Category: The War on Terrorism

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Grandstanding McCain: Despite Fine Words, He Refused to Act on Torture

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[Image by SoggyDan licensed under Creative Commons.]

On September 16, 2005 a captain in the army wrote a letter to Senator John McCain. The captain had commanded troops in Iraq and witnessed what he described as “a wide range of abuses [of American-held prisoners] including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.” He attempted to determine what standards governed the treatment of detainees as he reported these abuses up the chain of command – but was given no guidance. He had written to many military and political officials, informing them of what was going on and asking for guidance, despite being told by the military brass that he was committing career suicide. He wrote letters to anyone he thought might be able to help him – but no one responded.

Finally, on Finally, on September 16, 2006, this captain wrote a letter to Senator John McCain. The letter concluded:

…the most important question that this generation will answer [is] Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? Terrorism inspires fear and suppresses ideals like freedom and individual rights. Overcoming the fear posed by terrorist threats is a tremendous test of our courage. Will we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals, or will our courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of sacrifice? My response is simple. If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is “America.” [My emphasis.]

John McCain was so moved by this letter that he pushed for it to be published in the Washington Post, began drafting legislation to stop America from torturing it’s prisoners, and began publicly pushing the Bush administration on the issue in the press. On November 4, 2005, in the middle of this fight Senator John McCain issued a sober call for to reform our intelligence-gathering and

What should also be obvious is that the intelligence we collect must be reliable and acquired humanely, under clear standards understood by all our fighting men and women. To do differently not only offends our values as Americans, but undermines our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms – not helps – us in the war on terror. First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can’t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image.

Senator McCain concluded his remarks by echoing the army captain:

We should do it not because we wish to coddle terrorists. We should do it not because we view them as anything but evil and terrible. We should do it, Mr. President, because we are Americans, and because we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. America stands for a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. I have said it before but it bears repeating: The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don’t deserve our sympathy. But this isn’t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies, and we can never, never allow our enemies to take those values away. [My emphasis.]

Responding to criticisms that he was being overly moralistic in attempting to prohibit Americans from torturing, McCain told George Stephanopoulos said:

In that million-to-one situation, then the President of the United States would authorize and then take responsibility for it

Despite heavy criticism from the right-wing, McCain had proposed what became known as the McCain Anti-Torture Amendment (and later the Detainee Treatment Act.) ((All told, the position outlined and taken by McCain to this point is a serious one – and one which I mainly agree with.)) The right-wing excoriated McCain for leaving America defenseless and the Bush administration pleaded with McCain to amend the language of his amendment, threatening to veto any measure that impinged on the president’s authority to torture people. Under great pressure, McCain limited the bill’s specific language to only cover the military, leaving out the CIA. Although the bill called for an end to all torture of prisoners by Americans, it only gave specific and binding direction to the military. Further undermining the anti-torture provisions, President Bush issued a signing statement that suggested the law violated the Constitution and that it should not be considered binding.

In 2006, the Bush administration began to push for a bill that concerned the issue of torture. McCain initially requested that the bill include the explicit protections of the Geneva Conventions. The Bush administration conceded to McCain’s requests and included these protections, but undermined this passage with a provision that gave the president authority to determine what acts were consistent with and inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions. Again, McCain’s stand against torture won him plaudits, but only served to authorize the president’s power to use whatever methods he personally deemed “not torture”.

In February 2008, a number of top Democrats on the Intelligence Committee became concerned that the CIA was continuing to torture prisoners despite assurances by the administration to McCain that they had stopped those practices due to McCain’s public pressure. The Democrats sought to close the loophole left by the McCain Anti-Torture Amendment, and reaching out to McCain for support, they were surprised to be rebuffed.

McCain explained his opposition to what became known as the Feinstein Amendment, saying that the current law was sufficiently clear and that:

We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures…

He continued to repeat his claim that:

I obviously don’t want to torture any prisoners.

Yet, despite reports of ongoing torture, he refused to back a law with teeth that would actually prevent torture. His first two attempts had been considered noble failures by human rights activists who worked with Senator McCain. They admired him for standing up to the Bush administration and calling on America to be better – and even if he hadn’t actually accomplished what he had set out to do. Now – with a Democratic Congress ready to push the issue and actually pass an enforceable law ending official American torture, McCain balked. He even suggested the president veto the bill if it was passed. Such was the moral authority he had built up on the issue that his standing against the amendment effectively quashed it.

What does it say about a man’s character that he hears the call of injustice and composes a powerful defense of American values and becomes the public face of opposition to torture – and then he accepts a compromise that gives him only a symbolic victory? And then, given another chance to put an end to this practice he has condemned in no uncertain terms, he again mounts a public defense and accepts a symbolic victory that reinforces the position he has condemend? And then, given a chance to support a bill that would truly end torture, he opposes it and encourages the president to veto it? His words promise so much more than his deeds deliver. ((As with Georgia.))

