Suspicious Senators and Standing with Rand

Levin and McCain courtesy Reuters/Jason Reed

Yesterday I posted in Facebook that I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Why? Because my own U.S. Senator, Carl Levin – whom I’ve met, who’s been in office since I was a high school junior, who inspired me to knock on doors and work phone banks – co-authored (together with Arizona’s senile senator, John McCain) a provision in S 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act, that would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect without charge or trial anywhere in the world.

Levin chairs the Senate’s Armed Services Committee; S 1867 appropriates funding for the Department of Defense and other military functions for fiscal year 2012.

Senator Mark Udall (D-Colorado) offered an amendment that would have killed the Levin-McCain provision, but 60 senators voted Udall’s amendment down, including Levin, Michigan’s junior senator, Debbie Stabenow (with and for whom I’ve also worked), and these other Democrats:

• Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), 202-224-6324
• Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), 202-224-2043
• Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), 202-224-6342
• Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), 202-224-3934
• Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), 202-224-5653
• Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), 202-224-5824
• Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), 202-224-3954
• Sen. Clair McCaskill (D-MO), 202-224-6154
• Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), 202-224-6551
• Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AK), 202-224-2353
• Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), 202-224-4642
• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), 202-224-2841
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), 202-224-2921

Senator Levin’s office number is 202-224-6221; Senator Stabenow’s is 202-224-4822.

According to Democracynow.org, the Levin-McCain measure “would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the military’s ‘battlefield’ to anywhere in the world, even within the United States.”

Rand Paul

I don’t know what got into Levin and the other Democrats who voted with Republicans to crap on the Constitution and imprison detainees indefinitely. Maybe this was part of some deal that Levin cut with the Dark Side in order to get something else desirable. Maybe he holds those who would actually do the rounding up and imprisoning of suspected American terrorists in such high regard that he simply had to flex his political muscles. Maybe he’s been hanging out with McCain too much and McCain’s poor judgment has become contagious. For whatever reason, I find myself in the surprising position of agreeing with Kentucky’s loony Republican senator, Rand Paul, who said, “I'm very, very concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention."

I also agree with the ACLU’s Chris Anders, who posed these questions:

“I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea?”

I sure don’t – and judging from the posts on my Facebook feed in the last few days, neither do a lot of other people.

Thankfully, the Obama Administration has threatened to veto the bill; the White House’s position is supported by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Dr. Evil

It’s interesting that some right-wing blogs are trying to cast this as a secret attempt by the Commander in Chief to secure the authority to unilaterally imprison anyone indefinitely, as if he’s going to morph into some kind of Dr. Evil, with the Armed Services Committee chair serving as his Mini-Me. Anyone who knows Carl Levin knows he’s no one’s minion. And why would Obama promise a veto if it’s really what he wants?

It’s also interesting that some are downplaying the significance of the Levin-McCain provision, insisting that it wouldn’t really apply to civilians. Then I wonder why Levin felt it necessary to hide behind a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision finding “no bar to this nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant." Levin said that Al Qaeda "brought this war to us, and if it's determined that even an American citizen is a member of al Qaeda, then you can apply the law of war, according to the Supreme Court.” Sure sounds to me like Levin meant to include civilians.

The Huffington Post points out that “a similar House bill allocating $690 billion for the Pentagon passed in May, without the controversial measure. It could be changed when the differing versions are merged, if Congress desires.”

I sure wish the desires of this Congress would coincide with those of its constituents, at least once in a while.


The ACLU’s blog post, entitled, “Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a ‘Battlefield’ They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window,” is here.


Update: Late last night, senators passed an amendment 99 to 1 – Republican Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, about whom I’ve written contemptuously before, was the sole “no” vote – specifying that current practices may not change, although it also states explicitly that the military can pursue Americans here at home. The compromise language reads, “"Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.” The ACLU says the compromise is “troubling” and POTUS should still veto the bill because even with the no-change language, the measure sets in stone the military's ability to operate inside our borders.


Sources: Democracynow.org, We Are Change, Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, ACLU.