M. Kane Jeeves (sometimes credited as Ed Naha) 7/3/2006
The Star-Spangled Bungle
Filed under: Constructive Criticism — MrBogle @ 4:41 pm
Ah, July 4th. Independence Day. A day we pay tribute to the Declaration of Independence and our founding fathers by getting blotto, nuking burgers, cremating hot dogs, wiping globs of mustard from our gobs with American Flag napkins, watching NASCAR racers drive around in circles real fast and, if we are still conscious, taking in fireworks displays.

George W. Bush got an early taste of fireworks last week when the Supreme Court ruled, 5-3, that Bush had overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trails for Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying in a stinging rebuke that the trials were illegal under both U.S. and international law.

Ripples in the already wild-eyed Republican Party were tsunami-sized and immediate, with some Republicans wondering aloud if American troops and/or their commanders could be tried as war criminals. Funny they should mention that. While unlikely, sure.

Nearly all of the world has gone on record condemning the detainee camps at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and the secret detention centers in Europe. So, of course, Republican pundits were shocked, shocked that the Supreme Court would be “pro-terrorist.”

Wringing their hands, they wondered aloud if this activist court’s ruling would impact all the other super-duper secret programs that Bush has put into place to fight terriers; everything from the illegal wiretaps, to the phone monitoring, to the bank account snooping to the “up-skirt” cams that Dick Cheney wears on his shoes.

On the plus side, the ruling got them off their “New York Times” whining jag for a couple of days.

For his part, Bush was all over the place. “ I assure you that we take them very seriously.” (Good for you, Sparky.)

“The American people need to know that this ruling, as I understand it, won’t cause killers to be put out on the streets.” (It was a ruling, Dude. Not the script of “Con-Air.”)

Vowing to “conform” with the Court’s ruling (Very big of him, eh?), he also said: “One thing I’m not going to do, though, is I’m not going to jeopardize the safety of the American people.” (What does that actually mean. You’d defy the Court? Put on a jeweled crown and a pair of tights?)

Seemingly caught in the grip of a military tribunal “Jones,” he said “…As I understand it…there is a way forward with military tribunals in working with the United Sates Congress….To the extent that the Congress has given any latitude to develop a way forward using military tribunals, we will work with them.” (Better late than never, I guess.)

Of course, the next day, he was cavorting in Graceland with that hunka-hunka burning Junichiro Kouizumi.

The ruling itself was astonishing in a couple of ways. First off, it came from the same outfit that installed our belligerent buckaroo into The White House. Secondly, Bush has jammed two conservatives onto the court, making many fear that the Supremes would trade in their black robes for white ones. Still, Bush got a solid Moe Howard legal poke in the eye.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the court, said the Bush administration lacked the authority to take the “extraordinary measure” of scheduling special military trials for inmates, in which defendants have fewer legal protections than in civilian U.S. courts.

The Supreme Court ruling embraced Article 3 of the Geneva conventions. Article 3 prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, “in particular humiliating and degrading treatment,” and bars violence, including murder, mutilation and torture. Or, as it’s known in the White House, “Tough Love, American Style.”

“Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his opinion. “Concentration of power (in the executive branch) puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the Constitution’s three-part system is designed to avoid.”

In his own opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said, “Congress has not issued the executive a ‘blank check.’”

“Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary,” Breyer wrote.

So, of course, Congress has already announced plans to give the boy King whatever he wants because, as we all know, we’re winning the war on terror.

Uh, not really.

Last Wednesday, 100 national security and terrorism analysts surveyed for a poll conducted by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank headed by John Podesta (former Clinton chief of staff), released their findings.

More than eight in 10 of the national security experts don’t agree with President Bush’s claims that the U.S. is winning the fight against terrorism, and the Iraq war is the biggest reason why.

Asked whether the United States is “winning the war on terror,” 84 percent said no and 13 percent answered yes. Asked whether the war in Iraq is helping or hurting the global anti-terrorism campaign, 87 percent answered that it was undermining those efforts. A similar number, 86 percent, said the world is becoming “more dangerous for the United States and the American people.”

They refused to offer opinions on the whole “Freedom Fries” thing.

87 percent believed that Gitmo has had a negative impact on our national security, along with the US policy towards Iran (60 percent) and the US’s energy policy (64 percent).

Of the experts queried, 45 identified themselves as liberals, 40 said they were moderates and 31 called themselves conservatives. The pollsters then weighted the responses so that the percentage results reflected one-third participation by each group.

Nearly 80 percent of the participants had worked in the U.S. government–of these more than half were in the executive branch, one third in the military, and 17 percent in the intelligence community.

“The war in Iraq broke our back in the war on terror,” said former CIA official and conservative Republican Michael Scheuer, author of “Imperial Hubris,” a book highly critical of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism efforts. “It has made everything more difficult and the threat more existential.”

Perfect, now Bush has led us into existentialism. What’s next? Nihilism? Cheney getting into Absurdism? No, strike that. He’s beaten me to the punch on that one.

“Foreign-policy experts have never been in so much agreement about an administration’s performance abroad,” said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and an index participant. “The reason is that it’s clear to nearly all that Bush and his team have had a totally unrealistic view of what they can accomplish with military force and threats of force.”

Please, God. Don’t let anyone in the White House read “Waiting for Godot.”

Eighty-four percent of the experts said they believe a terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, is likely or certain to happen in the next five years. More than a quarter said a 9/11-scale attack is certain to occur in America within the next decade. Asked about the likelihood of a smaller strike akin to the July 2005 London bombings, 91 percent agreed that such an attack is likely or certain by 2016; more than half said that such an attack could happen this year. But, how can this be? Bush says we’re winning!

(A recent study by the Rand Corp. found that 81 percent of all suicide attacks in the past three decades have occurred since September 11th, 2001 and the primary motivational force was America’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Well, if nothing else, BushCo.’s policy can be seen as inspirational.)

Almost 80 of those surveyed thought that diplomacy and cultural sensitivity is the best way to lead to the global rejection of extremist ideologies, yet they rated America’s current diplomatic efforts a stunning 1.8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Okay, these weirdoes would probably burn a flag if they got the chance. I mean, don’t they know we’re protected by Homeland Security? Oh, yeah. They do. They rated it’s effectiveness at a whopping 2.9, with 36 percent of those polled saying DHS has actually negatively impacted national security.

So how did the Republican warriors react to this devastating assessment. Correct! They didn’t! Hot off the heels of trying to save the flag from anti-patriotic pyros and calling for the imprisonment of “New York Times” reporters, they let this one slide, moving on to staining themselves over the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Republicans were tripping over themselves this past weekend on the political shows, trying to figure out a legal way to overrule the Geneva conventions. Sniff. It was truly inspiring…like watching a dozen people accidentally sitting on a live fireworks tube.

Speaking of fireworks, the first July 4th celebration occurred in 1877, while Americans waged war against tyranny. The Declaration of Independence was written to tell THEIR King George to butt out. “No taxation without representation!” was the battle cry. Today it would be “We have no taxation and no representation. We got bupkiss.”

On July 4, 2001, President George W. Bush spoke outside Independence Hall, Philadelphia, birthplace of the Declaration of Independence. That document, he said, continues to represent “the standard to which we hold others, and the standard by which we measure ourselves. Our greatest achievements have come when we have lived up to these ideals. Our greatest tragedies have come when we have failed to uphold them.”

And he said that with a straight face.

Perhaps we can all sign a second Declaration of Independence this November in the ballot box.

Throw the royal scalawags out.

Let the fireworks begin!