Trump's deportation lies are nothing new: Remember Bush, WMD and Iraq?

[marmar]

Trump’s deportation lies are nothing new: Remember Bush, WMD and Iraq?
Before Trump invented an "invasion" by Venezuelan "terrorists," Bush cooked up fake evidence for war in Iraq

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published May 9, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Virtually everyone understands the real reason why Donald Trump is sending ICE agents to round up immigrants who have no criminal record and then send them to a gulag in El Salvador. Trump is a lifelong flat-out racist who is being steered by deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, a guy who virtually inhales white nationalist conspiracy theories. But there's no law that gives the president unilateral authority to deport or imprison people without due process just because he dislikes nonwhite people. He needs some kind of legal justification, so Trump is claiming — don't laugh! — that the U.S., without knowing it, is at war with Venezuela.

Trump has dredged up a 1798 law called the Alien Enemies Act, which gives the president broad powers during a "declared war" or "invasion" to detain immigrants from an enemy nation. Government prosecutors claim, on no real evidence, that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is sending members of the gang Tren de Aragua into the U.S. as a de facto military invasion aimed at "harming United States citizens, undermining public safety, and supporting the Maduro regime’s goal of destabilizing democratic nations in the Americas." This argument is a joke on its surface. Few of the people arrested so far, if any, are clearly members of Tren de Aragua, and that criminal organization is not invading the U.S. in any normal sense of the word. Maduro is no doubt a bad guy, but he isn't sending a covert military force to attack the U.S.

....(snip)....

Trump, of course, lies about everything all the time, but this particular case has strong echoes of a previous Republican administration's attempts to bamboozle the public about foreign intelligence: George W. Bush's lies about Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of "weapons of mass destruction," the pretext for the 20-year disaster that was the Iraq war.

....(snip)....

Trump has two things going against him that Bush didn't. With the 9/11 attacks not far in the past, Bush enjoyed months of credulous press coverage for his lies. But in the second Trump term, even mainstream media outlets have worked to expose the illegal deportations people who are likely innocent of any crime. Indeed, perhaps the biggest reason Trump officials wants to evade due process is because they're afraid that most deportees would be proven innocent in court. Trump is a known liar who lies all the time about literally everything, even in routine legal filings, as was abundantly demonstrated during his attempted coup after the 2020 election. Bush didn't have that reputation for dishonesty, although maybe he should have. His unearned post-9/11 goodwill also made it tougher for the press to approach his lies with the skepticism they deserved. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/09/trumps-deportation-lies-are-nothing-new-remember-bush-wmd-and-iraq/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Enemy Combatants and The PATRIOT Act. Oh yeah, I remember that.

An "enemy combatant" is a term used to describe individuals who actively engage in hostilities against a state during an armed conflict, whether they are part of a recognized military force or not. This term gained prominence during the "War on Terror" and has been used to justify the detention of individuals without formal charges or trials. The legal status of enemy combatants has been a subject of debate, with some arguing that it violates international law and the rights of individuals.

Definition:
An enemy combatant is someone who actively participates in hostilities against a state, either as a member of the armed forces of a state at war or as a member of a non-state armed group.

Context:
The term gained prominence during the Bush administration's "War on Terror," particularly in the context of detaining individuals at Guantanamo Bay.

Controversy:
The use of the term "enemy combatant" has been controversial, with critics arguing that it allows for the violation of international law, due process, and basic rights of individuals.

Legal Challenges:
The legal status of enemy combatants has been challenged in courts, leading to rulings on the rights of detainees and the government's authority to detain them.

Evolution of the term:
The Obama administration later announced that the term "enemy combatant" would no longer be used to describe detainees at Guantanamo, though they continued to be held under other legal authority.

Current Use:
While the term has been less prominent in recent years, the concept of "enemy combatant" continues to be a topic of legal and political debate, particularly in discussions about detention and national security.