President at war in 2006

Bush in self-declared state of war, grants himself Commander-in-Chief override of the law

A few posts ago I discussed the post-911 Enabling Act that President Bush has seized upon as the key underlying trigger for his constitutional authority to declare -- by his own fiat -- persons as ``enemy combatants'' and to imprison them indefinitely without charge or trial. Fit into the larger picture now evidently is unlimited presidential authority for warrantless spying on whoever he says he wants.

Amidst wounded soldiers in San Antonio, the president thusly greets the new year...

President Bush, Sunday: We're at war, and as Commander-in-Chief, I've got to use the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people. And that's what we're doing....Now, some say, well, maybe this isn't a war; maybe this is just a law enforcement operation. I strongly disagree. We're at war with an enemy that wants to hurt us again, and the American people expect the Commander-in-Chief to protect them, and that's exactly what I intend to do.

This amazing declaration has always been entirely hyperbolic, despite the horror of 911 and the very real possibility of more domestic terrorism -- specifically the detonation of a nuclear weapon on US soil. The US is not at war. It has invaded two broken countries and faces continuing resistance. But there is no party with whom to be at war, except perhaps the civilian populations of Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe even the entire Muslim world, or maybe political opponents perceived to be standing in the way of the imperial policies and energy resource controls desired by George W. Bush and his cronies.

I like the way Atrios put it:

The issue is simple: Bush has declared that one man has the right to make the law whenever, in his determination, national security warrants it. While even I can understand the necessity of broad executive powers in emergency situations, we aren't anywhere close to being in one of those. If Bush decides that personally shooting dissident bloggers or pesky journalists in the head is in fact necessary for national security, then no one can object. The fact that he has not, as far as we know, done any such thing does not matter in the slightest. By conferring dictatorial authority on himself Bush has declared that this is, in fact, a dictatorship even if he hasn't (yet) bothered using such authorities to the fullest of his claimed ability.

A policy of invasion coupled with lawless domestic spying and repression in response to what amounts to a bomb threat makes no sense, even on its own merits. Let's take Iraq. The cost there is by the president's own count 30,000 innocent lives. (Note here, all Iraqis, Sunni, Shia, Kurd, or otherwise are 100% innocent of the atrocities of 911.) Has even one of those lost lives contributed to the greater good of the safety of the American people? No way! Just the opposite is true. We now have tens of thousands (probably millions) more foreign people interested in harming Americans for revenge.

And what for? Iraq is a political mess that America simply will not be able to clean up. As I quoted Patrick Cockburn a couple of weeks ago, ``The election marks the final shipwreck of American and British hopes of establishing a pro-western secular democracy in a united Iraq. Islamic fundamentalist movements are ever more powerful in both the Sunni and Shia communities. `In two-and-a-half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq,' said Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator... The election, billed by Mr Bush and Mr Blair, as the birth of a new Iraqi state may in fact prove to be its funeral.''

Bush to McCain: go screw
Political assertions of the Bush imperium
Meanwhile, President Bush has made it clear that there will be no Congressional interference with his imperial authority. This is evident from his recent statement accompanying his signature on the Defense Authorization Bill containing the McCain anti-torture amendment:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

Marty Lederman at Balkinization analyzes this and the accompanying Graham amendment limiting habeas review for foreign detainees to mean that the US still will be waterboarding them as it damn well sees fit.