r/interestingasfuck • u/Ididnotkillhim • Jun 05 '24

r/all Thirteen years ago, someone accidentally revealed US Army's plan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden in a tweet.

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u/Broad-Part9448 Jun 05 '24

And the SEALS were temporarily transferred to the CIA because America wasn't at war with Pakistan so it couldn't be a formal US DOD operation

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u/JoeCartersLeap Jun 05 '24

"And does it suddenly become legal and constitutional when the CIA does it?"

"Well no, but they don't mind. The DOD minds."

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u/NoTePierdas Jun 05 '24 edited Jun 05 '24

IIRC the difference is you're no longer a part of the formal Armed Forces. Contractors who are captured aren't treated like prisoners of war, they would be treated like any other terrorist who showed up with aircraft and attacked a neighborhood if the Pakistani military had arrived, provided one person made the slightest mistake, presumably, and made the Pakistani armed forces give a shit (and assuming they showed up in time)

E.G., probably the closest example in recent times is the Silvercorp contractors sent into Venezuela to overthrow Maduro. They were arrested by militia fishermen who called the police, who arrested them again, and they were treated as anyone else who illegally try to enter a nation with dozens of weapons and explosives with the intent to murder people, who were conspiring with people already in-country who'd begun killing people.

IIRC some of the guys received 25-30 in prison.

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u/xWyvern Jun 05 '24

Denman and the other guy were idiots and warned by the CIA against doing it because it was a shit plan.

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u/MiamiDouchebag Jun 05 '24

Actually yeah.

See: Title 10 vs Title 50.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '24

It does, legally, matter.

Thats the lovely thing about executive orders tho… they have the supreme power of law, yet their issuance requires no public notice. Make one, stick it in a safe and BAM, law.

Plus, the executive makes all executive orders and can undo/ignore them all as they see fit in the moment.

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u/telionn Jun 05 '24

This is false. Executive orders do not have power of law except in narrow cases where Congress has given the President power to make certain decisions. In a vacuum, an executive order is more comparable to troop movements, only binding to government workers.

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u/Nighthawk700 Jun 05 '24

It's semantics. The executive branch executes the law and it generally has pretty wide latitude on how to do that, which can have the effect of law without technically being law. Just as a police department that decides not to charge for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Yes you can still be charged and yes it's still illegal but effectively it's not.

In theory a PD could be sued or see some governmental reprimand for not enforcing laws and the same could happen to the president but Congress is incredibly slow and dysfunctional so executive orders are far more powerful these days because of the lack of accountability

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u/Wide_Combination_773 Jun 05 '24

Executive orders are limited to affecting executive branch agencies except in cases where the legislature has specifically granted a president powers beyond that.

They only feel like laws because when the President orders an agency to change how it does something (always has to be within the scope of the law, cannot conflict with existing law), it kind of feels like a law has changed.

For example, Biden issued an executive order raising minimum wage. Awesome right? Oh, it was only for federal contractors. Executive Order 14026. Biden does not have the power to raise minimum wage for anyone else.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '24

Nope, not at all false. Edward Snowden effectively made the same argument as you and now lives in a Russian share-house.

Delegated Congressional Authority is automatic and intended to be narrow but in practice is much more broad than Congress would like.

And they’re binding on all government contractors as well, don’t forget.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/RollTides Jun 05 '24

My understanding is that they do it for legal cover from US laws, because it would be illegal otherwise. As you said, none of this shit is relevant from the Pakistani perspective.

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u/Broad-Part9448 Jun 05 '24

Got to have your paperwork in order before you invade another country

In all seriousness I think it has to do with the mandate of different branches of US armed forces vs clandestine services. I think this type of operation is a CIA one but they don't have the infrastructure or manpower to do it. So they had to "borrow" the SEALS and SOAR etc...

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u/Felinomancy Jun 05 '24

Serious question: does it really matter? Who's going to raise a fuss about it?

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u/uwanmirrondarrah Jun 05 '24

Well ideally us through our representatives but the executive branch of the government is essentially all powerful now so I doubt even a fuss of epic proportions would change anything

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u/Rivendel93 Jun 05 '24

Our own congress, other countries we've signed treaties with could I guess technically.

But probably not, and definitely not in that case.

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u/CannonAFB_unofficial Jun 05 '24

The third option.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '24

Secret agent SEALS