post #1
24 May 2006, 19:52 UTC#1
Very interesting..
QUOTE
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Snapshots of the U.S. under the Bush administration
Several articles and events over the past couple of days provide a thorough picture of
what the U.S. is becoming, and has become, under the Bush administration:
Increasingly, there is simply no role for courts to review the President's actions, nor for
citizens to challenge the legality and constitutionality of those actions. A month or so ago
I wrote about the administration's rapidly increasing use of the "state secrets privilege" --
once a rarely invoked weapon used by the Government to prevent litigation from
exposing critical national security secrets, but now something which the Bush
administration routinely exploits to prevent any legal challenge to its behavior. As lawyer
Henry Lanman details in Slate today:
Never heard of the "state secrets" privilege? You're not alone. But the Bush
administration sure has. Before Sept. 11, this obscure privilege was invoked only rarely.
Since then, the administration has dramatically increased its use. According to the
Washington Post, the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press reported that while
the government asserted the privilege approximately 55 times in total between 1954 (the
privilege was first recognized in 1953) and 2001, it's asserted it 23 times in the four years
after Sept. 11. For an administration as obsessed with secrecy as this one is, the
privilege is simply proving to be too powerful a tool to pass up.
The Bush administration has now invoked this doctrine in virtually every pending legal
proceeding devoted to challenging the legality of the warrantless NSA eavesdropping
program - all but assuring, yet again, that no court can rule on the legality of that
program. The administration also just used the same tactic to compel dismissal of a
lawsuit brought by Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who alleges -- with the support of
German prosecutors -- that the U.S. Government abducted him, drugged him, flew him
to multiple different torture-using countries as part of the administration's "rendition"
program, only to then release him after five months when the U.S .. realized it had
abducted the wrong person. There is no dispute about the accuracy of El-Masri's
allegations:
This year, German investigators confirmed most of Masri's allegations, which have
received extensive publicity in Europe.
In December, during a joint news conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Rice had admitted the mistake.
But no matter. The Bush administration believes that its actions -- like the court of the
British King -- are above being scrutinized by some lowly federal court or subjected to
principles of law intended only for plebeians. As courts almost always do, the Federal
Judge in El-Masri's case deferred to the administration's "state secrets" claim and
dismissed the lawsuit. The Bush administration used the same maneuver last year to
compel "dismissal of a lawsuit by a Canadian citizen who claimed that he was taken to
Syria by U.S. officials for detention and was tortured."
So the Bush administration goes around the world abducting other countries' citizens and
torturing them. It then claims that the legality of its actions cannot be judged by anyone --
even American federal courts -- because American national security would be harmed if
its actions were subjected to such review. Under the circumstances, it is so very difficult
to understand why the rest of the world mocks, ridicules, and scoffs at the Bush
administration's lectures to the world about principles of freedom and democracy, along
with the administration's belief that it can even invade other countries around the world in
order to impose what it understands to be "freedom and democracy."
Yesterday, President Bush gave a speech in Chicago on immigration and the "war on
terror," and took questions afterwards. In response to a question about Venezuela and
Bolivia (where the new leftist Government has begun nationalizing oil and gas resources,
including breaking contracts with and expelling Latin American companies), the President
issued this lecture to South America:
I am going to continue to remind our hemisphere that respect for property rights and
human rights is essential for all countries in order for there to be prosperity and peace.
I'm going to remind our allies and friends in the neighborhood that the United States of
America stands for justice; that when we see poverty, we care about it and we do
something about it; that we care for good -- we stand for good health care.
I'm going to remind our people that meddling in other elections is -- to achieve a short-
term objective is not in the interests of the neighborhood. . . . I want to remind people that
the United States stands against corruption at all levels of government, that the United
States is transparent. The United States expects the same from other countries in the
neighborhood, and we'll work toward them.
Thank you very much. I'm concerned -- let me just put it bluntly -- I'm concerned about
the erosion of democracy in the countries you mentioned.
Who has less credibility to deliver these sermons to the world than George Bush? The
stories of the U.S. abducting people, torturing them, and then blocking any judicial review
of its behavior are read around the world. Photographs from Guantanamo and Abu
Ghraib are ingrained in the minds of anyone around the world with a television set, as is
the Bush administration's insistence that it is unbound by the Geneva Conventions and
legal prohibitions on the use of torture. The threat by Alberto Gonzales over the weekend
to imprison American journalists was reported prominently in international newspapers,
as are stories of the U.S. Government eavesdropping on its own citizens in secret, the
creation of secret Eastern European prisons, and the general lawlessness which has
prevailed in this country since September 11.
In Brazil last week, an organized crime faction in São Paolo launched a wave of
extremely violent, terrorist-like attacks on the city's police stations, banks, hospitals, and
transportation systems, killing scores of police officers and creating havoc in that city for
days. In response, the São Paolo Police engaged in what appears to be all sorts of
reprisals against the gangs, including summary executions and indiscriminate killings of
male youths in the gangs' principal neighborhoods.