While Senator John McCain was the only official Captain Ian Fishback reached out to that responded to his call for leadership, McCain failed the test Captain Fishback put to him. McCain chose to “sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security” and  give up some part “of the idea that is America.” He accepted plaudits and symbolic victories, but when given the chance to act on his fine words and professed ideals, he declined.

I admired the McCain who fought against torture when no other Republican would. I admired him despite the compromises he made. I could not admire the way he declined to back up his words once the opportunity was given to him.

Both the liberal law professor Glenn Greenwald and the conservative columnist Andrew C. McCarthy use the same word to describe McCain’s opposition to torture: “grandstanding.”

N.B. This post was written in the midst of an obviously contentious election campaign – one in which I had strongly considered supporting John McCain but after careful evaluation, had come to the conclusion that Barack Obama was the only candidate suited to our current challenges. While I stand by the content of the post, in retrospect, the tone is a bit overheated. That said – the fact that McCain would backtrack on this issue that was at the core of his reputation for moral authority is a testament to how this issue has become one of the issues in the new “culture war” – this one over national security. 

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Will Bin Laden Endorse McCain?

[digg-reddit-me]Do you remember when the Bin Laden tape in 2004 was spun by Fox News and the right-wing as a Bin Laden endorsement of John Kerry?

If – as Charlie Black, a top Washington lobbyist unti McCain put him on his payroll, admitted – it is the conventional wisdom that a terrorist attack before the election would “be a big advantage” for McCain in the election and help get him elected…

And as McCain’s policies of military over-extension, fiscal irresponsibility, and continued occupation and war in the Middle East fit nicely into Al Qaeda’s master plan…

Wouldn’t that logically make any terrorist attack on American soil, or any surprise videos putting Bin Laden front-and-center, an effective endorsement of McCain?

Just asking…

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11 Reasons to Donate to Barack Obama Tonight

[digg-reddit-me]Sarah Palin’s speech last night galvanized Obama’s supporters and created a surge in fundraising for him. Tonight, it’s John McCain’s turn to speak. Though it seems unlikely he will inspire feelings as strong as Palin either for or against him, he is the candidate we are running against. And now that McCain is the official nominee and is accepting federal financing, he will be forced to curtail his spending. ((To $84.1 million dollars – so it’s no chump change.))

We all know this is an important election. This is the time to donate for the maximum effect – to allow Obama to out-manuever McCain over the coming months.

Here are some reasons to donate right now, while McCain is giving his speech, and in the immediate aftermath:

  1. To throw the bums (aka Republicans) out. Enough is enough. We need change before it’s too late.
  2. To prevent (another) unnecessary war. A new cold war with Russia? Killing the United Nations? Sabre-rattling with Iran – which would be further destabilized if the situation with Russia deteriorates. John McCain thinks that Iraq and Pakistan border one another and can’t tell the major Muslim factions apart. All he knows is that there are enemies, and we must defeat them. Sun Tzu said that you must know your enemy to defeat him. John McCain prefers to wing it, and he has quite a temper.
  3. To save the internet as we know it. Barack Obama supports net neutrality. John McCain opposes it.
  4. To get out of Iraq. The Iraqi prime minister said he likes Obama’s plan. The Iraqi people prefer Obama’s plan. George W. Bush is moving towards Obama’s timeline. The only person still too stubborn to acknowledge the facts on the ground is John McCain.
  5. To reinvest in America – with tax cuts to the middle class, with investments in infrastructure, with incentives to develop green energy alternatives, with health care reforms.
  6. To stop Palin from burning our books, teaching creationism, and opening up our local parks to hunters in helicopters.
  7. To restore the Constitution. To restore the balance of power in Washington, to stop the cruel and inhuman torture of our prisoners, to acknowledge the vice presidency is part of the executive branch, to have a president who does not consider himself above the law, and to punish those who have committed crimes against the Constitution in the Bush administration. ((For those whose thoughts immediately went to FISA when seeing this, I gave my opinion already.  And regardless – you have to admit Obama would be better on these issues than McCain.))
  8. To get my tax cut.
  9. To finally have a president who will be serious about national security.
  10. To demonstrate against the crass politics of celebrity and the crowds chanting, “Drill, baby, drill!” so that we can take on the serious and complex challenges facing America – including terrorism, global warming, the destabilizing effects of globalization, the massive shifts in power in the world, and the economic stratification of America.
  11. Because after over 25 years of Republican dominance in Washington, four more years is not an option.

Bonus:Because John McCain’s campaign will be under spending restrictions from here-on out. And Obama can pursue a 50-state strategy.

Aside from all this, here’s my one sentence explaining why I support Obama.

If you think this election will be important, now is the time. Our moment is now. Donate tonight.

Believe that there is a better place around the bend, as yet unseen. And help make that a reality.

Thank you.

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Bush-McCain Refuses to Make Tough Foreign Policy Choices

Last night, Barack Obama said:

You don’t defeat a terrorist network that operates in 80 countries by occupying Iraq.

