The Beginning of the End.
12 years ago
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Sunday, June 18, 2006
From the Guardian, London
America's problem is again a usurping king called George
Bush's determination to impose his own reading of new laws amounts to a power grab and subverts the US constitution
Martin Kettle
Saturday June 17, 2006
Imagine a country with a different kind of monarch from the one we are used to. Forget the nation-binding human monarch whom Archbishop Rowan Williams praised so deftly this week. Imagine instead a monarch who, like many of Elizabeth II's ancestors, routinely reserved the right to override laws passed by the legislature, or who repeatedly asserted that the laws mean something they do not say. Imagine, in fact, King George of America.
On April 30 the Boston Globe journalist Charlie Savage wrote an article whose contents become more astonishing the more one reads them. Over the past five years, Savage reported, President George Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws that have been enacted by the United States Congress since he took office. At the heart of Bush's strategy is the claim that the president has the power to set aside any statute that conflicts with his own interpretation of the constitution.
Remarkably, this systematic reach for power has occurred not in secret but in public. Go to the White House website and the evidence is there in black and white. It takes the form of dozens of documents in which Bush asserts that his power as the nation's commander in chief entitles him to overrule or ignore bills sent to him by Congress for his signature. Behind this claim is a doctrine of the "unitary executive", which argues that the president's oath of office endows him with an independent authority to decide what a law means.
Periodically, congressional leaders come down from Capitol Hill to applaud as the president, seated at his desk, signs a bill that becomes the law of the land. They are corny occasions. But they are a photo-op reminder that American law-making involves compromises that reflect a balance between the legislature and the presidency. The signing ceremony symbolises that the balance has been upheld and renewed.
After the legislators leave, however, Bush puts his signature to another document. Known as a signing statement, this document is a presidential pronouncement setting out the terms in which he intends to interpret the new law. These signing statements often conflict with the new statutes. In some cases they even contradict their clear meaning. Increasing numbers of scholars and critics now believe they amount to a systematic power grab within a system that rests on checks and balances of which generations of Americans have been rightly proud - and of which others are justly envious.
The Bush administration has often been charged with unilateralism in its conduct of foreign affairs. But a similar disregard for the rule of law underlies this domestic strategy. Article 1, section 1 of the US constitution states: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Section 7 says that if the president refuses to sign a law, the Congress can override him. But Bush has never vetoed a bill. Instead he signs bills into law and then unilaterally redefines them his way.
The contrast between the rhetoric of the public ceremony and the self-authorisation in the later signing statements is large. Take, for example, the renewal of the USA Patriot Act on March 9. In the signing ceremony Bush stressed that the law had been a bipartisan effort involving Congress and the White House. In the subsequent signing statement, however, he states that he does not feel bound to report to Congress (as the act requires) and would "withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties".
Or take the contrast after Bush signed an overwhelmingly supported congressional bill last year outlawing the torture of detainees. On the face of it the new law was explicit, strengthening what Bush described as "values we hold dear" and extending a domestic ban on torture to cover US actions around the world. But the signing statement on December 30 carefully undermined that claim. It asserted that "the executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president ... as commander in chief," adding that this approach would "assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the president ... of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks". In other words, circumstances might arise in which torture might still be authorised.
The Bush White House did not invent the presidential signing statement; it goes back to the 19th century. But the frequency and ambition of Bush's signing statements go far beyond his predecessors. Whereas earlier presidents issued signing statements of a highly specific nature, those of Bush are repeatedly broad and unspecific. Above all, they make claims to enhanced executive power that impinge on profound issues of liberty such as torture or wiretapping.
Too late in the day for comfort, Bush's approach is coming under greater scrutiny. In February the bipartisan Constitution Project warned of "the risk of permanent and unchecked presidential power". Last week the American Bar Association announced an independent inquiry into the practice. A powerful article in the New York Review of Books by the veteran writer Elizabeth Drew has also given the subject higher saliency.
To their credit, even some Bush supporters are alarmed. If Bill Clinton had done what Bush is doing, the Republican senator Chuck Hagel has pointed out, Congress would be up in arms. If Bush were to bequeath the powers he claims to Hillary Clinton, the right would soon go berserk with indignation at the threat to American values. Which is why the most pertinent comment so far on the president's strategy has come from the anti-tax conservative Grover Norquist. He told Drew: "If you interpret the constitution's saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws, you don't have a constitution: you have a king."