The ensuing debate among Brazilians almost invariably emphasized the need to avoid
giving into the emotional temptation to engage in extreme behavior, violate human rights,
and abandon any principles of restraint in responding to the gang attacks. And, by far,
the most commonly cited example of the dangers of those temptations is the manner in
which the U.S. responded to the 9/11 attacks -- by torturing people, invading countries
with no connection to the attacks, and generally abandoning the principles and values
which had previously defined the country's sense of justice. When one wants to illustrate
the hazards of abandoning all restraint in the face of an outrageous act, the U.S. is the
example which now most readily springs to minds around the world.
As we lecture the world about the need for transparency and democracy, and as we
continue to proclaim that our foreign policy is based principally on the objective of
spreading our ideas about democracy to other countries -- even by military invasion, if
necessary -- the U.S. has become a symbol of human rights abuses and anti-democratic
measures around the world. We have squandered almost every molecule of moral
credibility which we justifiably possessed for most of the 20th Century, particularly since
World War II. In so many ways during the last five years, we have become a country
which engages in those very practices which always characterized other countries, the
ones we were grateful not to live in because they failed to protect the liberties and
principles which defined the United States.
A detailed profile in this week's U.S. News & World Report of David Addington, Dick
Cheney's top advisor who is a sightly more extreme version of John Yoo, provides the
perfect snapshot which conveys why this has all happened:
Whether or not he became the de facto leader of the group, as some administration
officials say, Addington's involvement made for a formidable team. "You put Addington,
Yoo, and Gonzales in a room, and there was a race to see who was tougher than the rest
and how expansive they could be with respect to presidential power," says a former
Justice Department official. "If you suggested anything less, you were considered a
wimp."
The crux of the Bush administration for the last five years has basically been a
competition of contrived, cheap manliness where the winner is he who can wage the
most aggressive and fundamental war on American principles of government which have
defined our country since its founding. Vesting increased power in the Commander-in-
Chief and compiling ever-increasing powers of secrecy have been the only two principles
with any recognized value. Those most steadfastly loyal to those two objectives have
flourished and consolidated power. As a result, the role of the judiciary and the Congress
in our system of government has never been smaller, while the power of the President
has never been greater. And the greatest enemy of the administration are checks and
balances of any kind -- whether from Congress, the courts or the media.
Snapshots of the U.S. under the Bush administration
Several articles and events over the past couple of days provide a thorough picture of
what the U.S. is becoming, and has become, under the Bush administration:
Increasingly, there is simply no role for courts to review the President's actions, nor for
citizens to challenge the legality and constitutionality of those actions. A month or so ago
I wrote about the administration's rapidly increasing use of the "state secrets privilege" --
once a rarely invoked weapon used by the Government to prevent litigation from
exposing critical national security secrets, but now something which the Bush
administration routinely exploits to prevent any legal challenge to its behavior. As lawyer
Henry Lanman details in Slate today:
Never heard of the "state secrets" privilege? You're not alone. But the Bush
administration sure has. Before Sept. 11, this obscure privilege was invoked only rarely.
Since then, the administration has dramatically increased its use. According to the
Washington Post, the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press reported that while
the government asserted the privilege approximately 55 times in total between 1954 (the
privilege was first recognized in 1953) and 2001, it's asserted it 23 times in the four years
after Sept. 11. For an administration as obsessed with secrecy as this one is, the
privilege is simply proving to be too powerful a tool to pass up.
The Bush administration has now invoked this doctrine in virtually every pending legal
proceeding devoted to challenging the legality of the warrantless NSA eavesdropping
program - all but assuring, yet again, that no court can rule on the legality of that
program. The administration also just used the same tactic to compel dismissal of a
lawsuit brought by Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen who alleges -- with the support of
German prosecutors -- that the U.S. Government abducted him, drugged him, flew him
to multiple different torture-using countries as part of the administration's "rendition"
program, only to then release him after five months when the U.S .. realized it had
abducted the wrong person. There is no dispute about the accuracy of El-Masri's
allegations:
This year, German investigators confirmed most of Masri's allegations, which have
received extensive publicity in Europe.
In December, during a joint news conference with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Rice had admitted the mistake.
But no matter. The Bush administration believes that its actions -- like the court of the
British King -- are above being scrutinized by some lowly federal court or subjected to
principles of law intended only for plebeians. As courts almost always do, the Federal
Judge in El-Masri's case deferred to the administration's "state secrets" claim and
dismissed the lawsuit. The Bush administration used the same maneuver last year to
compel "dismissal of a lawsuit by a Canadian citizen who claimed that he was taken to
Syria by U.S. officials for detention and was tortured."
