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Mon. Dec 19, 2005

The War on Extraordinary Executive Orders

Interesting news has been piling up on the national stage this past week or so. The Senate blocked the extension of the Patriot Act, the House held a non-binding vote to throw their weight behind the Senate-passed amendment on torture (forcing the President to agree to that which he’d said he would veto), and the NY Times published a year old story on NSA spying approved by the President.

Poor George. It would seem they’re taking away what he deems his executive prerogatives. I can’t imagine why. Perhaps it has something to do with performance. And trust.

That’s not quite what this is about, believe it or not. But it’s where we’ll start.

Defiant in the face of criticism, the Bush administration has portrayed each surveillance initiative as a defense of American freedom. Bush said yesterday that his NSA eavesdropping directives were “critical to saving American lives” and “consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution.”

Bush’s constitutional argument, in the eyes of some legal scholars and previous White House advisers, relies on extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power.

Yesterday’s acknowledgment of warrantless NSA eavesdropping brought the most forthright statement from the president that his war on terrorism is targeting not only “enemies across the world” but “terrorists here at home.” In the “first war of the 21st century,” he said, “one of the most critical battlefronts is the home front.”

Washington Post: Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers

Whether it’s NSA eavesdropping, or the debate over torture, or any sliver of due process for various detainees, or the Patriot Act, etc., etc., the generic similarity used in defense can be summed up as three words:

“We’re at war.”

And if that is true, this defense goes, it follows that the President can take extraordinary measures in a time of war. In fact, that’s part of Bush’s defense, that the office of the President has implied powers via the Constitution that allow him to do as he sees fit in a time of war.

I’ve heard this raised-eyebrow defense of “well, we’re at war” quite a lot over the past few years. And it has grown to grate on me.

Because we are not acting like a nation truly at war, we haven’t been asked to act like a nation at war, and we haven’t since September 11, 2001, in many of the ways that count. In fact, it only seems like “we’re at war” when it comes time to push the legal boundaries involving investigation and punishment. The “sacrifice” one would expect to see in a nation at war seems to be quite limited to a targeted few.

And let me be clear, I’m not saying we’re not at war. There’s well over ten thousand American families who’ve had a loved one killed or badly wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms, we’re at war. That’s why the “Mission Accomplished” banner was such a mistake, when nearly 90% of our casualties have come since then.

There’s also no doubt that we are at war with Al Qaeda, if only on their own terminology. They declared war against us, military and civilian, over seven years ago … even if we only really started listening four years ago.

But if we’re at war … how come the House passed $95 billion in tax cuts a week or so ago, when we’re drowning in red ink already? The latest comment the House had on “war” was a resolution about the War on Christmas that passed 401 – 22 (criminey, they even got Cynthia McKinney on their bandwagon!).

If we’re at war, and parts of our military show clear strain due to questions about if we have enough troops, why isn’t it being urgently addressed? I don’t know if the answer is a draft, or better pay and incentives, or a restructuring, I just know the answer will cost bucks, and tax cuts are the wrong answer for a nation at war.

If we’re at war, what have you, Joe or Jane Average American, been asked to do, other than let some of your rights slide down a slippery slope over the course of years? Have you been asked to participate in a vibrant national program to reduce oil/gas consumption? I can only recall being asked to go shopping. And that was a long time ago.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that a nation at war can afford the cost of Iraq, and the cost of hurricane rebuilding, and the cost of prescription drug benefits … and tax cuts! And then say, we must move the legal line on this or that issue … because we’re at war!

A corollary argument is that we face an enemy unlike any we’ve faced before, and that is due cause for extraordinary measures. We do face an enemy unlike any we’ve faced before. This was also true in December, 1941, as we faced two widespread and powerful empires … both of which we crushed in less time than has passed since September 11, 2001. That was a nation at war.

It was also true during the Cold War, as we faced the Soviet Union, another enemy unlike any we’ve faced before, one with an expansionist policy and a nuclear arsenal that could wipe us out in less than an hour. And it is also true that in both those cases, there were excesses, from holding Japanese-Americans at places like Manzanar, to the well-investigated actions of the CIA in the 1970’s … which, ironically brought about some of the very laws some are saying Bush is now violating.

We’ve faced difficult and unprecedented foes before. And one of our strengths has always been that we didn’t let those enemies change the core of our nature as a country. We reigned in those excesses we caught, often with new laws. Because it was important.

There are some things that we knew on September 12, 2001 (or should have known), that are just as true today. We knew that one of the biggest and trickiest dangers we faced was ourselves. The danger that we might trade a measurable amount of our liberty for an unknown quantity of additional security.

We knew the next step in that progression was that if you aren’t careful, you can become the very thing you hate. Where you begin to justify your actions with rationalizations like “well, at least we’re not beheading those we take prisoner, like those animals.”