It is not anti-American to warn about what Bush is doing. On the contrary, it is profoundly pro-American. In 1776 Americans issued their declaration of independence. They demanded a new form of government in place of the "repeated injuries and usurpations" to which they had been subjected. In the long list of grievances that followed, the first was that King George had "refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good". That suddenly has a contemporary ring. Now, as then, America's problem is a usurping king called George.
martin.kettle@guardian.co.uk
Bush's determination to impose his own reading of new laws amounts to a power grab and subverts the US constitution
Martin Kettle
Saturday June 17, 2006
Imagine a country with a different kind of monarch from the one we are used to. Forget the nation-binding human monarch whom Archbishop Rowan Williams praised so deftly this week. Imagine instead a monarch who, like many of Elizabeth II's ancestors, routinely reserved the right to override laws passed by the legislature, or who repeatedly asserted that the laws mean something they do not say. Imagine, in fact, King George of America.
On April 30 the Boston Globe journalist Charlie Savage wrote an article whose contents become more astonishing the more one reads them. Over the past five years, Savage reported, President George Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws that have been enacted by the United States Congress since he took office. At the heart of Bush's strategy is the claim that the president has the power to set aside any statute that conflicts with his own interpretation of the constitution.
Remarkably, this systematic reach for power has occurred not in secret but in public. Go to the White House website and the evidence is there in black and white. It takes the form of dozens of documents in which Bush asserts that his power as the nation's commander in chief entitles him to overrule or ignore bills sent to him by Congress for his signature. Behind this claim is a doctrine of the "unitary executive", which argues that the president's oath of office endows him with an independent authority to decide what a law means.
Periodically, congressional leaders come down from Capitol Hill to applaud as the president, seated at his desk, signs a bill that becomes the law of the land. They are corny occasions. But they are a photo-op reminder that American law-making involves compromises that reflect a balance between the legislature and the presidency. The signing ceremony symbolises that the balance has been upheld and renewed.
After the legislators leave, however, Bush puts his signature to another document. Known as a signing statement, this document is a presidential pronouncement setting out the terms in which he intends to interpret the new law. These signing statements often conflict with the new statutes. In some cases they even contradict their clear meaning. Increasing numbers of scholars and critics now believe they amount to a systematic power grab within a system that rests on checks and balances of which generations of Americans have been rightly proud - and of which others are justly envious.
The Bush administration has often been charged with unilateralism in its conduct of foreign affairs. But a similar disregard for the rule of law underlies this domestic strategy. Article 1, section 1 of the US constitution states: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Section 7 says that if the president refuses to sign a law, the Congress can override him. But Bush has never vetoed a bill. Instead he signs bills into law and then unilaterally redefines them his way.
The contrast between the rhetoric of the public ceremony and the self-authorisation in the later signing statements is large. Take, for example, the renewal of the USA Patriot Act on March 9. In the signing ceremony Bush stressed that the law had been a bipartisan effort involving Congress and the White House. In the subsequent signing statement, however, he states that he does not feel bound to report to Congress (as the act requires) and would "withhold information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties".
Or take the contrast after Bush signed an overwhelmingly supported congressional bill last year outlawing the torture of detainees. On the face of it the new law was explicit, strengthening what Bush described as "values we hold dear" and extending a domestic ban on torture to cover US actions around the world. But the signing statement on December 30 carefully undermined that claim. It asserted that "the executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the president ... as commander in chief," adding that this approach would "assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the president ... of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks". In other words, circumstances might arise in which torture might still be authorised.
The Bush White House did not invent the presidential signing statement; it goes back to the 19th century. But the frequency and ambition of Bush's signing statements go far beyond his predecessors. Whereas earlier presidents issued signing statements of a highly specific nature, those of Bush are repeatedly broad and unspecific. Above all, they make claims to enhanced executive power that impinge on profound issues of liberty such as torture or wiretapping.
Too late in the day for comfort, Bush's approach is coming under greater scrutiny. In February the bipartisan Constitution Project warned of "the risk of permanent and unchecked presidential power". Last week the American Bar Association announced an independent inquiry into the practice. A powerful article in the New York Review of Books by the veteran writer Elizabeth Drew has also given the subject higher saliency.
To their credit, even some Bush supporters are alarmed. If Bill Clinton had done what Bush is doing, the Republican senator Chuck Hagel has pointed out, Congress would be up in arms. If Bush were to bequeath the powers he claims to Hillary Clinton, the right would soon go berserk with indignation at the threat to American values. Which is why the most pertinent comment so far on the president's strategy has come from the anti-tax conservative Grover Norquist. He told Drew: "If you interpret the constitution's saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws, you don't have a constitution: you have a king."
