Reducing Executive Prerogatives
In “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic”, author Chalmers Johnson seeks to answer the question: Can we end our evil empire before it ends us?
America suffers from a overabundance of public ills, which can be traced to militarism and imperialism. Our constitutional system of checks and balances has nearly collapsed, but none of the remedies proposed by politicians address the root causes of the problem.
Andrew Bacevich, author of “The New American Militarism” insists: “None of the Democrats vying to replace President Bush is doing so with the promise of reviving the system of check and balances.... The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it, not to reduce the prerogatives of the executive branch but to regain them.”
Bush has flagrantly violated his oath of office, which requires him “to protect and defend the constitution”, but members of Congress have been reluctant to hold him accountable. Among the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that, would constitute grounds for impeachment: Bush and Cheney pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to put together a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's nuclear weapons that both knew to be dishonest. They then used the dishonest NIE to justify a war of aggression. After the invasion of Iraq, the Bush regime reinterpreted international and domestic law to permit the torture of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at other secret locations around the world.
Nothing in the Constitution allows the president to commit felonies. However, within days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing a new policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the CIA is allowed to kidnap terrorist suspects and transfer them to prisons in countries like Egypt, Syria, or Uzbekistan, where torture is a normal practice, or to secret CIA prisons outside the U.S. where Agency operatives themselves do the torturing.
The Bush regime undertook extensive spying on American citizens without obtaining the necessary judicial warrants and without notifying Congress. These actions violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and Amendment IV of the Constitution.
These “high crimes and misdemeanors” constitute more than adequate grounds for impeachment, which House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi has called “a waste of time.” Six months after the Democratic Party took control of both houses of Congress, the prison at Guantánamo Bay is conducting illegal courts martial of the prisoners; the CIA is still using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on prisoners in foreign jails; illegal intrusions into the privacy of American citizens continues; and more than fifty years after the CIA was founded, it continues to operate without the most perfunctory congressional oversight.
America suffers from a overabundance of public ills, which can be traced to militarism and imperialism. Our constitutional system of checks and balances has nearly collapsed, but none of the remedies proposed by politicians address the root causes of the problem.
Andrew Bacevich, author of “The New American Militarism” insists: “None of the Democrats vying to replace President Bush is doing so with the promise of reviving the system of check and balances.... The aim of the party out of power is not to cut the presidency down to size but to seize it, not to reduce the prerogatives of the executive branch but to regain them.”
Bush has flagrantly violated his oath of office, which requires him “to protect and defend the constitution”, but members of Congress have been reluctant to hold him accountable. Among the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that, would constitute grounds for impeachment: Bush and Cheney pressured the Central Intelligence Agency to put together a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's nuclear weapons that both knew to be dishonest. They then used the dishonest NIE to justify a war of aggression. After the invasion of Iraq, the Bush regime reinterpreted international and domestic law to permit the torture of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at other secret locations around the world.
Nothing in the Constitution allows the president to commit felonies. However, within days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing a new policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the CIA is allowed to kidnap terrorist suspects and transfer them to prisons in countries like Egypt, Syria, or Uzbekistan, where torture is a normal practice, or to secret CIA prisons outside the U.S. where Agency operatives themselves do the torturing.
The Bush regime undertook extensive spying on American citizens without obtaining the necessary judicial warrants and without notifying Congress. These actions violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and Amendment IV of the Constitution.
These “high crimes and misdemeanors” constitute more than adequate grounds for impeachment, which House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi has called “a waste of time.” Six months after the Democratic Party took control of both houses of Congress, the prison at Guantánamo Bay is conducting illegal courts martial of the prisoners; the CIA is still using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on prisoners in foreign jails; illegal intrusions into the privacy of American citizens continues; and more than fifty years after the CIA was founded, it continues to operate without the most perfunctory congressional oversight.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home