The real issue in Bush’s speech Wednesday night is not the additional troops he intends to send to Iraq. The real issue is his nearly open proclamation of dictatorial powers.
Apparently, once a president lies a nation into war, he is entitled to absolute power for as long as he chooses. Regardless of how many Americans die or how many hundreds of thousands of foreigners are killed, the president’s prerogatives are sacred, at least as long as he recites the proper phrases regarding the spread of freedom and democracy. American voters made their will on Iraq clear at the polling booth last November. But they, like the Constitution and the federal statute book, don’t matter.
We have already heard from Bush or his lackeys about how the president is entitled to violate laws regarding wiretaps, renditions, torture, mail privacy, etc. The latest “surge” is just another example of how Bush rules by decree.
Will Bush, like other aspiring dictators, be able to cow opposition long enough to consolidate the powers he has seized?
And if the term dictator is offensive – then what is a better term for a politician who claims to be bound by no law or Constitution?
So where does that leave us? Funds can be withheld or impeach him…
I think a funds-cutoff would not be effective because the Pentagon budget has been a black box for years – who knows how many billions they have stashed away for a rainy day.
Impeachment proceedings might be the only way to reassert even a semblance of the Rule of Law.
What could possibly be more clear than the main thesis of this piece of Jim’s. We’ve enter upon a period of dictatorship, we’re not simply at the edge of one. The message that anyone in their right mind should have taken from the November election was “bring an end to the war” yet Der Fuehrer is now set to escalate it, if not to start an entirely new one in a few months with Iran. What do you call a government that so cavalierly and utterly disregards its electorate, a democracy? Could it be that we are now only waking up to the fact that a coup has been carried out? I mean really.
I been criticized elsewhere drawing parallels between the Bush Regime and the history of National Socialism. To whom might one point when a political leader fires military commanders deemed to have failed and orders non-existent army formations into a last ditch defense. What’s next, the drafting of 55 and 16 year olds?
John Lowell
The crass ignoramus that occupies the White House NEVER fails to show his arrogance, ignorance and dictatorial mindset.
The real danger is all the power he has accumulated for the office of the POTUS.
Kirk A. Hayes
“And if the term dictator is offensive – then what is a better term for a politician who claims to be bound by no law or Constitution?”
President and Vice President seem to work pretty well.
He’s *really* gonna be ticked when everybody else is Raptured and he’s still here.
The POTUS is now “The Decider”..sort of like a Marvel Comix character…an aw-shucks! kind of mishmash of Napolean/Caesar and FDR all rolled into one neat package…dressed by his lackey PR and GOP parrots….
Deciding to further up the ante/beat of the march to Empire and autocratic European government….
Checks? Balances? tradition? promises? advice?
he has “decided” that they are irrevalant and get in the way of his mission….which evidently has been accomplished…in spades…and repeatedly…
Jim,
You say:
“Impeachment proceedings might be the only way to reassert even a semblance of the Rule of Law.”
I’m pessimistic that impeachment will ever be employed and if so by whom, the other half of the dictatorship? Justin Raimundo has suggested a strategy that in the end may be the only recourse remaining:
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10269
John Lowell
Hobbit – I don’t think Bush is worried ’cause he thinks his theology comes with a money-back guarantee.
John – Justin’s column is excellent and thought-provoking.
Americans will either find a way to rev up the heat on Washington or else watch the rest of their rights & liberties get torched.
This is pretty much a theoretical matter given what the Democrats are actually willing to do, but couldn’t congress rescind the 2002 authorization of force and put in one that is far more specific?
I’m not in favor of that as such, but I get tired of hearing that Bush can send the troops so long as congress doesn’t cut off the money.
The National Guard will be poached from the states. This will harm local residents. Why isn’t this ever mentioned? We are destroying our military local & national. Citizens should be scared!
We the People don’t have to take Bushist dictation;STOP SHOPPING and BOYCOTT all corporations collaborating with his unConstitutionality (e.g., the telecoms).
Unless the entire catastrophe has really been about securing an oil deal, a fine print “recommendation” of the Iraq Study Group, I have no idea what a troop surge would accomplish in the long run. With no weapons of mass to be found, are we lingering there to provide a people who don’t desire our presence a stronger theocratic republic with close ties to Iran, a member of the “axis of evil”? If it has been about oil, I wonder what the real price per barrel will be after figuring in one or two trillion dollars in war costs and tens of thousands killed and injured? My math isn’t good enough.