Joe Biden, in a 2004 interview with Joshua Marshall of the Talking Points Memo, made a similar point, but in a more roundabout way that encapsulates some portion of the difference between the two men and their approach to speaking:

No, I really mean it, ask Norm [communication director Norm Kurz]. I mean Norm’s had to sit through, listening to me in all these things. This is the point that I was trying desperately to make to my colleagues and I tried to articulate it on Stephanopoulos’ show. The fundamental flaw in the neo – forget flaw, the fundamental difference between Joe Biden, John Kerry on the one hand, and the neoconservatives on the other is that they genuinely believe – I’ll put it in the negative sense – they do not believe it is possible for a sophisticated international criminal network that will rain terror upon a country, that has the potential to kill 3,000 or more people in a country, can exist without the sponsorship of a nation state. They really truly believe – and this was the Axis of Evil speech – if you were able to decapitate the regimes in Iran, Iraq, North Korea, you would in fact dry up the tentacles of terror. I think that is fundamentally flawed reasoning. If every one of those regimes became a liberal democracy tomorrow, does anybody think we wouldn’t have Code Orange tomorrow in the United States? Rhetorical question. Does anybody think we don’t have to worry about the next major event like Madrid occurring in Paris or Washington or Sao Paulo? Gimme a break. But they really believe this is the way to do it. [My emphasis.]

Richard Haas, President of the Council of Foreign Relations, has been making the point in broader terms – explaining that we have moved from a unipolar world in which America’s power in every sphere was unrivaled to a nonpolar world in which power is decentralized – and many large corporations have more power than states and local power often trumps world power. Haas sees America as the single greatest power on earth – but rather than understanding the entire world as a system of countries, he sees a vastly more complicated power structure – where a loosely organized band of a few hundred can change the course of the world, and corporations operate according to their own interest rather than national interest; and large countries can exert influence in their backyard without American retaliation (as China and Russia proved recently).

McCain and Bush just don’t get these two realities of the world we live in today – a world in which power is decentralized and not exclusively held in nation-states and a world in which America cannot impose it’s will everywhere all of the time. They act as if we have the power to force our will upon every nation and organization. They do not believe we need to choose between Russia’s cooperation on terrorism-related issues and expanding NATO to Georgia and the Ukraine. They believe we can do both. They do not believe invading Iraq took away resources from Afghanistan – because we can do both. Their is an unreality in these positions, a determined insistence that refuses to make the tough strategic choices that foreign policy is about. That cowardice is at the heart of the Bush-McCain foreign policy. They do not acknowledge the central truth that drove America’s greatest foreign policy successes – in World War II and in the first years of the Cold War:

We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized.

They insist instead on our absolute power and on our moral purity. Coupling this with a mistaken view of the nation-state as all-powerful, a view substantially at odds with the titular Republican position of focusing on the power of individuals and corporations over that of government, they led us into Iraq, and now they are playing games of brinkmanship with Iran and Russia, in the vain hope that neither sees how weak our hand has become since we invaded Iraq.

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Election 2008 Foreign Policy McCain National Security Politics The War on Terrorism

“A Clear and Present Danger to the Security of the West”

After listing the tremendous strategic blunders of the Bush administration‘s neoconservative approach to national security and foreign policy, Andrew Sullivan concludes:

Insofar as neoconservatives do not understand this, and cannot understand this, they are a clear and present danger to the security of the West. Their unwillingness to understand how the US might be perceived in the world, how a hegemon needs to exhibit more humility and dexterity to maintain its power, makes them – and McCain – extremely dangerous stewards of American foreign policy in an era of global terror. They are diplomatically and strategically autistic.

McCain’s response to the calamities of the past eight years has been to compound them all.

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Dubya Made Obama Possible

The National Review seems to have come around to my position – that George W. Bush has made Obama’s candidacy possible:

My postulate is that George W. Bush’s presidency has been just bad enough to avoid destroying the core institutions that form the backbone of our society while creating a virtuous backlash that will strengthen these institutions in the long term. Bush has abused his power just enough, and aggravated festering issues just enough, and presided over a decline that was so sudden that he has created near ideal conditions to move the country in a positive direction.

Of course, Seth Swirsky thinks it was George W. Bush’s outstanding leadership and success which have made Americans “feel safe”.

On that, Seth Swirsky and I have differing opinions. The constant fear-mongering by the Bush administration has not made Americans feel safe. The colossal failures of the Bush’s administration’s War on Terror has not made Americans feel safer. The fact that the most significant effort to attack an American city after 9/11 was called off by Al Qaeda for unknown reasons instead of being disrupted by our national security state does not lead to confidence in the Bush administration. Of course, Swirsky write:

Of course, the Left insists that we’re no safer than we were before 9/11. But, until they come up with a number lower than zero, as in the number of attacks against us since then, that argument remains silly.

Is it really considered an “argument” to say:

We have not been attacked again; therefore we are safer.

