June 19 Headlines at Iddybud blog
The strange, sad death of the American way
George Bush's war imperils a cherished political tradition, writes Paul McGeough
Bush Censure by Envoys Makes History
From: Bloomberg News
A 'tortured' interpretation of the president's vast powers
By Robert J. Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at SUNY Cortland From: Syracuse.com
The disturbed man in the Oval Office
“In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”
9/11 Commission Puts Cheney on the spot
Imperial Hubris
*And a belated Happy 1st Blogiversary to The Yorkshire Ranter.
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Saturday, June 19, 2004
The strange, sad death of the American way
The strange, sad death of the American way
George Bush's war imperils a cherished political tradition, writes Paul McGeough
There is a growing sense that Americans have become victims of September 11 in a way that has blinkered their democratic instincts...
So now the hard questions are being put in a pre-September 11 context...
...The commentator William Rivers Pitt poses them all before concluding: "The time has come, bluntly, to get over September 11; to move beyond it; to extract ourselves from this bunker mentality which blinds us while placing us in moral peril. It happened and it will never be forgotten, but we have reached a place where fear and obeisance can no longer be tolerated."
Bush, Blair and Howard would dearly love to move on, to shelter in that obedient, obeisant world and their shallow argument that the global community must deal with the reality on the ground in Iraq; hoping, too, that we'll just slip-slide with them, over and around their recklessness in dragging Iraq into the War on Terror.
But legitimacy is truth and questions of legitimacy will keep drawing us back to the propriety of their decision-making on the road to Baghdad - the lies, the half-truths, all the obsfucation....
...arguing that time will tell, the greater reality on the ground in Iraq is that the chaos and death from a mismanaged foreign occupation is a product of all the lies.
[LINK]
George Bush's war imperils a cherished political tradition, writes Paul McGeough
There is a growing sense that Americans have become victims of September 11 in a way that has blinkered their democratic instincts...
So now the hard questions are being put in a pre-September 11 context...
...The commentator William Rivers Pitt poses them all before concluding: "The time has come, bluntly, to get over September 11; to move beyond it; to extract ourselves from this bunker mentality which blinds us while placing us in moral peril. It happened and it will never be forgotten, but we have reached a place where fear and obeisance can no longer be tolerated."
Bush, Blair and Howard would dearly love to move on, to shelter in that obedient, obeisant world and their shallow argument that the global community must deal with the reality on the ground in Iraq; hoping, too, that we'll just slip-slide with them, over and around their recklessness in dragging Iraq into the War on Terror.
But legitimacy is truth and questions of legitimacy will keep drawing us back to the propriety of their decision-making on the road to Baghdad - the lies, the half-truths, all the obsfucation....
...arguing that time will tell, the greater reality on the ground in Iraq is that the chaos and death from a mismanaged foreign occupation is a product of all the lies.
[LINK]
Bush Censure by Envoys Makes History
Bush Censure by Envoys Makes History
From: Bloomberg News
"Their prominence and seniority and influence when in their diplomatic or military posts, and their number, is really remarkable," said Richard Kohn, the Pentagon's chief Air Force historian from 1981-1991 and chairman of the University of North Carolina's peace, war and defense curriculum in Chapel Hill.
As I detailed earlier this week, twenty-seven "heavy-hitters" in U.S. diplomacy and military (many from the Reagan era) have created a group statement titled 'The Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy' with the aim to see Bush defeated in 2004. Apparently, when it comes to comparison, this has no historic parallel.
It really looks bad for this sitting President.
[LINK]
From: Bloomberg News
"Their prominence and seniority and influence when in their diplomatic or military posts, and their number, is really remarkable," said Richard Kohn, the Pentagon's chief Air Force historian from 1981-1991 and chairman of the University of North Carolina's peace, war and defense curriculum in Chapel Hill.
As I detailed earlier this week, twenty-seven "heavy-hitters" in U.S. diplomacy and military (many from the Reagan era) have created a group statement titled 'The Need for Change in U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy' with the aim to see Bush defeated in 2004. Apparently, when it comes to comparison, this has no historic parallel.
It really looks bad for this sitting President.
[LINK]
A 'tortured' interpretation of the president's vast powers
A 'tortured' interpretation of the president's vast powers
By Robert J. Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at SUNY Cortland
From: Syracuse.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Presidential claims to vast executive power are seductive because they offer a promise of security to Americans justifiably worried about terrorism. But the promised security is illusory, because it is a power grab cloaked in the guise of security, not security delivered by power."
-Professor Spitzer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Professor Robert J. Spitzer's commentary at Syracuse.com begins:
In the furious debate to come over why the president is not bound by laws against torture, the necessary debate over the morality and effectiveness of torture is likely to push aside scrutiny of an underlying administration rationale - arguably the most sweeping claim to executive power ever penned by an administration.