Pat Buchanan is rolling over with laughter right now. Bush has now made the US foreign policy thus: “In order to prevent wars in foreign countries, we will cause even bigger wars in foreign countries” So much for restraint. Buckley was right when he belatedly dismissed Bush as a conservative president who lacks conservatism. I have seen the future and it blows. The next generation of foreign policy will be amazingly interventionist and expensive. Instead of the War on Terror, I predict that we will have the “War on Darkness”, or the “War on Bad Intentions” As The Foremen sang, “All we wanna say
Is peace… ain’t PC, it’s passé”
Mican- rescending the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force would be a great first step to curbing Bush’s rampages. Dave Lindorff, the co-author of a book on impeaching Bush, had an excellent piece on this topic just after the November election. The website for the book is at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/
Adam- I think your hunch is right that we are not on the eve of a boomtime for beneficent foreign policy….
Is marial law, declaring a national emergency the next logical step?
Bush has effectively been governing by martial law ever since he decided late in 2001 that he need not obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or the Fourth Amendment in his warrantless wiretaps of the US Constitution.
But as long as Bush publicly praises democracy, we are still free.
Bush has once again confirmed the immortal words of Henry Kissinger: “90% of all politicians give the other 10% a bad name” He seems to have nothing on his brain but spreading democracy to the Middle East at the expense of everything else: party, country, administration, tradition. Every time an American invasion happens, it is for “democracy” and “world harmony” or some such rot. I believe that he proved Salovyov right. That author once said, “In the twentieth century,a book called “Peace and World Co-operation” will be written. And it will be written by the dictator who rules the world”
Bush will go down in history as being the first American president to govern like a Fascist, but have the ruthless pragmatism of a Communist.
Its really a test of the Democrats and whether they will be patriots by maneuvering Republicans in Congress. Do members of Congress have an obligation to “give it a try?” And if so, to whom is that obligation owed, to Bush? Or do they have an obligation to the soldiers who will die and get maimed giving it a try? The Democrats have to make the Republicans choose between Bush and dead soldiers. Make them go on record and then if the only way to stop Bush is to remove him from office, impeach Bush and hold the Republicans to their word.
(You can’t even mention how many innocent Iraqis are going to be killed in house to house searches because so many Americans think,”Oh, they’re always killing each other anyway!”)
Regarding Bush and religion, my dairy farmer brother has a neighbor who is in one of those evangelical churches and always talks about religion. After the 2000 election, he told my brother that something was worrying him, that Bush and the entire Republican leadership were all born agains and if Jesus comes back, they’ll all go up to heaven with Jesus and there’ll be no one left to run the country. My brother was a little taken back and didn’t think of the best answer until later: “Why are you worried, you’ll be going with them.”
Adam – the Salovyov quote is a hoot – I had not heard that before.
I don’t think of Bush as a pragmatist. I usually strongly dislike political pragmatists, but they usually catch on to their own drivel more quickly than Bush has.
Lois – I hope the debates in the next few weeks at least force politicians to take a stand. And, suffering from vestiges of my youthful idealism, my hope is that Americans will pay enough atttention and remember the names of the weasels.
On the other hand, I am not aware of any member of Congress who paid any price for voting for torture and suspending habeas corpus in the November elections… Hard to know what will penetrate and stick in average citizens’ minds.
I can not see Impeachment happening, even though there is a strong case for it.
With the facts on the table right now, I agree.
But I think there is a blizzard of subpoenas heading towards the White House. And it only takes one or two stunning bombshell revelations to radically change the impeachment calculus. My hunch is that we have not seen even the tip of the iceberg of Bush criminality.
Marc,
I distinctly remember them all saying it wasnt about oil and then a few months ago Bush flip flopped and said it was. I guess thats sort of like saying “mission accomplished” and then 4 years later making a bid to escalate the war…..
and you are correct sir, it is costly in deed for those barrels.
Jim,
When are the Biden hearings supposed to start. Is it possible that we could get a snowball effect and start with getting Pearle’s Feith’s and Bremer’s (and etc etc) in vices and then go right up the ladder until Bush himself is then hauled off?
I just can not see it happening with a 51-49 Senate, especially with Holy Joe in. Given the cowardly way the Democrats let them ride rough for so long coupled with the fact that the odds keep increasing that a Democrat willl win the WH in 2008, i just cant see it.
Great discussion! I have truly been waiting on your post on this “new MAJOR policy speech.”
Major policy- what a freaking joke. What a freaking joke…..
I don’t expect the Biden hearings to achieve that much. He tends to showboat and most of the witnesses will probably either gassify or anesthesize the audience.
I suspect that more good may come from hearings done by people like Leahy. Leahy is looking for smoking guns while some other Democrats are simply looking to get their mug on the television news broadcasts.
