Bush Declares State of Emergency

[Appollynon]

With one hand Bush giveth and witht he other he taketh away. It seems that despite the US move to take North Korea off, of the terrorist states listing, Bush has on the other hand declared a state of emergency over the Nuclear dossier that has been handed to the US form the North Koreans.

Whilst this executive order seems aimed at the North Koreans, I think we all know only to well, what calling a State of National Emergency can mena for the US public, regardless of the reasosn or target of the order (in this case North Korea).

Are they preparing the final act before they launch a final war against Iran, as using a state of emenrgency would be a perfectly pathological way to silence dissent and lock up the protestors and dissenters against such a war. I could be way off with that quick assessement, but I just keep asking myself why now? Who is going to benefit?

Anyyone have any other ideas why now? This news has put me a bit on edge.

_http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/06/20080626-4.html

Executive Order: Continuing Certain Restrictions with Respect to North Korea and North Korean Nationals

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that the current existence and risk of the proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat. I further find that, as we deal with that threat through multilateral diplomacy, it is necessary to continue certain restrictions with respect to North Korea that would otherwise be lifted pursuant to a forthcoming proclamation that will terminate the exercise of authorities under the Trading With the Enemy Act (50 U.S.C. App. 1 et seq.) (TWEA) with respect to North Korea.

Accordingly, I hereby order:

Section 1. Except to the extent provided in statutes or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, the following are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in:

all property and interests in property of North Korea or a North Korean national that, pursuant to the President's authorities under the TWEA, the exercise of which has been continued in accordance with section 101(b) of Public Law 95-223 (91 Stat. 1625; 50 U.S.C. App. 5(b) note), were blocked as of June 16, 2000, and remained blocked immediately prior to the date of this order.

Sec. 2. Except to the extent provided in statutes or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, United States persons may not register a vessel in North Korea, obtain authorization for a vessel to fly the North Korean flag, or own, lease, operate, or insure any vessel flagged by North Korea.

Sec. 3. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 4. For the purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 5. The Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to submit the recurring and final reports to the Congress on the national emergency declared in this order, consistent with section 401(c) of the NEA (50 U.S.C. 1641(c)) and section 204(c) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1703(c)).

Sec. 7. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

June 26, 2008.

 

[Mandingo7]

I saw this on ATS yesterday. I think that Bush is just saying that he is lifting some of the sanctions on North Korea but not all of them. The part about declaring a state of emergency is just a rewrite from when he first put North Korea on the Axis of Evil.

I don't think this is anything too spectacular. I do agree though that it seems like the PTB are gearing up for another large scale military operation.

 

[Telperion]

fwiw, it seems likely to me that some information from the nuclear dossier from North Korea will end up becoming the catalyst for some action against Iran. Exactly what and how, I couldn't tell you. But it seems strange that all of a sudden North Korea is dumping it's nuclear program and providing these documents. Taking what's reported in the mainstream media and doing a fair amount of filtering could give a window onto the plans for Iran and it's clear that plans are in the works.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/684766.html

WASHINGTON | Congress approved a White House request last year for $400 million to expand covert operations inside Iran, according to a report published Sunday.

The article in the magazine The New Yorker, written by Seymour Hersh, said little is known in Congress about what the U.S. forces are doing, and some representatives are growing concerned with the scope of the operations.

The report said U.S. personnel are gathering intelligence and working to destabilize the Iranian regime.

In an interview on CNN’s “Late Edition,” Hersh said President Bush intends to continue to press Iran in the next seven months about its nuclear program.

Earlier on the same program, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, rebutted the allegation.

“I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran,” the ambassador to Iraq said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran/index.html

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, denied U.S. raids were being launched from Iraq, where American commanders believe Iran is stoking sectarian warfare and fomenting attacks on U.S. troops.

"I can tell you flatly that U.S. forces are not operating across the Iraqi border into Iran, in the south or anywhere else," Crocker said.

Hersh said U.S. efforts were staged from Afghanistan, which also shares a border with Iran.

He said the program resulted in "a dramatic increase in kinetic events and chaos" inside Iran, including attacks by Kurdish separatists in the country's north and a May attack on a mosque in Shiraz that killed 13 people.

The United States has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically in order to get it to come clean about its nuclear ambitions. But Bush has said "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.

http://news.smh.com.au/world/oil-market-is-saturated-iran-president-20080624-2vpp.html

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed calls for oil producers to ramp up production in response to high prices, saying the market is over saturated with more crude than it was consuming.

"I feel that oil prices are going up artificially. There is a game going on behind it," said Ahmadinejad in an interview with state television focused on his controversial handling of the economy.

"The market is now over saturated and oil is being pumped beyond consumption. Consumption growth is less than production," he said.

Iran, the No.2 producer in OPEC after the oil cartel's kingpin Saudi Arabia, has responded much more coolly than the kingdom to calls for producers to hike production in response to record prices.

The Saudi regime as Sunni Muslims are no friend of Shiite Iran and this is another factor commonly overlooked. Are the Saudis helping the US with the "oil crisis" the same way they helped us back in 2001?

 

[Rich]

I saw this on ATS yesterday. I think that Bush is just saying that he is lifting some of the sanctions on North Korea but not all of them. The part about declaring a state of emergency is just a rewrite from when he first put North Korea on the Axis of Evil.

I don't think this is anything too spectacular. I do agree though that it seems like the PTB are gearing up for another large scale military operation.

Yes, that's correct. If you search the whitehouse.gov website you will see that the US has countless 'national emergencies' with respect to all the regular suspects, - the Balkans, Iraq, Iran etc. Every year they have to renew them. These are normally a continuation of national emergency announcement but for NK, some of the details were changed so a new 'national emergency' policy was created. It sounds threatening but the language used is common for that type of document and really nothing has changed.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Is it possible that all these "national emergencies" ARE in fact the real deal and have in fact suspended the constitution and all that you'd expect from a real national emergency, but it's intentionally kept "quiet" (not secret) while they continue to play along until they decide to use the powers they have already "legally" given to themselves? It seems strange that declaring a national emergency is not a really serious/major event that it ought to be, and that it actually means nothing and does nothing.

Maybe when the time comes they won't have to declare a national emergency to suspend the constitution, they will just start rounding people up and if anyone asks what's going on they will say "Oh yeah, didn't you know? The constitution has been suspended for like 10 years now! Not our fault you ignored it and pretended otherwise!"

I'm not a lawyer though and all that legal talk confuses me, does anyone know the difference between the "harmless" national emergencies they seem to be declaring all the time, and the REAL national emergency that is supposed to officially suspend all our rights and give unlimited powers to the government as described in various executive orders such as these:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/exec_tyranny.htm

And should a National emergency suddenly materialize then an executive tyranny will replace all notions of just governing. Most importantly, prior congressional approval is not needed for such directives - they are instantly effective once the National Emergency is declared:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and granted the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry. Many of the figures in the Iran-Contra scandal were part of this emergency contingent, including Marine Colonel Oliver North. [2]