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CounterPunch
December
23, 2002
Cakewalk Across
the Constitution
George W. Bush Has This Thing About Laws That Disagree With Him
by RALPH NADER
George W. Bush has this thing about laws -- domestic
or international -- that disagree with him. He likes to operate
outside their embrace or withdraw from them or try to repeal
them. It is not just personal -- as when he costs taxpayers millions
to pay for his political trips on Air Force One before elections
-- it also involves the health, and safety of Americans and people
abroad.
Bob Woodward relates in his new book
on Bush and war that the President admits to being a black and
white person who makes decisions from his gut. A dubious enough
personality type for a football coach, this trait raises serious
concerns when imbedded in the commander-in-chief of the most
powerful arsenal on Earth.
Consider what this gut instinct has done
to our constitutional framework and the tenuous architecture
of international law. Earlier this year, Bush launched an all
out offensive on Congress to have it selectively surrender its
exclusive constitutional authority to declare war against Iraq.
Despite heroic efforts from legislators led by Senator Robert
Byrd (D-WV), Congress supinely gave up its war-making power to
the White House.
Jefferson, Madison, Adams and company
had distinct reasons for refusing to lodge this power in the
Presidency and instead wanted many legislators in open session
to make this awesome decision. They did not want another King
George emerging with this single-power launching war.
Throughout the year 2002, Bush made no
secret of his desire to unilaterally overthrow the Iraqi dictatorial
regime (called "regime change"). But the opinion polls
were unflagging; the American people in sizable majorities did
not want the U.S. to go it alone.
OK said Mr. Bush; he'll go to the UN
and have the Security Council resume a rigorous inspection process
in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The other nations then
insisted that if Iraq materially breaches the UN resolution,
the U.S. would go back to the Security Council for any further
action. Yet Bush made it clear that if the UN did not act, the
U.S., and its very few allies, would do so unilaterally.
It should be noted that in responding
to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Bush's more deliberative
father, then President Bush, first asked the UN for a resolution,
then asked Congress, after the November elections not before
as did his son, for its approval the following January.
Treaties that deal with arms control
or a real weapon of mass destruction called global warming are
irritants to our White House-based west Texas sheriff. The Bush
Administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change,
declined to support the small arms treaty, the land mines treaty
and the verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention.
Mr. Bush refuses to submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
for ratification by the Senate which rejected it under President
Clinton. There are other similar avoidances.
Even in the area of health, Mr. Bush
is indifferent. The International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, which 130 countries have signed, has not
received Mr. Bush's willingness to send it to the Senate for
ratification. What is objectionable about the Covenant is that
it has a "right to health" within its terms, along
with steps to attain this right to health incumbent on signatory
nations. The U.S. is the only western democracy without universal
health care.
Perhaps no other area of American law
has aroused more anger, pre-9/11 -- in Mr. Bush's mind than the
American civil justice system which enables wrongfully injured
children and adults to sue, among other parties, the President's
corporate friends when they sell dangerous or defective products.
As Governor of Texas and as President,
Bush has wanted to limit corporate compensation for unlimited
injuries, take away the authority of the states and put it in
Washington, D.C. and federally tie the hands of state judges
and juries who are the only ones who hear and see the evidence
in trials. Note, however, none of his so-called "tort reforms"
would take away the right of corporations to sue people or other
companies.
It is the daily behavior of this one-track
President that is irritating even the usually compliant White
House press corp. Day after day, his repetitively belligerent
sound bites and his unrevealed "intelligence" declarations
about Iraq have been wearing thin. A Los Angeles Times poll on
December 17th found that seventy two percent of respondents,
including sixty percent of Republicans, "said the President
has not provided enough evidence to justify starting a war with
Iraq."
On October 11th, the Washington Post
reported that the former military commander for the Middle East,
retired Marine Gen. Anthony C, Zinni, is opposed "to a U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq." Zinni believes Iraq is already contained
and that the U.S. has other priorities in the Middle East. Adding
that General Zinni is "widely respected in the U.S. Military,"
the Post concludes its report by saying that a retired three-star
General said that Zinni's concerns "are widely shared by
many in the leadership of the military but aren't universal."
There are few doubts, however, among
the covey of "chicken hawks" surrounding Mr. Bush.
These men, including Vice President Dick Cheney, supported the
Vietnam War in the Sixties but wanted other Americans to do the
fighting.
There is not much time before Mr. Bush
declares a war with scenarios far more costly, harmful and devastating
then the "cake-walk" scenario that is the premise of
Mr. Bush's airborne electronic posse. It could be a war fraught
with severe longer term "blowback" impacts on the U.S.
and one that could seriously affect the economy, as Yale Professor
Nordhaus warned recently in the New York Review of Books.
It is testimony to the inherent sense
of the American people that, even in the midst of the Bush propaganda
barrage, when asked if they would support a U.S. unilateral invasion,
with large civilian casualities in Iraq, and significant casualties
among our military personnel, a large majority says no.
More Americans are wondering why Bush
wants peaceful dialogue with a North Korea that has more advanced
arms, yet seeks war with a contained, weakened and surrounded
Iraq? But then, when decisions are made in the gut, such inconsistencies
can bound.
Yesterday's
Features
Sean Carter
The Bush
Rape Story
Why is the Media Ignoring Zippergate 2?
Francis Boyle
What Are
Bush's Intentions Toward Palestine?
David Vest
Meet the
New Southern Strategy
Same as the Old Southern Strategy
Sayed Moustafa Al-qazwini
Will Bush Betray Iraqis Once Again?
Mahbubul Karin (Sohel)
Is This
Really Happening?
Mass Arrests of Muslim and Jewish Immigrants
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
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- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
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December 10,
2002
Carol Norris
Help Wanted:
US Government Looking for a Few Qualified Applicants
Tom Gorman
With Liberators
Like These, Who Needs Conquerors?
Linda Heard
Spies,
Snitches and Eyes in the Sky
Josh Ruebner
Striking
with Impunity
Joanne Mariner
You Have
No Right to Remain Silent
December 9,
2002
Adam Engel
Great Expectations:
an Immodest Proposal
Roldan Tomasz
Suárez
What Really
Happened in Altamira Plaza?
Robert Jensen
Bob Woodward's
Bush Hagiography
William Hughes
Berrigan's
Final Warning
Uri Avnery
Why Does
the Leopard Change His Spots?
Netanyahu and Likud
Gary Leupp
Religious
Intolerance Then and Now
Hammond Guthrie
In a
Moment's Time
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Resources:
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