It is not anti-American to warn about what Bush is doing. On the contrary, it is profoundly pro-American. In 1776 Americans issued their declaration of independence. They demanded a new form of government in place of the "repeated injuries and usurpations" to which they had been subjected. In the long list of grievances that followed, the first was that King George had "refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good". That suddenly has a contemporary ring. Now, as then, America's problem is a usurping king called George.
martin.kettle@guardian.co.uk
Saturday, June 17, 2006
David Sirota on PBS
PBS - 6/16/06
Trivializing Corruption
By David Sirota
Ninety thousand dollars in a Democratic Congressman's freezer. A
Republican House Majority Leader indicted for money laundering, and a
senior Republican thrown in jail for accepting bribes. Washington's
biggest lobbyist thrown in jail for trying to buy off lawmakers. This
is what the Washington Establishment and the media want America to
believe is the worst form of corruption: a few dirty political hacks
who had the nerve to violate our supposedly pristine democracy.
Certainly, these examples are egregious. But the intense focus on
them by political leaders and the media to the exclusion of the real
corruption destroying our democracy trivializes what corruption
really is. That's not by accident -- it is a deliberate tactic of
distraction, and shows just how bought off our political system
really is.
Today, the lifeblood of American politics is money. Candidates must
raise enormous sums of private cash to run for office -- sums that
the wealthy and corporate interests are only too happy to provide in
exchange for legislative favors. We are told by politicians that this
system is "the greatest democracy in the world" when, in fact, it is
very clearly the same form of bribery that has marked every corrupt
regime looked down on by history books.
Money, of course, does not just buy favors -- it makes sure that the
concept of corruption is only presented to the public by political
leaders as anecdotes about a few bad apples, not a narrative about a
broken system. Why? Because an indictment of the pay-to-play system
that produced the bad apples could mean structural campaign finance
reforms that challenge the power of the Big Money interests that
underwrite our politicians. Thus, in the aftermath of recent
congressional scandals, all we get is a pathetical discussion about
weak lobbying "reform" proposals and even weaker sanctions against
individual lawmakers.
Such narrowing of our political discourse is the most nefarious form
of corruption of all. It shows how we now live in a country where the
very boundaries of public policy debates are designed to ensure
outcomes that never challenge Big Money interests. The truly corrupt
interests that own American politics long ago realized that they do
not have to pervasively violate our weak anti-corruption laws to get
what they want. All they have to do is shower cash on as many
lawmakers as possible. These lawmakers, uninterested in biting the
hand that feeds them, consequently make sure the overall debate is
rigged.
So, for instance, as America faces an impending energy crisis, the
political debate emanating from Washington has been largely limited
to a discussion of which new tax breaks to give to which major oil
companies -- all of whom have doled out millions in campaign
contributions to politicians.
Any serious discussion of a windfall profits tax on oil companies has
been marginalized, even though polls show the public strongly supports
the concept. Proposals to improve anti-trust enforcement as a way of
slowing down oil industry consolidation -- that's not even talked
about. And any consideration of a tough federal price gouging law has
been met with propaganda claiming it is not needed. Just last week,
the Federal Trade Commission -- headed by a former ChevronTexaco
lawyer -- claimed there is no evidence of oil industry price gouging.
This is occurring as Americans are paying more than $3-per-gallon for
gas at the very same time ExxonMobil made more money than any
corporation in history and gave its outgoing CEO a $400 million
retirement bonus.
The same is true when it comes to health care. As health insurance
premiums skyrocket and more Americans are forced to go with no
insurance at all, polls consistently show that Americans want a
universal health care system -- and are willing to make sacrifices to
get one. Yet, almost no politicians in Washington are willing to
support a government-sponsored, single-payer system like the one the
rest of the industrialized world has. The reason? Because such a
proposal could threaten the bottom line of the private health
insurance industry, which makes massive donations to political
candidates. Instead, the debate is limited either to proposals like
Massachusetts' that simply forces citizens to pay high health
premiums, or to proposals in Congress that would just hand over
billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry
to minimally expand coverage.
