Home > War on terrorism makes Bush dangerous and above the law
War on terrorism makes Bush dangerous and above the law
by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 11 August 2004By Allister Sparks
The American political system has long been a mystery to most South Africans. This is partly because of its division of powers, with the executive separated from the legislature, and because of the way American parties choose their leaders afresh every four years.
But mainly the confusion has stem-med from the difficulty of distinguishing between the Democratic and Republican parties. America has never had a socialist tradition, so there has never been a replication of the European tradition of a socialist left and capitalist right. All Americans are capitalists, which has given a monochromatic cast to the political line-up, making it hard to distinguish between, for example, Bill Clinton and George Bush 1.
Historically, Republicans have been regarded as representing the old establishment, old money and big business, while the Democratic Party arose to give voice to the various waves of immigrants, the "storm and tempest-tossed" who flocked from the old world to the new in times of trouble. So the Democratic Party became identified with those lower down the economic ladder, the workers, the labour unions, the little guy.
But any simple conservative-liberal labelling became blurred when Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president who abolished slavery and declared war on the South, caused embittered white Southerners to close ranks and effectively banish the Republican Party from the South for the next 100 years as they chose their political representatives at "white primary" Democratic meetings, who were then unopposed on election day.
This meant that while Northern Democrats in the US congress were generally liberal, those from the South were deeply conservative. Voting patterns frequently crossed party lines.
This has partly changed with the outlawing of the "white primary", enabling the Republican Party to move in and start gaining the support of conservative white Southerners. But the confusion has persisted.
No longer. Suddenly the contest between John Kerry and George W Bush has become crystal clear. Election watchers in this country may not be all that sure what Kerry stands for - he is trying to draw swing voters away from Bush by pitching to the centre - but they certainly know what Bush stands for. And in a visceral way they know he is dangerous.
He is dangerous because the president of the US commands the most powerful nation in the history of the world, whose decisions affect everyone. They turn on issues of war and peace, safety and danger, which involve us all.
If ever we needed reminding of this it surely came last week with news that two South Africans have been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of planning terror attacks in South Africa for al-Qaeda. Bush’s "war on terrorism" and its accompanying rhetoric, have inflamed passions throughout the Muslim world and prompted a massive growth in recruitment for al-Qaeda - the consequences of which have suddenly come a lot closer to home.
The distressing thing about Bush is he has taken the world and the American people for a ride. He campaigned for election as a moderate Republican, proclaiming himself to be a "compassionate conservative" who would run an inclusive administration. After his controversial election, and given that he came to power on a minority of votes, such moderation and inclusivity seemed doubly appropriate.
Yet he has done the opposite. Within months Bush seized on the atrocity of 9/11 to reinvent himself as a radical nationalist intent on revolutionising the US domestically and in its role in the world.
In September 2002, as he prepared to launch his war on Iraq, Bush an-nounced a new National Security Strategy, dubbed the Bush Doctrine, which was breathtaking in its implications. It sought, quite simply, to establish permanent American hegemony in the world, and the right to undertake pre-emptive war to ensure that.
the 33-page document declared: "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States."
The document went on to declare the doctrines of containment and deterrence, the hallmarks of American foreign policy since the end of World War 2, to be dead.
In the light of 9/11, it said, there was no way to deter those who hate the US and what it stands for. Therefore American military strategy had to shift from containment and deterrence to pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups capable of developing weapons of mass destruction.
Moreover, the document stated bluntly that when American interests were perceived to be at stake there would be no compromises. "Those who are not with us are against us."
The US would seek allies, but if these were not forthcoming "we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defence by acting pre-emptively".
As American intellectual Noam Chomsky has noted, many countries have the potential and ability to produce weapons of mass destruction, while intent is in the eye of the beholder. It means the US has arrogated to itself the right to attack anyone it thinks, or imagines, hates it and what it stands for.
Or as Arthur Schlesinger, the Harvard historian and adviser to President John Kennedy, puts it: "The president has adopted a policy of ’anticipatory self-defence’ that is alarmingly similar to the policy imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbour."
This means the right to launch a pre-emptive attack against a potential enemy, the right to do so alone regardless of world opinion, and presumably the right to do so by surprise. As a foreign policy doctrine, that surely takes the cake. It sweeps aside all established international law and institutions. Bush has proclaimed a new world order in which the US runs the show.
Moreover, he is changing the US internally to fit this role. Having launched such a pre-emptive war against another country suspected of having evil intent, Bush has established the precedent of proclaiming those who try to resist his invasion as "unlawful combatants" to whom the Geneva Conventions do not apply.
Some senior officials have gone so far as to suggest that the president, in his capacity as commander-in-chief, has the right to order the torture of prisoners captured in such a war to extract information from them.
"The information gained from interrogations may prevent future attacks by foreign enemies," reads a memorandum prepared by two justice department officials in August 2003. "Any effort to apply (the criminal law against torture) in a manner that interferes with the president’s direction of such a core matter as the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants would thus be unconstitutional."
A defence department memorandum seven months later said the same, implying that when it comes to the "war on terrorism", which is undeclared and without end, the president is above the law.
That is what this year’s US elec-tion is all about. Another four years of such radical nationalist aggression and the world will be a much more dangerous place for all of us.
Sparks is a veteran journalist and political commentator.