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The Imperial Presidency

Comment by Larry Ross, January 15, 2007

A summary of a few important points in the following paper follows:

"After years of interrogation and abuse have established that few, if any, of the hundreds of Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay are the deadly terrorists they have been held out to be, why are we still holding them?"

Bush makes provocative statements claiming "the executive branch holds the power to open mail as it sees fit."

The purpose of Guantanamo is not so much to find and eradicate terror, "The object is a larger one, and the original overarching goal of this administration: expanding executive power, for its own sake."

Bush claims "the right to label enemy combatants (including US citizens) and detain them indefinitely without charges."

"The end game in the war on terror isn't holding the line against terrorists. Its holding the line on hard fought claims to absolutely limitless presidential authority."  Vice President Cheney's Chief-of-Staff, David Addington defined, "The New Paradigm, a constitutional theory of virtually limitless executive power, wherein the President, as Commander in Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if (he defines then decrees)  that national security demands it."

Bush Administration insiders claimed that Addington and Cheney had been "laying the groundwork" for a vast expansion of presidential power long before 9/11."

"This new found authority - to maintain a disastrous Guantanamo, to stage rights-free tribunals and hold detainees forever- is the kind of power Nixon only dreamed about." It is "an imperial presidency, whatever the human cost may be."

So far, the neocon conspirators plan has been successful, including the chaos and civil war in Iraq. They need this situation in Iraq, to justify their permanent military bases and occupation, and continuing exploitation and corruption. A series of weak American appointed and dominated puppet regimes will ensure the Americans will always be needed to fight ' the terrorists' and promote 'freedom and democracy in the green zone of Baghdad'.

By continuing to generate continuing and more opposition in Iraq, as well as more US casualties, the Bush neocons can twist that to blame Iran and Syria, as they are now doing,  thus justifying the next conquest in their middle east war plan.

As Bush is now demonstrating, the "limitless executive power" he has already acquired since 2001, is facilitating this next big step toward endless wars and unlimited profits.

It is amazing and puzzling, why so many people, including astute political commentators and Bush watchers, seem to be fooled or deceived by many aspects of this unfolding slow motion march toward an unparalleled disaster.

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Absolute Power

The real reason the Bush administration won't back down on Guantanamo.

by Dahlia Lithwick, January 14, 2007

Why is the United States poised to try Jose Padilla as a dangerous terrorist, long after it has become perfectly clear that he was just the wrong Muslim in the wrong airport on the wrong day?

Why is the United States still holding hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, long after years of interrogation and abuse have established that few, if any, of them are the deadly terrorists they have been held out to be?

And why is President Bush still issuing grandiose and provocative signing statements, the latest of which claims that the executive branch holds the power to open mail as it sees fit?

Willing to give the benefit of the doubt, I once believed the common thread here was presidential blindness—an extreme executive-branch myopia that leads the president to believe that these futile little measures are somehow integral to combating terrorism. That this is some piece of self-delusion that precludes Bush and his advisers from recognizing that Padilla is just a chump and Guantanamo merely a holding pen for a jumble of innocent and half-guilty wretches.

But it has finally become clear that the goal of these foolish efforts isn't really to win the war against terrorism; indeed, nothing about Padilla, Guantanamo, or signing statements moves the country an inch closer to eradicating terror. The object is a larger one, and the original overarching goal of this administration: expanding executive power, for its own sake.

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