Monday, October 05, 2009

Treason?

OK ok ok. Here is a post. I kept thinking I'd come up with a good way to do this, that was both very aggressive and yet wouldn't find me in a secret prison. I guess the safest (for me) way to do this is to not cast judgement, but simply lay out some facts.

The constitution defines Treason thus:
Article3 - Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The first thing I want to establish is the enemies. Are the Somalia Pirates enemies to the United States? It probably wouldn't be too difficult to prove that Somalia is an enemy nation to the United States, but that's not necessary. A roving Piratical group is most definitely enemies to most every country, attacking the Maersk-Alabama only solidifies them as enemies of the United States.

So to qualify as treason a person would need to only "aid and comfort" the pirates.

The incident:
We should all remember the Maersk-Alabama attack. The captain being taken hostage. Little was said about Cpt. Phillips escape. I'm not talking about the "rescue", when 3 snipers simultaneously took out the 3 pirates. No, I'm talking about earlier when the good captain escaped on his own, was in the water swimming to our Navy ship the USS Bainbridge, and we did absolutely NOTHING to help him. We watched as the pirates recaptured him.

The kind of instructions to NOT help a fellow American who has escaped from enemies isn't something determined by your average seaman. Who did provide the orders that the Bainbridge was acting under? Who instructed our Naval seaman to not interfere? We know that Obama was made aware of the hostage situation immediately (April 8th). Obama was also updated on the status multiple times a day. As commander-in-chief, the standing orders no doubt originated from Obama.

The only gray area in this. The only conceivable reason that Obama should not be hung for treason, is the question of whether NOT doing anything is considered "aid and comfort". Did the standing orders of not helping Phillips during his escape "aid" the pirates. Most definitely! To be convicted does have to also be considered "comfort" as well? That's for some legal person to determine. Were the pirates comforted by the fact that the US Navy did NOTHING while they went about recapturing their hostage? Probably.

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5 Comments:

Blogger Cap'n John said...

Consider the final episode of Seinfeld where they were charged with breaking the Good Samaritan Law for doing nothing.

With this in mind, even though that be a fictional TV show, I suspect that whoever gave the order to "do nothing" which resulted in Cpt. Phillips being recaptured could probably be charged with something. Treason? I don't know. You can be charged with anything, the trick is making the charges stick.

BH, this is certainly an interesting train of thought.

2:20 PM  
Blogger Andrea said...

Wow, you've been thinking about this for awhile.

4:05 PM  
Blogger Jess said...

It's nice to have you blogging again.

2:28 PM  
Blogger Kathleen said...

Do you really want us to lose our "nice guy" image by actually fighting the pirates and helping the good Captn? What's wrong with you? You are unAmerican! Obama was avoiding having to apologize for us once again.

1:48 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

new Afgan Treason???

5:57 AM  

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