Even on hot button issues like immigration, the debate is narrowed to
fit Big Money's agenda. Think about it -- the political Establishment
is having a supposedly intense debate over illegal immigration
without even mentioning the corporate-written North American Free
Trade Agreement. This is the pact that, more than a decade ago, was
sold to Americans by President Clinton and Republicans in Congress as
a way to improve the Mexican economy and drive down illegal
immigration, but which actually drove millions more Mexicans into
poverty and increased pressure at our southern border. Almost no
politicians have even raised the concept of adding wage or workplace
protections to the pact as a way to improve the Mexican economy and
give Mexicans a better incentive to remain in their country --
because to raise that concept would be to challenge politicians'
corporate campaign donors who want access to Mexico's impoverished,
exploitable workforce.
To be sure -- politicians will continue their efforts to focus
attention exclusively on the bad apples within their midst. They will
then cite their own outrage as proof they are true "reformers." Just
as they feed us false storylines about supposedly working for us when
they are working for Big Money, they will tell us they are serious
about fixing our broken political system, when they really are not.
Because, as we see, when the cameras shut off, Washington's
bipartisan establishment still refuses to embrace systemic reforms
like public financing of elections that would actually end the
pay-to-pay political culture.
We, the public, can hope and pray for change, and we can delude
ourselves into thinking that a simple change in party control will
fix our problems. But the simple truth is that until we go to the
ballot box and punish representatives from both parties who are part
of this consensus, we will continue to live not in a democracy -- but
in a system of legalized bribery that makes our problems worse.
Trivializing Corruption
By David Sirota
Ninety thousand dollars in a Democratic Congressman's freezer. A
Republican House Majority Leader indicted for money laundering, and a
senior Republican thrown in jail for accepting bribes. Washington's
biggest lobbyist thrown in jail for trying to buy off lawmakers. This
is what the Washington Establishment and the media want America to
believe is the worst form of corruption: a few dirty political hacks
who had the nerve to violate our supposedly pristine democracy.
Certainly, these examples are egregious. But the intense focus on
them by political leaders and the media to the exclusion of the real
corruption destroying our democracy trivializes what corruption
really is. That's not by accident -- it is a deliberate tactic of
distraction, and shows just how bought off our political system
really is.
Today, the lifeblood of American politics is money. Candidates must
raise enormous sums of private cash to run for office -- sums that
the wealthy and corporate interests are only too happy to provide in
exchange for legislative favors. We are told by politicians that this
system is "the greatest democracy in the world" when, in fact, it is
very clearly the same form of bribery that has marked every corrupt
regime looked down on by history books.
Money, of course, does not just buy favors -- it makes sure that the
concept of corruption is only presented to the public by political
leaders as anecdotes about a few bad apples, not a narrative about a
broken system. Why? Because an indictment of the pay-to-play system
that produced the bad apples could mean structural campaign finance
reforms that challenge the power of the Big Money interests that
underwrite our politicians. Thus, in the aftermath of recent
congressional scandals, all we get is a pathetical discussion about
weak lobbying "reform" proposals and even weaker sanctions against
individual lawmakers.
Such narrowing of our political discourse is the most nefarious form
of corruption of all. It shows how we now live in a country where the
very boundaries of public policy debates are designed to ensure
outcomes that never challenge Big Money interests. The truly corrupt
interests that own American politics long ago realized that they do
not have to pervasively violate our weak anti-corruption laws to get
what they want. All they have to do is shower cash on as many
lawmakers as possible. These lawmakers, uninterested in biting the
hand that feeds them, consequently make sure the overall debate is
rigged.
So, for instance, as America faces an impending energy crisis, the
political debate emanating from Washington has been largely limited
to a discussion of which new tax breaks to give to which major oil
companies -- all of whom have doled out millions in campaign
contributions to politicians.
Any serious discussion of a windfall profits tax on oil companies has
been marginalized, even though polls show the public strongly supports
the concept. Proposals to improve anti-trust enforcement as a way of
slowing down oil industry consolidation -- that's not even talked
about. And any consideration of a tough federal price gouging law has
been met with propaganda claiming it is not needed. Just last week,
the Federal Trade Commission -- headed by a former ChevronTexaco
lawyer -- claimed there is no evidence of oil industry price gouging.
This is occurring as Americans are paying more than $3-per-gallon for
gas at the very same time ExxonMobil made more money than any
corporation in history and gave its outgoing CEO a $400 million
retirement bonus.
