Court Reverses Bush Philosophy
The increasingly conservative Supreme Court Thursday reversed a basic tenet of the Bush Administration: they said that the military tribunals that the administration wants to use to judge enemy combatants held in Guantanomo are illegal, as they do not follow established law of the United States.
Bush has consistently ignored basic laws and established institutions, arrogantly claiming Executive rights that don’t exist. In his rush to appear decisive as a leader, he has disregarded the reasons we exist as a society. It is ironic that he claims to want to bring democracy to the world while circumventing it at home. His use of signing statements when he approves new legislation is a further example of this approach – picking out portions of legislation that he wants rather than what has been passed.
What he has done with this philosophy is glaringly unnecessary no matter how he attempts to claim extraordinary emergency crises. This approach is part of why he squandered the support of the American people following 9/11 and lost the support of our allies, turning the US into a pariah, when he had the opportunity to bring us and the world together in opposition to terrorism.
If his approach had been successful, an ends justifies the means argument might have been possible, but he cannot even claim that. Carnage in Iraq continues unabated, Bin Laden is untouched and issuing video after video, and torture doesn’t work according to almost all reports. (The Russians who know a thing about torture claim they only used it when they wanted to get someone to recant. If they needed operational information, they treated their prisoners humanely, because they knew torture would only elicit what the victim thought the torture wanted, rather than the truth.)
The case that The Court just finished also shows the weakness of the Bush position. He claims that he is protecting us from "killers" who threatehn our very existence but the Supreme Court case was about Salim Ahmed Hamdan who was Bin Laden’s chauffeur and bodyguard. How this makes him a dangerous enemy combatant is unknowable. Now that he may face a real trial with legal standards, what is he going to be charged with – doing 70 in a 50 mile zone? If his behavior is all it takes to forfeit every semblance of US laws, we will have to expand Guantanomo to house hundreds of thousands of people who are opposed to our policies
Bush has consistently ignored basic laws and established institutions, arrogantly claiming Executive rights that don’t exist. In his rush to appear decisive as a leader, he has disregarded the reasons we exist as a society. It is ironic that he claims to want to bring democracy to the world while circumventing it at home. His use of signing statements when he approves new legislation is a further example of this approach – picking out portions of legislation that he wants rather than what has been passed.
What he has done with this philosophy is glaringly unnecessary no matter how he attempts to claim extraordinary emergency crises. This approach is part of why he squandered the support of the American people following 9/11 and lost the support of our allies, turning the US into a pariah, when he had the opportunity to bring us and the world together in opposition to terrorism.
If his approach had been successful, an ends justifies the means argument might have been possible, but he cannot even claim that. Carnage in Iraq continues unabated, Bin Laden is untouched and issuing video after video, and torture doesn’t work according to almost all reports. (The Russians who know a thing about torture claim they only used it when they wanted to get someone to recant. If they needed operational information, they treated their prisoners humanely, because they knew torture would only elicit what the victim thought the torture wanted, rather than the truth.)
The case that The Court just finished also shows the weakness of the Bush position. He claims that he is protecting us from "killers" who threatehn our very existence but the Supreme Court case was about Salim Ahmed Hamdan who was Bin Laden’s chauffeur and bodyguard. How this makes him a dangerous enemy combatant is unknowable. Now that he may face a real trial with legal standards, what is he going to be charged with – doing 70 in a 50 mile zone? If his behavior is all it takes to forfeit every semblance of US laws, we will have to expand Guantanomo to house hundreds of thousands of people who are opposed to our policies
posted by John Weiss at 11:54 AM
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