There are so many assumptions behind that sentiment – many of which are specious; and there are so many alternate explanations to be proferred; and in fact, as the Bush administration and the McCain campaign have said – we will be attacked again. Doesn’t this undercut Swirsky’s point entirely?

The real point is that this is a silly statement used for political effect – and one which demonstrates how circular the Republican propaganda machine has become.

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A President for Our Dangerous Times

[digg-reddit-me]In dangerous times, we cannot let the larger issues out of sight:

The day to day grind of this campaign – months and months of fights over demographics, over gaffes, over lobbyists, over media bias – has distracted most of us from the essential issues at stake.

The essential choice we face is whether or not our country is going in the right direction.

There is an economic component to this – which will rightfully take up much of the country’s attention in the next few months, and between McCain and Obama, the economic differences are stark.

Perhaps more important is the question of whether or not America should embrace it’s current role as an imperial power, as a neo-empire. McCain clearly accepts this view. One of his foreign policy advisors has explicitly accepted the American empire. Another McCain advisor explained how McCain is planning on creating a League of Democracies to destroy the United Nations and marginalize Russia, quite possibly provoking a new Cold War ((N. B. Fareed Zakaria is not an Obama surrogate as this YouTube video claims but a journalist for Newsweek with his own show in PBS.)) . McCain has said that withdrawing from Iraq – which is what the Iraqi prime minister is requesting of us – would be a surrender to our enemies. (He still doesn’t seem to have noticed that many of our enemies are warring amongst themselves – Sunni extremists, Shia extremists, Al Qaeda, Iranian factions.) At the same time, he has threatened war with Iran while claiming it is naive to consider meeting with any Iranian leaders. (McCain never mentions the candlelight vigils in Tehran after September 11 or Iran’s efforts to come to a comprehensive settlement of all issues between America and Iran immediatly afterwards that were ignored using the same justification McCain now uses to avoid dealing with Iran.) Instead, he jokes “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran…)

As Andrew Sullivan wrote:

After the last eight years, we simply cannot risk a continuation of the same reckless, belligerent, argument-losing, ideological and deceptive foreign policy of [the Bush administration.] From his knee-jerk Cold War posture over Georgia to his Rovian campaign tactics, McCain is simply too close to this disastrous record to contemplate… McCain’s trigger-happy temperament, shallow understanding of the complexities and passion for military force as the answer to everything is the bigger risk. He is a recipe for more, wider and far more destructive warfare.

As the conservative curmudgeon George Will explained, invoking Barack Obama’s historic candidacy as a marker:

[I]t illustrates history’s essential promise, which is not serenity – that progress is inevitable – but possibility, which is enough: Things have not always been as they are.

In other words, we can change. We were not always an empire, and we need not always be an empire. We were not always at war, and we do not need to remain at war. Barack Obama will not change anything overnight (we will not all be given bicycles) – because that is not the type of leader he is. He is not a revolutionary urging us to storm the barricades. He is an imperfect leader. He is a sensible pragmatist who believes we are in a unique moment in history in which we have an opportunity to establish meaningful changes by reforming our political, economic, and governmental processes.

The alternative is stark. While I have long been an admirer of John McCain – because he stood up to the President on torture, tax cuts, swiftboating, and global warming – he lost my vote some time ago. He has fought this campaign without honor – ever since his campaign went bankrupt and he began to repudiate every stand he took that hurt him with the Republican base (including on torture, tax cuts, and now apparently, swiftboating.)

In the end, as dire as our economic strength is, this election will be remembered as the the moment when America decided if it was going to remain an empire, or if instead we would return to the best of our traditions, and take our place as a leader in the world community.

In these dangerous times, one candidate poses too great of a risk, and the American people cannot afford to allow a party which has undermined our national security at every turn to remain in power.

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Setting America Up to Fail

[digg-reddit-me]Putting aside the controversy over whether the New York Times should have published John McCain’s op-ed piece – his piece itself illustrates the lose-lose strategy McCain is putting forward.

This line in particular from his unpublished op-ed struck me:

…if we don’t win the war, our enemies will.

What interests me about both McCain’s and Obama’s positions is that both have stuck to their general idea about what the next step would be despite the changing situation on the ground.

McCain was in favor of troops staying longer in Iraq when things were bad and getting worse; now that things are improving, he is still in favor of keeping our forces there.  Obama was in favor of pulling out of Iraq while the situation was deteriorating; and now that the situation is improving, he still is in favor of ending the occupation.  McCain’s editorial tries to hit Obama on this point, unconvincingly in light of McCain’s own seeming intransigence.

But it isn’t entirely accurate to call Obama’s and McCain’s fixed goals in spite of the changing circumstances “intransigence”.  The crux of the disagreement between the candidates is not the contrast that McCain sets up in his op-ed:

I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons.