The same is true when it comes to health care. As health insurance
premiums skyrocket and more Americans are forced to go with no
insurance at all, polls consistently show that Americans want a
universal health care system -- and are willing to make sacrifices to
get one. Yet, almost no politicians in Washington are willing to
support a government-sponsored, single-payer system like the one the
rest of the industrialized world has. The reason? Because such a
proposal could threaten the bottom line of the private health
insurance industry, which makes massive donations to political
candidates. Instead, the debate is limited either to proposals like
Massachusetts' that simply forces citizens to pay high health
premiums, or to proposals in Congress that would just hand over
billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry
to minimally expand coverage.
Even on hot button issues like immigration, the debate is narrowed to
fit Big Money's agenda. Think about it -- the political Establishment
is having a supposedly intense debate over illegal immigration
without even mentioning the corporate-written North American Free
Trade Agreement. This is the pact that, more than a decade ago, was
sold to Americans by President Clinton and Republicans in Congress as
a way to improve the Mexican economy and drive down illegal
immigration, but which actually drove millions more Mexicans into
poverty and increased pressure at our southern border. Almost no
politicians have even raised the concept of adding wage or workplace
protections to the pact as a way to improve the Mexican economy and
give Mexicans a better incentive to remain in their country --
because to raise that concept would be to challenge politicians'
corporate campaign donors who want access to Mexico's impoverished,
exploitable workforce.
To be sure -- politicians will continue their efforts to focus
attention exclusively on the bad apples within their midst. They will
then cite their own outrage as proof they are true "reformers." Just
as they feed us false storylines about supposedly working for us when
they are working for Big Money, they will tell us they are serious
about fixing our broken political system, when they really are not.
Because, as we see, when the cameras shut off, Washington's
bipartisan establishment still refuses to embrace systemic reforms
like public financing of elections that would actually end the
pay-to-pay political culture.
We, the public, can hope and pray for change, and we can delude
ourselves into thinking that a simple change in party control will
fix our problems. But the simple truth is that until we go to the
ballot box and punish representatives from both parties who are part
of this consensus, we will continue to live not in a democracy -- but
in a system of legalized bribery that makes our problems worse.
From the Washington Post
Fresh from his triumphal visit to Baghdad -- a place so dangerous he had to sneak in without even telling the Iraqi prime minister -- George W. Bush is full of new resolve to stay the course in his open-ended "global war on terror." That leaves the rest of us to wonder, in sadness and frustration, just what that course might be and where on earth it can possibly lead.
This is a "war" in which three men held for years without due process at the Guantanamo Bay prison kill themselves by hanging, and their jailers are so unnerved and self-absorbed that they see the suicides as an attack. Rear Adm. Harry Harris's all-about-me lament -- "I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us" -- was worthy of delivery from Oprah's couch.
Bush claimed at his news conference the other day that he'd "like to close Guantanamo" if only the people being held there weren't so "darn dangerous." These bad people, in other words, are forcing him to hold them indefinitely under conditions that mock international norms. But if the inmates are indeed beyond redemption, why order them to be hog-tied and force-fed when they go on hunger strikes? Why not just let them starve? Why freak out when three of the evildoers hang themselves? Why not pass out rope and tell the rest to bring it on?
This is a "war" in which the United States drops two 500-pound bombs with the express intent of assassinating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that wouldn't have existed if Bush hadn't decided to invade. But when the world learns that Zarqawi briefly survived the bombing, and rumors circulate that U.S. forces shot him dead, officials rush to release an autopsy report showing that the butcher with a $25 million bounty on his head died from blast injuries. An American medic, we are told, was about to administer first aid when Zarqawi mumbled something unintelligible and expired.
Why do your best to kill an enemy leader -- a bad, bad man, the worst of the worst -- and then try to revive him? Didn't you want him dead?
In this amorphous, open-ended "war" that we're spending precious lives and billions of dollars to wage, the rules of engagement seem to be shoot first and apologize later.
We're sorry if U.S. Marines massacred 24
civilians in Haditha. We're even more sorry than we were after U.S. military personnel tortured and humiliated those prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Bush's stalwart ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is sorry if London police, conducting an
anti-terrorist raid this month, shot and wounded an innocent man whose only "crime" was to come downstairs in his underwear to see who was breaking into his house. But not as sorry as Blair was after the London subway bombings, when commandos shot dead an innocent Brazilian electrician whom they mistook for a possible, potential, just-might-be terrorist.
Nobody's sorry, though, about secret CIA prisons or extralegal detention or interrogation by brutal "waterboarding" or an Orwellian blanket of domestic surveillance. After all, we're at "war."