Professor Spitzer reminds us that Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson could have been speaking to today's president when he wrote in 1952: "Emergency powers are consistent with free government only when their control is lodged elsewhere than in the executive who exercises them." The Bush administration has (arguably) made the most sweeping claim to executive power ever penned by any administration. Professor Spitzer sees a danger in Bush's uncontrolled conduct of U.S. foreign affairs through his administration's grandiose claims to executive power. He maps out a wonderful historic record detailing where he believes this administration has gone wrong in virtually denying Congress their due powers as prescribed in Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
[LINK]
By Robert J. Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at SUNY Cortland
From: Syracuse.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Presidential claims to vast executive power are seductive because they offer a promise of security to Americans justifiably worried about terrorism. But the promised security is illusory, because it is a power grab cloaked in the guise of security, not security delivered by power."
-Professor Spitzer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Professor Robert J. Spitzer's commentary at Syracuse.com begins:
In the furious debate to come over why the president is not bound by laws against torture, the necessary debate over the morality and effectiveness of torture is likely to push aside scrutiny of an underlying administration rationale - arguably the most sweeping claim to executive power ever penned by an administration.
Professor Spitzer reminds us that Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson could have been speaking to today's president when he wrote in 1952: "Emergency powers are consistent with free government only when their control is lodged elsewhere than in the executive who exercises them." The Bush administration has (arguably) made the most sweeping claim to executive power ever penned by any administration. Professor Spitzer sees a danger in Bush's uncontrolled conduct of U.S. foreign affairs through his administration's grandiose claims to executive power. He maps out a wonderful historic record detailing where he believes this administration has gone wrong in virtually denying Congress their due powers as prescribed in Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
[LINK]
The disturbed man in the Oval Office
The disturbed man in the Oval Office
“In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”
--an anonymous (and troubled) White House aide
All I can say is "Yikes". Read this article from Capitol Hill Blue. As friendly, folksy and simple as he seems in public, he sounds like such a small, frightened, petty and spiteful man when the cameras stop rolling.
“In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”
--an anonymous (and troubled) White House aide
All I can say is "Yikes". Read this article from Capitol Hill Blue. As friendly, folksy and simple as he seems in public, he sounds like such a small, frightened, petty and spiteful man when the cameras stop rolling.
9/11 Commission Puts Cheney on the spot
9/11 Commission Puts Cheney on the spot
The leaders of the Sept. 11 commission called on Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday to turn over any intelligence reports that would support the White House's insistence that there was a close relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Cheney's been going to the media to spread the al-Qaeda/Iraq connection on thick, and now he's going to have to talk turkey with a panel that won't take this type of politics-play. Americans deserve real answers. The 9/11 families deserve real answers.
[LINK-9/11 Panel Presses Cheney on Hijacker-Prague Meeting]
The leaders of the Sept. 11 commission called on Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday to turn over any intelligence reports that would support the White House's insistence that there was a close relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Cheney's been going to the media to spread the al-Qaeda/Iraq connection on thick, and now he's going to have to talk turkey with a panel that won't take this type of politics-play. Americans deserve real answers. The 9/11 families deserve real answers.
[LINK-9/11 Panel Presses Cheney on Hijacker-Prague Meeting]
Imperial Hubris
Imperial Hubris
"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now."
--Anonymous, the writer of "Imperial Hubris", who thinks it possible that another strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, but of keeping the same one in place.
Scheduled for release on the July 4,"Imperial Hubris" was written by an anonymous U.S. senior intelligence official. Arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaeda, the writer demonstrates how Bush is playing almost directly into Bin Laden's hands. The tone is said to be "angry and urgent". While some may say it's just another Bush-bashing book released in an election year, I would bear in mind that the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaeda led this anonymous writer to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s.
Perhaps if we'd listened to him then, he never would have had to be writing a book like "Imperial Hubris".
It's time we asked "What's going on?" before more Americans have to die.
Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.
He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"
"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now."
--Anonymous, the writer of "Imperial Hubris", who thinks it possible that another strike against the US could come during the election campaign, not with the intention of changing the administration, but of keeping the same one in place.
Scheduled for release on the July 4,"Imperial Hubris" was written by an anonymous U.S. senior intelligence official. Arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaeda, the writer demonstrates how Bush is playing almost directly into Bin Laden's hands. The tone is said to be "angry and urgent". While some may say it's just another Bush-bashing book released in an election year, I would bear in mind that the stridency of his warnings about al-Qaeda led this anonymous writer to be moved from a highly sensitive job in the late 90s.
Perhaps if we'd listened to him then, he never would have had to be writing a book like "Imperial Hubris".
It's time we asked "What's going on?" before more Americans have to die.
Anonymous believes Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy.
He said: "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"
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