Issue #7
March 2002
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Loose Cannons to the Right of Them by Gerry Krownstein The problem with the Bush administration is not that they keep shooting themselves in the foot, but that they keep shooting us in the foot. Every few days, another administration spokesperson makes a statement that is so outrageous that nobody can believe that it was said out loud. What's more, when the public and the press (and even other Republicans) raise an outcry, the Bush appointees don't even understand what the fuss was all about. Our allies are alarmed, our citizens are confused, and our credibility and reputation in the world for practical common sense and a willingness to cooperate to solve problems has been seriously damaged. About the only administration person the world views as sane anymore seems to be Colin Powell.
Our Attorney General defends military tribunals whose initial rules made kangaroo courts look fair by comparison. When the administration was forced to back off because of almost unanimous objection by the legal profession and scholars in constitutional and military law, the Attorney General stated that there were now proper safeguards, but an acquittal, in his mind, didn't mean he had to let anyone go free. First claiming that prisoners in Guantanamo were not subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention because they were not military combatants, he now says he doesn't have to release them because military combatants can be held until the cessation of hostilities. He also advocates preventive detention and the elimination of judicial review for these people, both anti-constitutional and primary earmarks of a police state. This is a precedent that can easily grow to embrace you and me, since the identification of those subject to this abrogation of freedoms is solely at the discretion of the President, according to Mr. Ashcroft.
The "voluntary" interrogations of thousands of Moslem citizens, green card holders and legal and illegal visitors to our country continues, so far with little justification and no results except the erosion of our right as inhabitants of the US to be left alone. An Attorney General who equates criticism with treason is too dangerous to be kept in office. Having clearly demonstrated that he has no idea of what our legal system is all about and what our Constitution means, he should resign.
Our national security establishment fluctuates between being comical and being scary. Inept in operation to the point of ludicrousness, the failures of our intelligence agencies, both in the acquisition, and more importantly in the interpretation of information, coupled with the revelations about their infiltration by foreign spies, has left them looking like a bunch of Keystone Kops that nobody in his right mind would rely upon for anything serious. At the same time, Condoleeza Rice and several lesser national security and defense department political appointees are beating the drums for a wider "war", with Iraq at the top of the list. Our allies, and Iraq's neighbors, are uniformly against this. This appears to them as a personal vendetta, to erase the failure of the first Bush administration to complete the job it started. The Iraqi regime is despicable, has caused incalculable harm to its own citizens and its neighbors, and poses a current threat through Saddam Hussein's continued attempts to acquire or make biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, but the fear, both here and abroad, is that Iraq is merely another step in Bush's "permanent war", with more countries to follow.
The Defense Department has also taken its hits from Bush appointees. While the military has done everything we have expected from them, and at a remarkably small cost in casualties, several amazing and incomprehensible announcements from the Defense Department have left the general public with the feeling that really crazy people are in charge. These include "office of disinformation" story, which, having exposed their intention to lie, now makes everyone unsure that they are ever telling the truth, and the announcement that Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Russia and China are being targeted for nuclear attack whenever we feel it would be useful. Considering that we are trying to get Russia to reduce its nuclear arsenals and destroy warheads, and China to join nuclear non-proliferation treaties and eliminate missile sales to other countries, telling them that we feel free to nuke them if we perceive the need seems counterproductive. And don't these people know which way the wind blows? With Seoul, the capital of a major ally and trading partner, mere miles from the North Korean border, a nuclear attack on North Korea is guaranteed to cause deaths and damage in South Korea. A nuclear attack on Iraq could backfire into Turkey, our major Moslem ally in the area and an economic component of Europe.
On the domestic security front, we have Tom Ridge, who doesn't seem to have a clue as to how the handle the responsibilities laid upon him by the President, but who has been periodically issuing vague and unhelpful "security alerts" (which will now be color coded, a comfort to all except the color-blind, I guess), and who claims that he doesn't have to answer Congress' questions because he is not a Cabinet officer, but merely a Presidential advisor. He has fought every helpful measure that Congress has proposed, and come up with nothing of his own. The "shadow government" of flash-frozen bureaucrats stockpiled in a vault somewhere in Maryland or Virginia, coupled with the constant announcements that Dick Cheney is hiding in a secure facility somewhere (as if anyone ever cared about the whereabouts, let alone the survival, of a Vice President) overlays the comical with the sinister.
Somehow, Colin Powell, against great odds and early betting, has managed to achieve enough credibility with the President that he is able to undo some of the worst damage caused by Bush's right-wing loose cannons. He will need every political skill he has developed over the years to prevent things from going off the rails. Why is he the sane one when everyone around him seems fanatic, and worse, clueless as to anyone else's thinking and interests? Perhaps, as a City College boy from the Bronx who made his own way through the military, he was not born with the sense of entitlement that his colleagues seem to possess. The most of the rest of them, the President included, can't really understand why anyone would contradict them, question their actions, or ask them to see the world from someone else's point of view. Never having had to negotiate with people not of their circle of wealth and influence, they feel a sense of lese majeste when forced to do so now. This is not so much an imperial presidency as one of spoiled underachievers and narrow ideologues.
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