Rather, the crux of their disagreement is about the wisdom of the Iraq adventure and the overall strategy of establishing some kind of neo-empire in the Middle East.  McCain believes that the Iraq War was necessary and strategically sound – and that although he may not call it an empire or neo-empire – he believes America must have an established military presence in the Middle East as a matter of policy.  Obama is suspicious of this view – believing that any form of imperial influence exerted over the Middle East will cause a backlash greater than the benefits – and he specifically pointed out before the war, and has kept pointing out, that the Iraq adventure was strategically “dumb” and that it was benefited our enemies in the Middle East even as it has undermined our friends.  By taking out Iraq, we removed Iran’s regional foil – and we set up an Iraqi regime that has become a regional ally of Iran.

There are two competing sets of suppositions here:

First:

  • If our invasion of Iraq was ill-conceived.
  • If the invasion of Iraq was the right decision but poorly executed.

Second:

  • If our continued presence there continues to create problems both for our military and for the Iraqi government.
  • If our continued presence could help stabilize the country.

On the first question, the country and the world have overwhelmingly come to believe the first option.

On the second, the answer is less clear. What is clear is that:

  • We do not have enough of a military presence to stabilize the entire country – only relatively small portions of it.
  • We have been acting as a buffer between some of the ethnic groups composing Iraq (even as our invasion and the aftermath hypercharged tensions between the groups.)
  • We are degrading our entire military and investing exorbitant amounts of money in the the country (at a time when our government is testing the limits of the world’s tolerance for our fiscal insolvency.)
  • We are inspiring more extremists than we are killing – as even Don Rumsfeld admitted.
  • Our presence in Iraq has made us more vulnerable to Iran and less able to take any necessary actions against Iran.

These commonly accepted facts demonstrate our short-term tactical limits and our tactical utility – but most of all, they demonstrate that our long-term strategy is underming our position.  From the Iraqi perspective, Maliki clearly thinks that it is best for Iraq if America leaves as soon as possible.  Analyzing what we know about Iraq leads to the same conclusion.

The only possible long-term salvation that could come from this debacle is if Iraq becomes an American-friendly, stable democracy.  Which is possible, but not the most likely conclusion based on the facts as they are now.  It is a possiblity based on a desperate hope.  But even this long-term possibility would necessitate that we demonstrate that we are intent to leave Iraq as soon as possible – and certainly as soon as we are asked.

McCain – by focusing on our short-term tactical successes (and ignoring our tactical limits and our strategic errors) – is bringing America down the wrong path – and setting us up to fail.  By saying, “if we don’t win the war, our enemies will,” McCain is attempting to impose a framework on Iraq that does not apply.  The Iraqis themselves defeated Al Qaeda and the extremists after they became tired of their extremism – with our troops playing a supporting role.  One of our primary functions in Iraq is preventing a civil war between the Iraqi ethnic groups.

The question is: Is McCain himself so deluded as to see Iraq as simply a battle between us and our enemies – like World War II – or is he merely using this framework to allow him to use Iraq as a political weapon and to paint his opponent as a “weak-kneed liberal”?

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A Liberal Defends George W. Bush’s Legacy

Or, how George W. Bush has been just awful enough

[Photo by schani licensed under the Creative Commons and found here.]

[digg-reddit-me]Many liberals argue that George W. Bush’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster; most libertarians see George W. Bush as the worst thing to happen to America since our government interned hundreds of thousands of Americans purely based on race and expanded government involvement in the economy at the same time. Even many conservatives now see George Bush’s tenure as a series of betrayals. The past eight years have been a dark time – with the specter of terrorism hanging over our lives – with an economy that has only benefited the elites – with America’s standing and influence in the world dropping precipitously – and with a government flailing about in attempts to prevent the next attack, attempts that have primarily succeeded in undermining our inherent liberties.

There is clearly a broad consensus that the Bush presidency has been a failure. A recent poll of historians recently ranked George W. Bush’s presidency as the worst in history; late last year, The Atlantic ran a cover story asking what lessons we can learn from Bush’s failed presidency; the American people have given George W. Bush the lowest approval ratings for a president since polls have been taken; and recent news reports have shown that over three quarters of Americans believe our country is on the wrong track. The consensus clearly is that Bush’s presidency has failed. It’s true that a number of conservatives have tried to defend Bush – Ross Douthat for example pointed out that Bush’s disasters do not rival the catastrophes of Civil War or Great Depression yet. But even the group considered the architect of many of Bush’s policies – the neo-conservatives, have begun to argue – as have failed ideologues again and again throughout history – that it was not that their ideas that failed – rather their ideas were never truly tried. Bush must know he is in trouble when even the neoconservatives are attacking him as weak and ineffective – or to use the term they use, “liberal”.

Having a somewhat contrary nature, I’m not so sure this almost universal consensus is true.

While I do see Bush’s presidency as a disaster, I believe a kind of redemption can be found in this disaster because Bush’s presidency: (a) could have been much worse; and (b) has created a unique historical opportunity.

