Despite having one of the weakest mandates of any American president (except perhaps Ford), George Bush has decided that he possesses all the powers of the position and more. Not simply does he have those powers outlined in the constitution, but he claims implied ones stemming from his "war president" status. Some Bush admirers may be tempted to compare him to another president that had a weak mandate, Abraham Lincoln. As the 16th U.S. president, Lincoln asserted near dictatorial powers in preservation of the Union. He was rebuked a year after his death in the famous Supreme Court case, Ex Parte Milligan, which condemned not only martial law but specifically his imprisonment of so called enemy combatants without due process. Ultimately, Lincoln was declared wrong in actions. But many forget that he went through Congress to suspend habeus corpus. (Bush has not bothered with that kind of openness.) And, did not Lincoln have a higher moral imperative during the Civil War, a crisis that saw the U.S. itself divided?
Bush certainly thinks that this "war on terror" brings a similar situation. In this apparent Age of Terror, he feels that looming threats grant him overarching powers, such the unchecked detention of "enemy combatants" (even some who are US citizens), the surveillance sans FISA of American citizens, and the ability to manipulate Congress's torture ban through an executive signing statement. (Not to mention using that same final tactic over 700 other times, nearly more than all other past presidents combined.) King George, as we may rightly call him, thinks he can do whatever he wants. But his "higher moral imperative" is deeply questionable.
September 11th, 2001 supposedly changed everything and there's certainly no denying its scale. But this up-to-now isolated incident has yielded immerse violence directed by the U.S. against other parts of the world. The aftermath of regime-toppling actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost thousands of civilian lives and over 2,500 U.S. lives, not to mention 20,000 or more casualties. These actions, their collateral damage, and the U.S. losses are justified in the name of another moral imperative, that of spreading freedom and ending the terror. But our targets have been selective to such a point that they hypocritical. Other nations suffer from intense dictatorships and several also oppress women in ways tantamount to those under the Taliban. (Not too mention that several other states do much more to aid terrorist networks.) But no other nations have been so prominently hostile as Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides Bush's personal gripe with Iraq, the exiles from the country were even more persistent than the old Cubans in pushing for regime-change; and, within the Bush administration, they found friendly ears to give them a whole-hearted listen. Meanwhile, Afghanistan became a (semi-appropriate) scapegoat for our anger and impotency following the September 11th attacks. We regained our self esteem once with this initial war. And then, when things were looking grim again, we boosted it again with a second military action. (How happy we were when Bush declared Mission Accomplished! nearly three years ago.) Now we have post-partum depression for what we have birthed. Afghanistan is a corrupt, poppy-going warlord state where the Taliban still operates. And Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war, while much of its infrastructure remains destroyed. All this and Al Qaeda has two events that bolster their recruiting drives. To top it off, we may be growing home-grown Iraqi anti-Americanism as well.
But our losses are not limited to these chaotic countries that we've created. Our legitimacy and power in the world is as weak as it was in 1973. Not only do we look foolish for our actions, but our economy has been desperately hurt by the war debt from Iraq. We are in a unique position of economic weakness on the world stage. We rely on foreign nations (mainly Asian and Middle-Eastern) to finance our debt, and oil has increasing become a more problematic lifeblood. Another terrorist attack in the U.S. could theoretically cripple the American economy, as could instability in Saudi Arabia or Iraq.
Meanwhile, as we paid attention to our "War of Terror" (as excusively "fought" in Afghanistan and Iraq) we ignored growing problems in North Korea and Iran. Our negotiations with each nation fell apart as a result of wars and our misplaced resources; this allowed these two "axis of evil" nations to buy time, four years in fact. In that time, the threat poses by each country has multiplied many times. We may no longer be able to diplomatically restain them. And we have neither the stategy-advantage nor the human resources to fight a war with either state.
Still, in spite of all these faults, maybe Bush does still have the moral imperative to do as he pleases. Maybe all these points of mine are sidenotes to the main issue, digressions you might say. Perhaps. But the President has not shown that he is using all his powers to protect the U.S from the kind of attack that would justify his power. Ports as well as chemical and nuclear plants have not been sufficiently protected, even though they represent some of the worst case scenarios involving terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, the recent decision to help India acquire more nuclear arms not only increases the chance proliferation among other countries, but it represented a rebuke to the Pakastani self esteem. Internal criticism in that state could destabilize the Musharaff regime and lead to hard-line, unfriendly Islamic control of the country. On the domestic side, much of what Bush has done (wiretaps, detention, torture) have not yielded certifiable results. Our country has not been attacked since 9/11 but this may be out of sheer luck. Remember, eight years elapsed between the two attacks on the WTC in New York. Not only do the Bush administration's tactics cross the civil liberties line, they have also not been proven effective.
My greatest fear is that Bush is not committing a political ploy with his power grab (as any token third-world dictactor), but that he actually believes he has this so-called "moral imperative". (I can think of another famous leader who had a similar drive.) If that's the case, no logic or reason will stop him; he is driven by faith in himself, not by the events of the world around him. The only way to stop him is through the Constitutional system of checks-and-balances. Congress must stand up, as should the US Supreme Court. If they both together challenge his power, he will be forced to yield his executive supremacy. If our country fails to do this, the Imperial Presidency (something feared 33 years ago during Nixon's reign) may finally become a reality.
