[Peace-discuss] Bush's arogance

[patton paul]

By Whose Authority?

By Michael Kinsley
Friday, March 21, 2003; Page A37

Until this week, the president's personal authority to use America's
military might was subject to two opposite historical trends. On the one
hand, there is the biggest scandal in constitutional law: the gradual
disappearance of the congressional declaration of war. Has there ever been
a war more suited to a formal declaration -- started more deliberately,
more publicly, with less urgency and at more leisure -- than the American
war on Iraq? Right or wrong, Gulf War II resembles the imperial forays of
earlier centuries more than the nuclear standoffs and furtive terrorist
hunts of the 20th and 21st. Yet George W. Bush, like all recent
presidents, claims for his person the sovereign right to launch such a
war. Like his predecessors, he condescends only to accept blank-check
resolutions from legislators cowed by the fear of appearing disloyal to
troops already dispatched.

On the other hand, since the end of World War II the United States has at
least formally agreed to international constraints on the right of any
nation, including itself, to start a war. These constraints were often
evaded but rarely just ignored. And evasion has its limits, enforced by
the sanction of embarrassment. This gave these international rules at
least some real bite.

But Bush defied embarrassment and slew it with a series of Orwellian
flourishes. If the United Nations wants to be "relevant," he said, it must
do exactly as he says. In other words, in order to be relevant, it must
become irrelevant. When that didn't work, he said: I am ignoring the
wishes of the Security Council and violating the United Nations charter,
in order to enforce a U.N. Security Council resolution. No, no, don't
thank me! My pleasure!

By Monday night, though, in his 48-hour-warning speech, the references to
international law and the United Nations had become vestigial. Bush's
defense of his decision to make war on Iraq was basic: "The United States
of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own
national security." He did not claim that Iraq is a present threat to
America's own national security but suggested that "in one year or five
years" it could be such a threat. In the 20th century, threats from
murderous dictators were foolishly ignored until it was too late. In this
century, "terrorists and terrorist states" do not play the game of war by
the traditional rules. They "do not reveal these thres with fair notice in
formal declarations." Therefore, "responding to such enemies only after
they have struck first is not self-defense. It is suicide."

What is wrong with Bush's case? Sovereign nations do have the right to act
in their own self-defense, and they will use that right no matter what the
U.N. charter says or how the Security Council votes. Waiting for an enemy
to strike first can indeed be suicidal. So?

So, first of all, the right that Bush is asserting really has no limits,
because the special circumstances he claims aren't really special.
Striking first in order to preempt an enemy that has troops massing along
your border is one thing. Striking first against a nation that has never
even explicitly threatened your sovereign territory, except in response to
your own threats, because you believe that this nation may have weapons
that could threaten you in five years, is something very different.

Bush's suggestion that the furtive nature of war in this new century
somehow changes the equation is also dubious, and it contradicts his
assertion that the threat from Iraq is "clear." Even in traditional
warfare, striking first has often been considered an advantage. And even
before this century, nations rarely counted on receiving an enemy's
official notice of intention to attack five years in advance. Bush may be
right that the threat from Iraq is real, but he is obviously wrong that it
is "clear," or that other nations as interested in self-preservation as we
are (and almost as self-interested in the preservation of the United
States as we are) would see it as we do, which most do not.

Putting all this together, Bush is asserting the right of the United
States to attack any country that may be a threat to it in five years. And
the right of the United States to evaluate that risk and respond in its
sole discretion. And the right of the president to make that decision on
behalf of the United States in his sole discretion. In short, the
president can start a war against anyone at any time, and no one has the
right to stop him. And presumably other nations and future presidents have
that same right. All formal constraints on war-making are officially
defunct.

Well, so what? Isn't this the way the world works anyway? Isn't it naive
and ultimately dangerous to deny that might makes right? Actually, no.
Might is important, probably most important, but there are good, practical
reasons for even might and right together to defer sometimes to procedure,
law and the judgment of others. Uncertainty is one. If we knew which
babies would turn out to be murderous dictators, we could smother them in
their cribs. If we knew which babies would turn out to be wise and
judicious leaders, we could crown them dictator. In terms of the power he
now claims, without significant challenge, George W. Bush is now the
closest thing in a long time to dictator of the world. He claims to see
the future as clearly as the past. Let's hope he's right.

 2003 The Washington Post Company