The military announced yesterday that the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has reached 2,500, another of those awful, round-number milestones. It is widely expected that the new Iraqi government will consider an amnesty for some of the insurgents who killed some of those American servicemen and women -- drawing a distinction between roadside bombs placed by Sunni Muslims in "resistance" to the U.S. occupation and those placed by foreign al-Qaeda jihadists. If this happens, we'll have taught the Iraqis well. They'll be saying "pardon me" just like their American tutors.
Today's generation of jihadists was forged in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupation. How long will the next generation, being forged in Iraq fighting the American occupation, be with us?
Iraq is just one theater in Bush's "war." Elsewhere, Afghanistan is once again ablaze as the resurgent Taliban counterattacks. Somalia is coming under the sway of an Islamic militia that may harbor al-Qaeda militants. America's popularity in the world continues to fall.
But George W. Bush forges ahead, trying vainly to kill a poisonous, retrograde ideology with bullets and bombs. His "war" is self-perpetuating, and no one even knows what victory would look like. Long after he's gone, we'll still be looking for a way to end the mess he began.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com © 2006 The Washington Post Company
This is a "war" in which three men held for years without due process at the Guantanamo Bay prison kill themselves by hanging, and their jailers are so unnerved and self-absorbed that they see the suicides as an attack. Rear Adm. Harry Harris's all-about-me lament -- "I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us" -- was worthy of delivery from Oprah's couch.
Bush claimed at his news conference the other day that he'd "like to close Guantanamo" if only the people being held there weren't so "darn dangerous." These bad people, in other words, are forcing him to hold them indefinitely under conditions that mock international norms. But if the inmates are indeed beyond redemption, why order them to be hog-tied and force-fed when they go on hunger strikes? Why not just let them starve? Why freak out when three of the evildoers hang themselves? Why not pass out rope and tell the rest to bring it on?
This is a "war" in which the United States drops two 500-pound bombs with the express intent of assassinating Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that wouldn't have existed if Bush hadn't decided to invade. But when the world learns that Zarqawi briefly survived the bombing, and rumors circulate that U.S. forces shot him dead, officials rush to release an autopsy report showing that the butcher with a $25 million bounty on his head died from blast injuries. An American medic, we are told, was about to administer first aid when Zarqawi mumbled something unintelligible and expired.
Why do your best to kill an enemy leader -- a bad, bad man, the worst of the worst -- and then try to revive him? Didn't you want him dead?
In this amorphous, open-ended "war" that we're spending precious lives and billions of dollars to wage, the rules of engagement seem to be shoot first and apologize later.
We're sorry if U.S. Marines massacred 24
civilians in Haditha. We're even more sorry than we were after U.S. military personnel tortured and humiliated those prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Bush's stalwart ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, is sorry if London police, conducting an
anti-terrorist raid this month, shot and wounded an innocent man whose only "crime" was to come downstairs in his underwear to see who was breaking into his house. But not as sorry as Blair was after the London subway bombings, when commandos shot dead an innocent Brazilian electrician whom they mistook for a possible, potential, just-might-be terrorist.
Nobody's sorry, though, about secret CIA prisons or extralegal detention or interrogation by brutal "waterboarding" or an Orwellian blanket of domestic surveillance. After all, we're at "war."
The military announced yesterday that the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has reached 2,500, another of those awful, round-number milestones. It is widely expected that the new Iraqi government will consider an amnesty for some of the insurgents who killed some of those American servicemen and women -- drawing a distinction between roadside bombs placed by Sunni Muslims in "resistance" to the U.S. occupation and those placed by foreign al-Qaeda jihadists. If this happens, we'll have taught the Iraqis well. They'll be saying "pardon me" just like their American tutors.
Today's generation of jihadists was forged in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet occupation. How long will the next generation, being forged in Iraq fighting the American occupation, be with us?
Iraq is just one theater in Bush's "war." Elsewhere, Afghanistan is once again ablaze as the resurgent Taliban counterattacks. Somalia is coming under the sway of an Islamic militia that may harbor al-Qaeda militants. America's popularity in the world continues to fall.
But George W. Bush forges ahead, trying vainly to kill a poisonous, retrograde ideology with bullets and bombs. His "war" is self-perpetuating, and no one even knows what victory would look like. Long after he's gone, we'll still be looking for a way to end the mess he began.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com © 2006 The Washington Post Company
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