My postulate is that George W. Bush’s presidency has been just bad enough to avoid destroying the core institutions that form the backbone of our society while creating a virtuous backlash that will strengthen these institutions in the long term. Bush has abused his power just enough, and aggravated festering issues just enough, and presided over a decline that was so sudden that he has created near ideal conditions to move the country in a positive direction.

Throughout history, the price of radicalism has been steep and the chances of reversing deep-seated trends has been long. Conservatives who opposed the social welfare programs of the New Deal tried and failed for a generation to rollback the programs that Franklin Delano Rooselvelt instituted in the wake of a Republican-abetted disaster. Unsuccessful and marginalized, these conservatives finally settled on a strategy of indirection. They called this strategy “starve-the-beast.” Seeing that they could not win by attacking the institutions of the New Deal directly, they decided to deliberately increase government spending to irresponsible levels while cutting taxes – which would leave no choice for a hypothetical future administration but to raise taxes massively or to reduce the size of government. ((What else but this strategy could explain Ronald Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s massive deficit spending?)) These conservatives realized that the only way to achieve the ends they sought was to create a set of circumstances that proved their opponents wrong, to discredit, through their actions, the basis of liberalism and create a virtuous backlash against excessive governance. They had seen that effective change throughout history had only occurred when the reigning ideology was proved bankrupt by circumstances. These conservatives believed that if they could undermine the credibility of government enough, their ideology would be the only alternative.

Unfortunately for these conservatives, whatever George W. Bush’s intentions were, his administration has been the most effective proponent of liberalism in modern times – as it demonstrated the bankruptcy of contemporary conservatism, undermined the credibility of the Republican Party, and created precisely opposite virtuous backlash than which they intended.

Bush’s effectiveness in advancing the goals he stood against comes has taken several interrelated forms:

  • Theoretical extremism: Although Bush has asserted virtually unlimited power – to torture, to detain anyone without charges, to engage in military action and wiretap without congressional approval – he has been relatively modest in his use of what he asserts are near unlimited powers. This has allowed significant forces to grow in opposition to this power grab without the widespread societal chaos that would have arisen out of a president fully exerting the powers he has claimed. (If Bush used the powers he asserts are his on a greater scale in America, our society would clearly be a totalitarian one. Instead, we remain a fragile liberal democracy until either Bush’s assertions of power are repudiated or are fully asserted.)
  • Overuse of a single method: Karl Rove directed three national campaigns – using national security, patriotism, and September 11 as partisan tools to bludgeon the Democrats. In each successive election dominated by these themes though, they lost effectiveness until 2006 when finally, they ceased being the controlling factor as the people – fooled for some of the time – handed an historic loss to the Republican Party. (If Karl Rove hadn’t used these themes so promiscously and shamelessly, more people might have put stock in the current smear campaign and fear-mongering being used against Obama and the Democrats.)
  • Exacerbating existing conditions: Bush has accelerated a number of longstanding trends: towards domestic inequality and the stratification of Americans into a class-like system; towards the decline in America’s power in the world; towards the government’s fiscal insolvency; towards the expansion of executive power; and towards the increase in the price of oil. This acceleration has exacerbated these issues so as to make them more noticeable.
    A lobster will not realize it is being cooked if it placed in a pot of water at room temperature and gradually boiled to death. In the same way, many Americans did not realize the dangers and the extent of the changes to American society that have been ongoing since at least the 1970s. The Bush administration – in a number of areas – raised the temperature fast enough and carelessly enough that many people have begun to notice. (If the price of oil had increased more regularly, people would be less worried about how it would be affecting them – and less attention would be paid to the largest transfer of wealth in human history that is currently taking place. If Iraq hadn’t demonstrated the limits to American power, it might have taken much longer for policy-makers to realize that we no longer live in a unipolar world.)
  • Suddenness: The suddenness of America’s decline in relevancy has led to a widespread desire for America to re-assume some leadership role with the next president – a desire reflected most significantly in the worldwide and domestic support for Barack Obama.

Bush has – in almost every respect – pointed America in the direction it needs to go. He has demonstrated what not to do. It is hard to imagine the libertarian or the progressive movements achieving their widespread support and strength if not for Bush’s presidency.

This election cycle has already demonstrated the strength of two responses to the Bush administration’s legacy – the libertarian response as embodied in the unlikely success of Ron Paul and the progressive response as embodied in the progressive netroots which powered Obama’s campaign. As a card-carrying civil libertarian and a lifelong progressive, Barack Obama has an opportunity to synthesize these two competing movements – to create a rough political consensus of the next steps we need to take. (I’ve written before both about how the libertarian movement and liberalism seem to be converging and about how Obama represents some part of this.) However, Obama’s vote for the FISA Amendments Act was a poor start to the creation of this alliance – as he took a position in defiance of both of these movements.