So the Bush administration goes around the world abducting other countries' citizens and
torturing them. It then claims that the legality of its actions cannot be judged by anyone --
even American federal courts -- because American national security would be harmed if
its actions were subjected to such review. Under the circumstances, it is so very difficult
to understand why the rest of the world mocks, ridicules, and scoffs at the Bush
administration's lectures to the world about principles of freedom and democracy, along
with the administration's belief that it can even invade other countries around the world in
order to impose what it understands to be "freedom and democracy."
Yesterday, President Bush gave a speech in Chicago on immigration and the "war on
terror," and took questions afterwards. In response to a question about Venezuela and
Bolivia (where the new leftist Government has begun nationalizing oil and gas resources,
including breaking contracts with and expelling Latin American companies), the President
issued this lecture to South America:
I am going to continue to remind our hemisphere that respect for property rights and
human rights is essential for all countries in order for there to be prosperity and peace.
I'm going to remind our allies and friends in the neighborhood that the United States of
America stands for justice; that when we see poverty, we care about it and we do
something about it; that we care for good -- we stand for good health care.
I'm going to remind our people that meddling in other elections is -- to achieve a short-
term objective is not in the interests of the neighborhood. . . . I want to remind people that
the United States stands against corruption at all levels of government, that the United
States is transparent. The United States expects the same from other countries in the
neighborhood, and we'll work toward them.
Thank you very much. I'm concerned -- let me just put it bluntly -- I'm concerned about
the erosion of democracy in the countries you mentioned.
Who has less credibility to deliver these sermons to the world than George Bush? The
stories of the U.S. abducting people, torturing them, and then blocking any judicial review
of its behavior are read around the world. Photographs from Guantanamo and Abu
Ghraib are ingrained in the minds of anyone around the world with a television set, as is
the Bush administration's insistence that it is unbound by the Geneva Conventions and
legal prohibitions on the use of torture. The threat by Alberto Gonzales over the weekend
to imprison American journalists was reported prominently in international newspapers,
as are stories of the U.S. Government eavesdropping on its own citizens in secret, the
creation of secret Eastern European prisons, and the general lawlessness which has
prevailed in this country since September 11.
In Brazil last week, an organized crime faction in São Paolo launched a wave of
extremely violent, terrorist-like attacks on the city's police stations, banks, hospitals, and
transportation systems, killing scores of police officers and creating havoc in that city for
days. In response, the São Paolo Police engaged in what appears to be all sorts of
reprisals against the gangs, including summary executions and indiscriminate killings of
male youths in the gangs' principal neighborhoods.
The ensuing debate among Brazilians almost invariably emphasized the need to avoid
giving into the emotional temptation to engage in extreme behavior, violate human rights,
and abandon any principles of restraint in responding to the gang attacks. And, by far,
the most commonly cited example of the dangers of those temptations is the manner in
which the U.S. responded to the 9/11 attacks -- by torturing people, invading countries
with no connection to the attacks, and generally abandoning the principles and values
which had previously defined the country's sense of justice. When one wants to illustrate
the hazards of abandoning all restraint in the face of an outrageous act, the U.S. is the
example which now most readily springs to minds around the world.
As we lecture the world about the need for transparency and democracy, and as we
continue to proclaim that our foreign policy is based principally on the objective of
spreading our ideas about democracy to other countries -- even by military invasion, if
necessary -- the U.S. has become a symbol of human rights abuses and anti-democratic
measures around the world. We have squandered almost every molecule of moral
credibility which we justifiably possessed for most of the 20th Century, particularly since
World War II. In so many ways during the last five years, we have become a country
which engages in those very practices which always characterized other countries, the
ones we were grateful not to live in because they failed to protect the liberties and
principles which defined the United States.
A detailed profile in this week's U.S. News & World Report of David Addington, Dick
Cheney's top advisor who is a sightly more extreme version of John Yoo, provides the
perfect snapshot which conveys why this has all happened:
Whether or not he became the de facto leader of the group, as some administration
officials say, Addington's involvement made for a formidable team. "You put Addington,
Yoo, and Gonzales in a room, and there was a race to see who was tougher than the rest
and how expansive they could be with respect to presidential power," says a former
Justice Department official. "If you suggested anything less, you were considered a
wimp."
The crux of the Bush administration for the last five years has basically been a
competition of contrived, cheap manliness where the winner is he who can wage the
most aggressive and fundamental war on American principles of government which have
defined our country since its founding. Vesting increased power in the Commander-in-
Chief and compiling ever-increasing powers of secrecy have been the only two principles
with any recognized value. Those most steadfastly loyal to those two objectives have
flourished and consolidated power. As a result, the role of the judiciary and the Congress
in our system of government has never been smaller, while the power of the President
has never been greater. And the greatest enemy of the administration are checks and
balances of any kind -- whether from Congress, the courts or the media.