"I'm the decision-maker"

President Bush has effectively told Congress to put up or shut up regarding his plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq by 21,500 in an attempt to bring some semblance of order to Baghdad. I believe this is the first decision the Bush Administration has made since the Fall of Baghdad and the widespread looting began that responds to the realities on the ground. While I was sympathetic to the President's desire to remove Saddam Hussein, this war has undoubtedly been one of the most ineptly executed wars in history. Now that the President is trying to do something to adapt our strategy, he has not committed nearly enough troops, he is placing too much faith in the al-Maliki Government, and Congress (newly invigorated by a Democratic majority) is balking.

The President asked for a chance for his plan to work during the State of the Union speech earlier this week, and if I were in Congress, I would be inclined to support his plan, if only to give the U.S. one last chance to set things right before we will be forced to leave the Iraqis to their own vices. Nevertheless, I am also sympathetic to the concerns of the vast majority of Representatives and Senators who are finally standing up and letting their voices be heard. Now that they are providing oversight of the war, it is hardly constructive for the President to demand his critics put forward their own plan or remain silent.

The President is indeed the Commander-in-Chief and the decision-maker regarding how best to conduct military operations in a theatre of war, but this fact cuts both ways. He can't expect alternative war plans and strategies from the Congress. That is not the role of Congress. There is one Commander, and that is the President. But Congress holds the purse strings, and the Constitution empowers Congress with oversight of Administration activities and organization of the military. While Congress cannot force the Administration to abandon its current plan to increase troop levels, Congress does have the capabilities of refusing funding for new troop levels or passing restrictive legislation regulating the use of the military, e.g., limits on where the Army can be deployed.

It seems the President can irritate Congress further and risk legislation that would effectively shut down any further U.S. involvement in Iraq, or he can work with Senators and Representatives to address their concerns. Despite Kelly's ruminations to the contrary, this is far from a monarchy and the Presidency is only one of three co-equal branches.

King George

Not only has the administration decided that they don't need the moral high-ground, they have shown that they don't care to even maintain a thin veneer of fairness. All it takes to be denied your rights is for one person, holding supreme power, to label you as an "unlawful enemy combatant", no due process, no appeal, and no reprieve.

Do I want the country to be attacked by terrorists? Absolutely not! But when there is a greater chance of dying in a traffic-accident than a terrorist attack, it seems foolish to spend billions on expensive toys and promises to protect us from the boogie-man when tens of thousands of people die every year in preventable deaths, for the lack of money.

Let's examine our forefathers complaints against the English King. From the Declaration of Independence we have:

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." and "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers." Signing statements anyone?

"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:", the Attorney General of the United States has the audacity to argue in front of a Congressional hearing that the 'Habeas Corpus' clause doesn't really apply to the President.

"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:" extraordinary Renditions were just rumors but have become frighteningly real.

"For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:" Read more about this at Slate.

"He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us." How better to describe our own Congress passing a bill that allows the President to declare a U.S. citizen to be beyond the protection of the Constitution? If you think this is just the ranting of a madman and could never happen here, just ask Jose Pedilla.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." Whenever criticism is raised, the answer is, 'I'm doing it for your own good' or 'Do you want the Terrorists to win?" He has become blind to injustice and deaf to reason. His logic is starkly, to protect America it is necessary to use any means, at any cost. I say to you, at what cost to our credibility? At what cost to our principles?

The Founding Fathers believed so strongly in their cause that they put it in writing, "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

What has our President pledged? Invasion of privacy? Protection of the Constitution on his whim?

It can not be stated any simpler than, would you trade your liberty for safety? Despots can do a great job of keeping you safe. There was no crime under Stalin, Hitler; or more currently Kim Jung Il. What they can not do is make you free. They stoke the patriotic blaze by feeding your fears with tales of untold crime and violence and then assuage those fears with soothing words and pretty baubles. They desire your trust, willingly given in trade for the offer of safety from shadows, the calm complacency that comes from letting others do the dirty work. Secrecy is their watch-word, for theirs is a bargain of illusions, cooks willing to make sausage as long as you don't ask from whence comes the meat.

The Republican party has been duplicitous in setting up an American Monarch, while the Democrats have stood silent as our rights were sent to the gallows. When there is no one left in Congress to defend our rights when the President comes for them, who will defend you when His men come for you?

All hail King George.

The Inhumanity of Politics

Why did the Founding Fathers take the limitation of the power of the State so seriously? The NPR story linked to in the title gives ample evidence that people with a political stake in the status-quo and having the power of the State to wield will often succumb to hubris, deluding themselves that the ends justify the means. Is protecting ourselves from would-be terrorists in the heat of a paranoid witchhunt worth losing the moral high-ground earned over decades of standing by our principles of fair-treatment and human rights?

Is Mr. Pedilla a criminal? Maybe. Is he a terrorist? Maybe he'd like to think he is. Is he dangerous? I doubt he'd crack the top 1,000. Does he deserve to be treated the way he has? Most definitely not.

When it comes to the governments treatment of detainees, the Bush administration would like us to believe that anything that gets the bad-guy to confess is ok. Congress is complicit when they passed a bill that allows procedures that would not be Constitutional if used in our courts.

The question to ask is, would you consider the treatment or procedure in question acceptable if used on your spouse, son/daughter, or brother/sister by some other country? If the answer is no, then why are we allowing our country to do it to anybody for any reason?

Losing our Human Countenance?

Maclin Horton's Light On Dark Water has asked a very important question:

Can we really look around at our society and say it is not in danger (at least) of losing its human countenance?

Maclin's reflections which lead to his question should give pause to all Americans, no matter their political leanings:

Most conservatives have always acknowledged the principle that, in the words of Pope JPII, “there are many human needs which find no place on the market.” But the principle remained an abstraction in the hurly-burly of political life, especially when the opposition was more or less socialist. The predation, the commercialization, the inanities, the saturation marketing of big business were perhaps something to be sighed over—but, after all, prosperity is fundamentally a good thing, and conservatives are rightly prejudiced in favor of liberty, even when we aren’t entirely pleased with its fruits.

The time is past when that response is adequate. With corporations increasingly able and willing to sell—not just to sell, but to market with the utmost cunning and aggression—anything to anybody, and to exert the considerable power of their wealth and propaganda on behalf of “progressive” causes which attack religion, the family and indeed the person at the root, it’s time for some sort of definite resistance. There should be the potential here for alliances with political liberals in limiting corporate power, although I’m not sure how much interest “social issue” liberals have in doing such a thing now that corporations are increasingly on their side.

It seems the old lines of conservative and liberal do not work anymore. They are antiquated labels in a globalized, homogenized world increasingly run by megacorporations. I believe in free-market capitalism, but I also believe in social responsibility and our human obligation to care for the widow and orphan. This is not a responsibility we can shove off to the government and wash our hands of. It is something staring each and every one of us in the face, demanding that we live in the shoes of our humanity.

The principles of American government

Greg Krehbiel at Crowhill makes an insightful observation on the true genius of the Founding Fathers:

I was talking with one of my kids this evening about education and government and separation of powers and whatnot, and to illustrate the most significant insight of the founding fathers I said that the basic principle of American government is to find the guy at the top of the heap, knock him down and paint a silly mustache on his face. For that, the founding fathers deserve our endless respect.