In my opinion, we’ve been walked right up to the edge of that cliff.

There’s another thing that we knew on September 12, 2001. We knew this would be a very long war. A war of at least a decade, if not two. And a war where there would be no Iwo Jima moment, no ceremonial signing of a surrender. A war with no exit strategy, where victory is defined by the persistent absence of something.

On those vague terms, in the very best case, this war is not even half over. Maybe even not a quarter over. Who knows? So … how many more times will we hear that we must again compromise a right or a law, no matter how small, because “we’re at war”? Have you ever known the government to give back rights it takes? Beyond that, how will we know when the time has come that those extraordinary measures deemed necessary in a time of war … are no longer necessary because the war is over?

And will we then be told, “don’t you remember, we made those provisions permanent”? As, for example, the President wants to do with the Patriot Act.

And even if I could swallow all of that and try to keep it down, the Bush administration sticks a finger down my throat with their own defense: “‘This directly takes on the Democrats and puts them in a box — support our efforts to protect Americans or defend positions that put our nation’s security at greater risk,’ said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss political strategy.”

You see, we have to do this because we’re at war, and because it’s a fine political ploy to put the Democrats in a box. I know I should be inured to the politicization of the war effort by now, as it’s been prevalent by both sides.

But I’m not.

So. I’m supposed to accept that George Bush is going to use “implied powers” (will I be able to see them if I look at the Constitution with 3D glasses or something?) to do whatever he sees fit to fight the war on terrorism. I’m supposed to just trust him, and not demand the three branch government of checks and balances that has served this country quite well through astoundingly difficult times?

If he tells me he’s placed people in the loop to make judgments so that no-warrant wiretaps or torture or whatever is only used in rare and very necessary circumstances, I’m supposed to trust he’s placed qualified people in that loop? Or is it just some guy named Brownie and his assistant Harriet? Or someone who will proclaim his bold choice a “slam dunk”?

It’s that trust issue. Too much water under the bridge, water of all types. From a lot of sources.

Now, my level of trust in Bush makes no more difference today than it did on September 10, 2001. But in the Republican controlled House and Senate, there’s some serious buckin’ going on. George may not need me in order to push forward his will and his agenda. But he damn sure needs his alleged party allies in Congress. And right now, some of them seem dead set on pressing the issue, at least on NSA eavesdropping. It would appear some oversight is being reclaimed.

At some level, it seems to me that Bush is arguing for an “outcome based government.” That in a time of war, the ends justify the means. I’ve certainly heard the argument that maybe the reason we haven’t seen any big new attack on the US since 9-11 is because of the Patriot Act, harsh interrogations, and other similar changes.

Of course, many of these same people will also argue at other times that an attack is inevitable, it’s just a matter of when. Because it’s all just another slice of the War That Can’t Be Quantified. We commonly mark its beginning as September 11, 2001. But our enemies say it started long before then (hell, they’d already attacked one of our naval vessels, the oldest traditional act of war). We also won’t be able to “mark” its end, whether that’s in five years or fifteen.

I do believe we are a nation at war. I do not believe we are being led as a nation at war, one fully applying its efforts on all fronts; diplomatic, economic, world class public relations and outreach programs, a bold energy policy, military enhancement and enlargement, and public involvement. You know, various forms of smart sacrifice. For example, a willingness to give up tax cuts and maybe even repeal some old ones in the name of fiscal sanity, given the expensive and long term tasks we face. And also the kinds of “smart sacrifices” that send a message world-wide, one of actions, not words.

Because the majority of the messages we’ve sent to the world over the past few years have been detrimental to our own cause, whether via accident, a perception of abuse, or outright incompetence.

If this is a nation at war, we are barely half-assed about it. So when I see no leadership in that vast arena, the defense “we’re at war” buys no purchase with me on other issues. You are talking the talk, but gimping the walk.

The irony is that, if “those people” are right, if (when?) a nuke-bio-chemical attack happens in the US, we will truly know what it is like to be a nation at war. And we will look back on this time as a period of lazy innocence, just as we now look at September 10, 2001. We’ll wonder how we could gone about war so flippantly and haphazardly.

There is so much more that an innovative administration could do to effectively prosecute the war on terror. And none of it would require bending or breaking our laws, or endangering even the perception of the country’s core nature.

I wouldn’t be inclined to give them more leeway when they’re not using what they’ve got. Properly, or at all. But then, I’m not one of the two firmly Republican Senators from Georgia. Nor am I the Democratic Representative from Georgia District 5 who recently voted to protect the victims of the War on Christmas.

And it’s only folks like them who can decide to reign in the administration on any of these issues. I’m just a disgusted bystander, one who is still convinced the whole rotten system has to sink a good bit lower before there will be any positive change.

And I see plenty of opportunities for that gutter to get closer to our face.