In a very real sense George W. Bush’s legacy depends on how well the next president is able to capitalize on the opportunity given to him – in this campaign and in his potential presidency. The final judgment on Bush will not be knowable when he leaves office. Rather, some years later we will be able to make a definitive judgment – after we see how intractable the problems he leaves for his successor are and when we see what precedents the next president will reject and which he will build upon. Bush may be forgiven for his disrespect for the Constitution if the next president repudiates these precedents. (After all, Washington was forgiven for Hamilton’s army; Lincoln was forgiven for becoming a tyrant for several weeks; and FDR was forgiven for trying to pack the Supreme Court.)

But while I argue that Bush’s primary legacy is that of a uniter-not-a-divider whose presidency set America on a better path, this rosy evaluation of Bush’s legacy still leaves three areas uncovered – areas in which Bush created unique problems rather than exacerbating existing ones: Iraq, the War on Terror, and global climate change.

Complications

Iraq

It is hard to imagine another president invading Iraq under the circumstances that George W. Bush did. The many American and the far more Iraqi dead that resulted from this foolish gamble, this dumb war, will surely burden his soul and must undermine any positive legacy he leaves behind. Even assuming the best of intentions, the Iraq war has proved to be a strategic blunder that has empowered Iran, destabilized the region, inspired more extremism, degraded our military, and only achieved the removal of minor antagonist. Making this strategic error worse was the hubris and idiocy that dogged every step of the occupation. Although our alliance of convenience with the Sunni extremists who were fighting us just a few months ago has helped to stabilize Iraq and even given the recent show of independence by the Iraqi president in his call for us to set a firm date of withdrawl, Iraq still has a long way to go before we can get out of this quagmire. Until we get out, the Iraq war will continue to eat our resources, undermine our global position, and strengthen our enemies.

The War on Terror

Domestically, the Bush administration has done virtually nothing to harden potential targets of terrorism – allowing the use of the funds appropriated for this purpose to be pissed away on pork barrel spending. The main steps it has taken within America seem designed primarily to expand executive power rather than to achieve any particular goals related to terrorism – asserting the power to crush the testicles of a potential terrorist’s child, to detain individuals without charges for indefinite periods of time, to torture, and to ignore any laws that limit the president’s power. Abroad, the Bush administration squandered our best opportunity to destroy Al Qaeda when it began to shift resources to Iraq and away from those who attacked us. The nexus of world terrorism shifted as a result of the War on Terror from the center of Afghanistan to the lawless areas of the Afghani-Pakistani border – where Chechnyan islamists, the remants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, veterans of the Zaraqawi’s Iraqi campaign, and other terrorists from around the world are now working together and with greater freedom than at any time since the attacks on September 11. The successes we have had in the War on Terror seem largely to be the fruits of our failures – as the islamist ideology has proven to be an unattractive one once it begins to rule any territory.

Global Climate Change

It is hard to imagine another president ignoring the growing signs and consensus of global climate change so steadfastly. The eight years the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases has wasted ignoring the problem – despite the near universal consensus of the scientific community – have made more drastic steps necessary to correct the problem before it is too late. What other president – with a legacy on climate change such as this – would have bragged at a recent G8 summit about being the “world’s biggest polluter“?

Conclusions

Lincoln Chafee, the Republican Senator from Rhode Island, observed upon first meeting Bush that Bush did not seem up to the job of being president. The past several years have proved this observation prescient. I cannot argue that Bush’s actions have been wise, although I do generally think that they have been well-intentioned. ((I know there are many who disagree.)) But while George W. Bush and his administration have committed petty crimes, war crimes, and constitutional violations, attacked liberties, advocated the preemptive surrender of American values, usurped independent branches of the government for partisan ends, and caused the injury and death of thousands of Americans citizens and citizens of the world – it is Bush who created this moment – this moment for renewal that has traditionally been what sets America apart.

While Ron Paul believed we needed a revoliution to begin to reverse the growing encroachment of government (even if that required the exploitation of poisonous racial resentments) – all we really needed was George W. Bush.

If America truly is a great nation – and in order to redeem the vision of the Constitution of the Founding Fathers, of that great address of Abraham Lincoln, of the square deal of Teddy Roosevelt and the four freedoms of his cousin, of the city on the hill that an old Hollywood actor once invoked – we must take advantage of this opportunity. The American moment is now – as all of us, feeling the fierce urgency of now, must work to restore the America that we grew up believing in – to restore the ideal and to form a more perfect union. Throughout the dark times in American history, Americans have believed and fought for this idea of America – to make this idea a reality and to protect this idea from the encroachments of tyranny and totalitarianism.

Change doesn’t come easy – but the greatest legacy of George W. Bush is that he has made it easier – and given us this opportunity to create a more perfect union. There will be obstacles and compomises in the days ahead – but (yes) we can achieve real change. Bush, more than anyone, deserves responsibility for that.

Categories
Domestic issues Election 2008 McCain National Security Obama Politics Reflections The War on Terrorism

Why I Am Still Supporting Barack Obama After His Vote For Telecom Immunity

[digg-reddit-me]Feelings are running high among us Obama supporters who also are strongly opposed to telecom immunity and the current FISA bill.

