This is a crucially important question, yet it is largely ignored. It is crucially important because the Bush administration uses the claim that he is trying to protect us as an excuse for assuming dictatorial powers and trashing our constitutional rights. I don’t want to give the impression that I agree that if he is doing it for our own protection then Bush has the right to do this. But unfortunately, too many Americans feel that way. So by failing to oppose the claim that the administration’s handling of the “War on Terror” protects us or is meant to protect us, we thereby lose the battle for public opinion.
Yet this issue is almost totally ignored, even by liberals, because as is the case for a stolen Presidential election, it is a TABOO subject.
This was not always the case in our country. Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most important advocate for the Bill of Rights amendments to our Constitution, recognized that government may not always have benign intentions,
with these words, in advocating for a Bill of Rights: “What I disapproved from the first moment, also, was the want of a bill of rights
to guard liberty against the legislative as well as the executive branches of the government; that is to say, to secure …..
freedom from unlawful imprisonment, freedom from a permanent military, and a trial by jury in all cases determinable by the laws of the land.”
How taboo is it to attribute bad motives to our President?The taboo is pretty much total (unless the President happens to be a Democrat).
Cynthia McKinney, U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia, is a prime example. In calling for an investigation into the 9-11 attacks on our country, the word got out (
probably incorrectly) that she had accused the President of complicity in the attacks (for which there is very good evidence IMO). Subsequently she was marginalized and attacked by virtually all news media in the country, including NPR (and even by most Democrats), and she lost her House seat in 2002 when she was targeted by the Republicans (but only to regain it in 2004).
And speaking of NPR, I heard Nina Totenberg the other day, in describing the legal arguments
against Bush’s right to conduct warrantless spying on Americans, say something to the effect that
overzealous efforts to protect us against terrorists could tend to infringe on our constitutional rights and our freedom. I am not criticizing her for putting it like that. If she were to imply bad motives for Bush’s assumption of dictatorial powers, rather than “overzealous efforts to protect us against terrorists” she would probably lose her job, and perhaps nothing would be gained – such is the culture in our country today.
And here is the ultimate example of just how taboo it is to attribute bad motives to our President: Cass Sunstein, in his new and otherwise very scholarly book, “Radicals in Robes – Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America”, gives three reasons for restricting Presidential war time powers. Our Constitution calls for their restriction; they may lead to selective enforcement, as in racial profiling, for example; and, “When the nation is under threat, the executive naturally takes precautionary steps to reduce the risks…. The question is whether …. will ensure that the precautionary steps are reasonable rather than excessive”. Thus, even in this very scholarly and abstract discussion of all the reasons for limiting executive power, he couldn’t bring himself to admit even the possibility that one purpose of our constitutional rights is to protect us against an ill-intentioned executive bent on acquiring dictatorial powers.
What evidence do we have that the purpose of the “War on Terror” is to protect us?I don’t see ANY evidence that the purpose of the “War on Terror” is to protect us, other than the President’s word to that effect – for what that’s worth. After all, he has never provided any credible explanation for why he finds it necessary to order warantless spying on Americans. And he lied us into war. Why should anyone give him the benefit of the doubt in this matter? Let’s consider some of the evidence:
The holding of “unlawful combatants” at Guantanamo BayTo prevent the appearance of failing to comply with the Geneva Convention requirements for treatment of prisoners of war, the Bush Administration simply renamed them “unlawful enemy combatants”. As such, they are subjected to a wide range of appalling conditions and abuses including torture, they have no right to an attorney, and don’t even have to be charged with a crime in order to justify their indefinite imprisonment. Here is a comprehensive
review article on the subject. As of November 29th, 29% of the 505 prisoners being held there hadn’t even had a judicial review of their case, after four years of imprisonment. And after several years of imprisonment only four had even been charged with a crime. Does that make you feel safe? It’s simply inhuman as far as I’m concerned.
The case of James YeeThis case is especially instructive. Yee was a U.S. Army Captain and Muslim Chaplain, whose responsibility it was to provide religious support to Muslim prisoners and soldiers at Guantanamo Bay. He was arrested and charged with spying and kept in solitary confinement for 76 days, under brutal conditions, as described
here and in a book that Yee wrote, which I recently
posted on DU. Eventually all charges were dropped because of lack of any evidence, though Major General Miller, the base Commander, claimed that the charges were dropped for national security reasons. But not before the news of Yee’s treacheries were repeatedly leaked to national news sources, in order to make sure that the American public was well aware of the vigilant efforts our government was making to protect us.
The value of warrantless searchesThis article from the Washington Post notes that out of thousands of cases of warrantless spying conducted on American citizens by NASA, under orders from the Bush administration, less than ten per year have been justified (i.e., spying was justified, NOT warrantless spying). There seems to be little question that the reason for bypassing the need for a FISA warrant is motivated by the desire of the administration to spy on its political enemies, rather than to fight terrorism, since FISA warrants would be easy to obtain if their was any suspicion of terrorism whatsoever – as explained in
this analysis by understandinglife.
TortureIn “Chain of Command”, Seymour Hersh reveals numerous instances of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison, along with systematic ignoring of the situation by high level U.S. Army officers. He concludes that
“The roots of the Abu Ghraib scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists, but in the reliance of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on secret operations and the use of coercion – and eye-for eye retributions – in fighting terrorism”. More specifically, the underlying dynamic that set the stage for this was the fact that
“No one in the Bush Administration would get far if he was viewed as soft, in any way, on suspected Al Qaeda terrorism.” Yet despite all this,
“One consistent theme has been a lack of timely and reliable intelligence about the other side.” AssassinationRumsfeld’s plans for assassinating presumed enemies are greatly resented by the Special Operations Command, as related to Hersh, largely because the reasons for these plans seemed to be more political than operational. According to a former high level intelligence official, “They want to go on rumors – not facts – and go for political effect, and that’s what the Special Forces command is really afraid of. Rummy is saying that politics is bigger than war, and we need to take guys out for the political effect”.
In conclusionThe preponderance of evidence points to the likelihood that the major purpose of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” is to consolidate its own dictatorial powers, rather than to protect American citizens. By conceding the myth that their reason for assuming dictatorial powers and trashing our constitution is to protect us against terrorism – even while disagreeing with their right to do so – we may be contributing to the national apathy which is allowing our democracy to be destroyed, little by little. We have much more to fear from our own government since George Bush was selected President in December 2000 than we do from any external enemy, and Americans better wake up to what is going on before it is too late.
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