I think you are right about Biden. He is not very good at grandstanding by the way.
I am wondering if Leahy will have the temerity to call in Cheney. Ceheney has already said he will refuse to testify. There need, desperately, to be hearings. I have been waiting on them.
Mr. Bush is a neofascist, Constitution-flouting, civil liberties-destroying sonofa—–. (Those are his better qualities, by the way. I’m afraid to know what his worst ones are.)
Remember when Senator-elect James Webb of Virginia had the verbal dust-up with Bush at the White House? More power to Webb. We need more people to get “up close and personal” with the President.
There’s nobody more out of touch than the President. He’s surrounded 24-7-365 by fawning, sycophantic aides. It’s “Yes, Mr. President” this and “Yes, Mr. President” that all day long. No one in the White House–from the most senior staffer to the lowliest employee–gives the President their honest, unvarnished views. (Why are you on the White House staff in the first place? Because you like power. How do you STAY on the White House staff? By being the perfect courtier.)
And, of course, let’s not forget the President’s lifestyle, one which only a billionaire could afford in private life. He’s got a fleet of military aircraft (including its “flagship,” a Boeing 747) at his disposal. He travels whenever and wherever he likes, and hang the cost.
He’s waited on hand and foot in the White House itself. He’s got medical care whenever he needs it, access to the best hospitals and specialists, all on the taxpayers’ dime.
A royal lifestyle begets the
“I Am the State” outlook.
I reckon the current arrangement may not be ideally suited to produce humility in commanders-in-chiefs….
Remember the decoy ! Gates is Sec. Defense, a bulldog without a leash.
This administration is up to something that we’ll all wake up to one morning, probably a border war with Syria and Iran. This will get’em more funding!
Congress got us into this mess, and contrary to what most of us (both in and out of Congress) may think, Congress DOES have the power to get us out.
The resolution that gave George W. the “power to use force” was obtained through skilful trickery and deception
(motivated by NeoCon ideology and arrogance).
Those who have the power to authorize the “Use of Force” also have the power to RECIND that authority. The sooner our Congress awakens to this facet of THEIR power, the sooner this National Nightmare will end. And it better end soon… before he starts wars with Iran and Syria. The George W. is a “Rogue Executive”. He needs to be corralled.
Larry, then, you believe Congress should rescind the resolution???
Maybe it is possible to arrange some testicle transplants so that Congress can revoke this Authorization to Use Military Force which supposedly made Bush czar in perpetuity.
I seem to remember an oath I undertook to join the armed forces many years ago. I raised my right hand and swore to “DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM ENIMIES BOTH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.” This brings me to the quite rational conclusion that the President of the United States is a traitor, and should be dealt with in an appropriate manner. If the American people do not they become complicent in this treason.. With the degredation of Habeus Corpus and Posse Comintatus any soul residing in the 50 states is no longer safe from encroching fascism and a “police state”. Act now or you will perish….
Bush is indeed a traitor and I think it not out-of-line for the army to surround the WH and arrest him. He needs a trip to the World Court.
There’s a pipedream if ever there was one.
The vast majority of the US military has obeyed whatever orders Bush has given.
We’ll see if this continues if Bush starts a new war with Iran.
I believe that Bush should not lose heart. He can always do what Richard the Second was reported to do at the Privy Council meetings. Richard would dance around his councilors and sing “The law is in mine heart and my head, and no one can make me change it.” No one could tell him what to do and look what a fine leader he turned out to be.
In Shakespeare’s play he gives peerless advice. Bush should really take heed:”I had forgot myself: am I not king? Awake thou sluggard majesty! thou sleep’st. Is not the king’s name forty thouand names? Arm, arm my great name” I bet that if we just put on a bigger show for the Iraqis, the terrorism will just stop. The only real trouble we have had is that Bush isn’t powerful enough. Until there is a smiling portrait of G.W. Bush on every street corner, we won’t be awesome enough to cow our critics.
Great quote and great points!
Richard II also said, “I wasted time, now time doth waste me” – as the revolt against his abuses was closing in.
We’ll see if Congress, the courts, or the American people permit Bush to reset the clock.
Seeing as how the war with Iran will start as an air war, how could the bomber pilots and missile launch crews even think about saying “no?”
Dunno. But if a handful of officers and higher-ups speak out publicly – this horror could be avoided.
Jim:
Just came across your site. Was interested in your perspective of Jim Wallis’ Sojourners group and its political alliances with progressive democrats.
They seem to be getting more attention these days.
Your thoughts, please.