As the New York Times noted this weekend, the largest and most quickly growing group in Barack Obama’s social network was “Senator Obama – Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity – Get FISA Right“.  I had joined the group a few days before the article had come out because I, like many others, felt strongly about this issue.  I still do.  And I believe Barack Obama took the wrong position.

But what has astounded me in the past few days has been the overwrought emotionalism that – from my perspective – has caused many of Obama’s supporters to lose perspective on this issue.  Here’s a sample of some of the sentiments that have been sent out to all of the members of the “Get FISA Right” group in the past few hours, since Obama voted in support of the bill:

“A dream died today!”

“Obama just lost my vote!!!”

“As we are about to throw out the 4th amendment shall we redefine the Bill of Rights as the first 9 amendments, or should we just leave a blank between 3 and 5 as the 13th floor is left out in high rise buildings.”

“I think we finally got to see the side of Obama we all deep down, thought was there. Another money grubbing lawyer going along with the pack; saying one thing doing another.”

“Please stop giving your hard earned money to this fraud!”

“Today, the Constitution will be shredded at the hands of Democrats and Barack Obama. I no longer believe that voting makes a difference. I am completely dispirited. Obama’s talk of change is a sham.”

“I find myself today looking for Ralph Nader’s campaign website.”

Perhaps more honest than these sentiments, one writer started with this caveat:

“At this very moment, this is how I FEEL. It does not mean it is how I will follow through, merely how I feel…”

He then unleashed a tirade.  But at least he could see that he had lost some sense of perspective.

Glenn Greenwald, probably the foremost expert on this topic, one of the most influential opponents of this bill, who has been tirelessly pushing this issue through his blog and through guest appearances on radio shows was able to keep perspective when Obama first announced his turn-around on this issue:

There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important. But so, too, is the way that victory is achieved and what Obama advocates and espouses along the way.

The overheated rhetoric by these passionate supporters lends credence to the scoffing of the right-wingers who have insisted that Barack Obama’s support is weak because the young are naive and credulous and easily marginalized.

Truly – how many people supported Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel because of his position on telecom immunity?  Far fewer than are now peevishly demanding refunds for their donations.  This is an important issue – but it is far from the only issue.

Those of us who have been involved with politics before know that no matter how great the individual, you should never place your faith in a politician.  A knowledge of history teaches us that every great person is still limited by their times.  Abraham Lincoln – perhaps our greatest president – was vilified by the abolitionists of his day for being too pragmatic, for compromising too easily, for not sticking to his principles.  In the end, Lincoln’s greatness came not from the fact that he stood on principle and defeated his adversaries – but that he skillfully managed our nation through a great crisis and took every opportunity he thought prudent to achieve the ends he sought. But it was the people and the battles that created the opportunities.  Lincoln was only a great leader because during that long, hard war, we became a great people, willing to die for the fragile idea of freedom.

Barack Obama is not Abraham Lincoln, and we are not in a civil war.  But we do face a very real crisis of identity and very real threats from at home and abroad.  What we need to remember – as citizens – is that Obama is not and cannot be our savior.  What Obama’s campaign has always been about is us.  Unlike Hillary Clinton or John McCain or any other candidate, Obama’s campaign was about the movement that was supporting him.  Which is why both Clinton’s and McCain’s campaigns have focused their attacks on Obama’s supporters as well as the candidate himself.  For the past few weeks, McCain has been trying to put a wedge between Obama and his supporters – based on the theory that if he can paint Obama as “just another politician,” the youth vote that has been expected to throw the last few elections to the Democrats will forget to show up, again.

Obama is another politician.  An uncommonly good one.  An uncommonly thoughtful one.  An unusually astute one.  But like very person, and like every politician, he has made a mistake and voted for an awful bill.

I still support Obama.  And so should you. Winning this election is not about Obama – but about the movement.  If we do not become a great people, then neither Obama nor any other politician can become a great president.

Obama has spoken positively about how this movement should put pressure on him and every other politician to do the right thing – and with his campaign he has created and with his presidency he has promised to create more of the tools to do just that.  No one will get every issue right – but the core reason to support Obama, as Lawrence Lessig has argued, is because he supports reforming the process to allow citizens to truly engage with power – by making the government more transparent and more accountable.  He also happens to be on the right side of most of these issues – supporting increased transparency in Washington, restoring habeas corpus, ending our neo-empire in the Middle East, opposing wars of choice, net neutrality, and many other issues.

For those who have declared that the “dream” died today – stop dreaming about Barack Obama and start working to get our nation back on the right track.  Electing Barack Obama is only the first step, as today’s events have proven.

I am disappointed in him.  And I think criticism is warranted.  But temper tantrums rarely do anyone any good.

This disappointment will not diminish one iota my determination to have Barack Obama elected the next President of the United States of America. This is our moment.  Let’s not let momentary disappointment lead to a disengagement with politics.