Bush’s Failed Empire and the Hamdan Decision

Posted by Myrna the Minx on July 26, 2006 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Go to Tom Engelhardt’s TomDispatch to read two excellent essays. The first is “Why The Court Said No“by David Cole on the recent Hamdan Supreme Court decision. Cole explains convincingly why the decision is an even stronger repudiation of the Bush Administration’s power grap than most realize.

In the second essay, “Too Late for Empire,” Jonathon Schell, asks if the United States will finally learn the limitations of the use of force after so many failed attempts. He explores the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam and other historical moments that tell a story of failed imperialsm. An excerpt:

Dick Cheney, who had served as Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford, drew an opposite lesson — that the powers others called imperial were in fact the proper ones for the presidency and had been eviscerated by the opposition to Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. As he has put it, “Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the 1970s, served, I think, to erode the authority…the President needs to be effective, especially in the national security area.” Taking the Nixon presidency as a model rather than a cautionary tale, he sees new usurpation as restoration. In doing so, he brings an old theme back in new guise — that American weakness in the world is caused by domestic opponents at home. In his view domestic subversion — this time of executive authority, not misguided imperial ambition — is the country’s problem.

Two must reads.