One Last Bush Doctrine
By Dan FroomkinBelittled domestically, President Bush is flexing his last working muscle: His control over the nation’s military. And in so doing, he is adding one last addendum to the ever-changing Bush Doctrine, establishing yet another de facto U.S. policy on his way out the door, and leaving his successor with yet another controversial precedent to wrestle with. By approving a U.S. military raid across the Iraqi border into Syria, Bush has changed the rules once again. On Sunday about two dozen special forces soldiers entered the country by helicopter and killed a suspected Iraqi insurgent leader, without the permission or cooperation of the Syrian government…
Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker write in the New York Times: "In justifying the attack, American officials said the Bush administration was determined to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provided a rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent…
Administration officials said Monday that the strikes in Pakistan and Syria were carried out on the basis of a legal argument that has been refined in recent months to justify strikes by troops and by rockets on militants in countries with which the United States is not at war. The justification is different from the concept of pre-emption the administration articulated immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, and which was used as the rationale for the invasion of Iraq. While pre-emption was used to justify attacks against governments and their armies, the self-defense argument would justify attacks on insurgents operating on foreign soil that threatened the forces, allies or interests of the United States.
Administration officials pointed Monday to a passage in President Bush’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month as the clearest articulation of this position to date. "As sovereign states, we have an obligation to govern responsibly, and solve problems before they spill across borders," Mr. Bush said. "We have an obligation to prevent our territory from being used as a sanctuary for terrorism and proliferation and human trafficking and organized crime." It is not clear how far-reaching the White House may be in seeking to apply the rationale, but several senior American officials expressed hope that it would be embraced by the next president as well…
For example, a major change in foreign policy [now called The Bush Doctrine] calling for pre-emptive, unilateral attacks on potential enemies was introduced in a 2002 graduation speech at West Point. Who knew? I sure didn’t. But the most disturbing part of this story is "a legal argument that has been refined in recent months to justify strikes by troops and by rockets on militants in countries with which the United States is not at war." It’s actually an amazing thing to say. Bush is saying that he or his legal team has created a legal opinion to justify something that is otherwise forbidden. It betrays a profound disrespect for the legal system. Get some opinion from a lawyer to do what you want to do, then it’s okay. We’ve recently been through that with our disregard for the Geneva Conventions and our redefining torture. They got an opinion [in secret] from John Yoo, a lawyer in the DoJ, that said that it was okay to torture people. And that made it okay. They got another one that said that it was okay to eavesdrop on American Citizens with no cause, and no judicial review. And because they got some lawyer to say it [a lawyer they had appointed], it became okay to do it [in secret]. That’s absolutely absurd. It’s both profoundly disrespectful of our legal system and a bizarre assumption of a power never authorized by our Constitution.
Here’s the deal. Doestoyevsky has been interpreted as saying, “If God doesn’t exist, all things are possible.” Or maybe it was Nietsche who said it first.
Here’s the Bush Doctrine: Because God exists and speaks through me, anything I do is not only possible but right.”
Only they know they can’t get away with just asserting that, so they have to doctor the laws and cook the books. But that ok because it’s part of God’s plan.
Hence he inserts in some obscure speech, “We have an obligation to prevent our territory from being used as a sanctuary for terrorism . . .” So when Iran or Syria doesn’t meet that obligation, then we have the right to bomb them or send in our commandos.
I think Bush may actually believe this. His evil manipulators (Cheney, Addington, et al) are just power mad and using the boss’s religious naivete to get theri way.
In his book “Wiser In Battle” A Soldiers Story by Lt. General Ricardo S. Sanchez former commander of coalition forces in Iraq writes”The Iraq War, too became a national nightmare with no end in sight. (like the Viet Nam War) “It will take at least a decade to repair the damage.””Moreover, there has been no comprehensive investigation by a full independent commission, or any other entity, to explore the full truth behind why we went to war in Iraq, how suspension of the Geneva Conventions led to putting America on the path to torture, and the political, economic, and military elements of power were not properly coordinated as part of a grand strategy during the first year’s occupation of Iraq. Until such an investigation is completed, we will never know the extent of our gov’t’s actions———-nor will we ever be able to learn from the entire debacle”. This I repeat is the former commander of coalition forces in Iraq. Lt. General Sanchez says in his epilogue “Before my last tour in Iraq, I used to whistle a lot. ( his wife) Maria Elena knew that meant things were good. Before the war I was a sound sleeper but when I returned home this time Maria Elena would wake up in the middle of the night to find me downstairs and discover me in the living room swaying back and forth in the rocking chair.———– I was grieving for all those fine young men and women who had died under my command. Their loss is a heavy burden to bear. I carry it to this day.” President Bush has told us that he “sleeps well every night” and when he was asked of any mistakes he had made “he couldn’t say”. I hope that President Obama will feel a lot like people like Lt. General Sanchez and President Lincoln when he has to send people to war. How could anybody doubt how awful Bush is as president and how criminal he and Cheney are to do what they have done to our soldiers and their families.