same.
That new count — “aiding the enemy” per in Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice — is really directed not at Manning, but at an assortment of other persons and parties: Wikileaks, Julian Assange, every foreign government and individual on earth … and you. And the act of filing that charge is, oddly enough, tantamount to insurrection against the United States itself.
Let’s unpack this “enemy” thing.
The power to declare war — and thereby to legally categorize a group of persons (historically on, but not necessarily constrained to, the basis of their allegiance to a particular state) as “the enemy” — is exclusively reserved, per the US Constitution, to Congress. Congress hasn’t exercised that power since 1941, and the wars it declared then have long since ended. The United States is not, legally speaking, at war. Thus the US has, legally speaking, no “enemy” to aid.
By charging Manning with “aiding the enemy,” the US Army is, in effect, attempting a coup d’etat. It is usurping Congress’s authority and claiming that authority for itself. Since the President of the United States is also Commander in Chief of the US armed forces, the Army is presumably merely the President’s instrument in this matter.
Not that executive power grabs are anything new, mind you — the Constitution has been broken in that respect for at least 150 years. The difference here is that historically executive usurpations under cover of “war powers” resembled cyclical tides: Flowing in, then receding, over fairly short periods.
The Civil War, Reconstruction and a slow fade back to business as usual. World War One, the first Red Scare, then “return to normalcy.” World War Two, the second Red Scare, and grudging reversion to the malignant but still nominally limited managerial state inaugurated in FDR’s New Deal.
This time, the tide has coursed in on us for most of a decade and shows no signs of ebbing. Not tide: Tsunami. The executive branch, led first by George W. Bush and now by Barack H. Obama, is playing for keeps. We’re long past the point where one can plausibly argue that anything short of full-on dictatorship will satisfy America’s new generation of emperors or their courtiers.
The proof of that lies not only in the fact of insurrection/coup with this charge of “aiding the enemy,” but in the logical conclusions that we can — indeed, must — draw from that charge.
Who is the “enemy?” Certainly not the (now long-deposed) regime of Saddam’s Iraq, nor the Taliban who ran (and mostly still run) Afghanistan. We can exclude these two as the designated “enemies” for two reasons.
First, not only did Congress (to the extent that the executive branch bothers even formally acknowledging that institution’s authority these days) not declare war on either of them, it specifically declared that it was not declaring war on them. If you don’t believe me, look at the “authorizations for use of force” yourself and read the “war powers reservations” sections. Recall that bills were introduced to declare war on both, and rejected.
Secondly, no one has said, with a straight face at least, that Manning intended his alleged releases of information for the eyes and ears of the Taliban, or of al Qaeda, or of whatever ragged remnant of the Ba’ath Party persists in Iraq.
On the contrary: The intended recipients seem to have been an Iceland-hosted web site, an Australian transparency activist, and the world (including the American) media and public. They (You! Me!) are the “enemy” to whom Manning allegedly disclosed the state’s embarrassing secrets.
QED, the US government considers you — whoever you are, wherever you may live, and to whatever extent you aren’t its active agent — its enemy and intends to treat you as such. Your freedom, perhaps even your very survival, depends on you recognizing this fact and acting accordingly.
Citations to this article:
- Thomas L. Knapp, Manning Prosecutors: The Enemy is Us, St. Joseph, Missouri Telegraph, 03/10/11
- Thomas L. Knapp, Manning Prosecutors: The Enemy is Us, Antiwar.com, 03/04/11
cmon guys, do all of your homework….
"Enemy" is defined as not only opposing forces in time of war, but also a "hostile body" and "civilians as well as members of military organizations."
We have met the enemy, and they are us. Now we only have to wait for ourselves to be detained indefinitely without charges or counsel…
Seems like a compelling argument. Given a lawyer who agrees, what about the courts which seem to be totally acquiescent in the matter of unlimited executive power, ie, acceptance of dictatorship.
“Since the President of the United States is also Commander in Chief of the US armed forces”
Not that it matters much, but technically (Article II, Section 2) the President “shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States (emphasis added). Technically, also (Article I, Section 8) Congress can “raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” Needless to say, Armies have been called into service and money provided for them nearly permanently (probably since those words were first written).
Release Private First Class Bradley Manning and put in jail to the republican terrorists and criminals(Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powel, Wolfowitz, Feith), that invade Iraq, Afghanistan and Libanon, the responsible for the tortures in Abu Ghraib, the rape to iraqui women and the assassination of childrens.
No Brian, YOU do your homework! This article states several times that the US has not declared war since 1941, thus we are not at war and have no enemy!
in most situations…..witnesses to murder are expected to aid prosecution of the offenders…..unless of course, they are associates of criminal elements, where they are generally dealt a savage punishment………..the american people have a responsibility to this young man whose naivety yielded such dire consequences……do most americans feel quite comfortable turning their backs on or excusing senseless killing……i would hope not and yet this type of crime committed by their armed forces is expected to be kept a 'secret'…….withheld from public knowledge…..THAT is the crime!!!!!!! it's time to release this boy and have a good look at an institution that protects (thus encourages) barbarians………..the rest of the world is watching and waiting!!!!!!!
Appealing to the Constitution for an argument is okay, but no one should take it seriously anymore. No serious person, anyway. I hear people talk about it (such as in government class) like it hasn't been breached thousands of times and like it had any authority in the first place.
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed…. The U.S. government will lead the American people into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
Osama bin Laden, after 9-11.
How terribly right he was.
and also jail the democrats that continue and even further these policies.
Jay, that is how we got so deep into the shit we are in today. Our lawmakers, it really sucks to call them that, how about bankers ass sucking scumbags, are the ones with no respect for the constitution. That is why the const. is written with things like requirements for real money only.
When Daniel Ellsberg, who worked for the Rand Corporation and also held a high level security clearance released the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War in 1971, the government was ready to throw the book at him- until it was revealed that Nixon had had his psychiatrist's office broken into: this was regarded by the American people as being at least as un-American as anything Ellsberg had done, and he never faced trial. The sort of treatment that Manning is apparently being subjected to supposedly because he is a "suicide risk" is grimly reminiscent of life in Lubyanka Prison- sleep deprivation with lights on 24/7, prohibition of reading material or exercise in his cell , etc. setting a similarly un-American, if not exculpatory tone.
It is interesting that the specter of the firing squad is lately invoked- giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war being a capital offense– perhaps his lawyers can offer mitigating evidence that no one in Congress ever bothered to properly deliberate before committing troops to (yet another undeclared) war and so "enemy" is a matter of interpretation, or that Manning was arrested after inconveniently revealing the slaughter (yet again)of unarmed civilians.