The
Imperial Presidency
By Ralph Nader
24 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Mired
in the disastrous Iraq quagmire, opposed by a majority of Americans,
George W. Bush has reached new depths of reckless, belligerent bellowing.
At a recent news conference, he volunteered that he told our allies
that if they’re “interested in avoiding World War III,”
Iran must be prevented from both developing a nuclear weapon or having
“the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
To what level of political
insanity has this Washington Caesar descended? Only two countries can
start World War III-Russia and the United States. Is Bush saying that
if Russia, presently opposed to military action against Iran, persists
with its position, Bush may risk World War III? If not, why is this
law-breaking warmonger, looking for another war for American GIs to
fight, while his military-age daughters bask in the celebrity lime light?
Why is he using such catastrophic
language?
Surely he does not think
Iran could start World War III. His own intelligence agencies say that,
even assuming that the international inspectors are wrong and Iran is
moving toward developing the “knowledge” of such weapons,
it can’t build its first such weapon before 3 to 5 years at the
earliest.
Why would a regime ruling
an impoverished country risk suicide, surrounded as it is by countries
armed to the nuclear teeth, such as Israel and the United States? This
nation of nearly 80 million people hardly needs to be reminded that
the U.S. overthrew its popular premier in 1953, installing for the next
27 years the brutal regime of the Shah.
They recall that President
Reagan and his Vice President, George Herbert Walker Bush urged, funded
and equipped Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran-a nation that has
not invaded any country in over 250 years-which took around 700,000
Iranian lives.
Moreover, the undeniable
historical record shows that U.S. companies received licenses from the
Department of Commerce, under Reagan, to ship Saddam the raw materials
necessary to make chemical and biological weapons. Saddam used such
lethal chemical weapons, with the tolerance of Reagan and Rumsfeld,
on Iranians to devastating effect in terms of lives lost.
Then George W. Bush labels
Iran a member of the “axis of evil” along with Iraq, ignoring
a serious proposal by Iran in 2003 for negotiations, and shows what
his language means by invading Iraq.
The authoritarian Iranian
government is frightened enough to hurl some defiant rhetoric back at
Washington and widen its perimeter defense. Seymour Hersh, the topflight
investigative reporter for the New Yorker magazine has written numerous
articles on how the crowding of Iran, including infiltrating its interior,
has become an obsession of the messianic militarist in the White House.
The Pentagon is more cautious,
worrying about our already drained Army and the absence of any military
strategy and readiness for many consequences that would follow Bush’s
“bombs away” mentality.
Then there is the matter
of the Democrats in Congress. After their costly fumble on Iraq, the
opposition Party should make it very constitutionally clear, as recommended
by former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo in a recent op-ed, that there
can be no funded attacks on any country without a Congressional declaration
of war, as explicitly required by the framers of our Constitution.
But the Democrats are too
busy surrendering to other Bush demands, whether unconstitutional, above
the law or just plain marinated in corporate greed. Some of this obeisance
was all too clear in the Democrats questioning of Bush’s nominee
for Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey.
After the two days of hearings,
no Democrat has yet announced a vote against Mukasey, even after he
evaded questions on torture and argued for the inherent power of the
President to act contrary to the laws of the land if he unilaterally
believes he has the inherent constitutional authority to do so.
This position aligns Mukasey
with the imperial views of Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft and Gonzales on the
“unitary Executive.” In short, reminiscent of the divine
right of Kings, the forthcoming Attorney General believes Bush can say
that ‘he is the law’ regardless of Congress and the judiciary.
After two recent lead editorials
demonstrating its specific exasperation over the Democrats’ kowtowing
to the White House, the New York Times added a third on October 20,
2007 titled “With Democrats Like These…” The editorial
recounted the ways Democrats, especially in the Senate, have caved on
critical constitutional and statutory safeguards regarding the Bush-Cheney
policies and practices of spying on Americans without judicial approval
and accountability.
Accusing the Democrats of
“the politics of fear,” the Times concluded: “It was
bad enough having a one-party government when the Republicans controlled
the White House and both houses of Congress. But the Democrats took
over, and still the one-party system continues.”
There is more grist coming
for the Times’ editorial mill. Last week, the first African-American
chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel
(D-NY), declared that Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, Jr., fresh
from Wall Street, had persuaded him, during a decade of increasing record
profits, to lower the porous corporate income tax rate from 35% to 25%.
“We can live with that,”
Chairman Rangel declared.
Would the working families
in his District, who would be paying a higher tax rate on their modest
income, agree?
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