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COMMENTARY:
Bush War III: Going to War to Save His Hide
The latest to warn about a Bush War III is former Democratic senator and one-time presidential aspirant Gary Hart, long an expert on national security issues, who says that targeting drones and special forces targeting specialists are already operating over and inside Iran, sizing up and locating as many as 400 targets for U.S. cruise missiles and bombers. This is in anticipation of an aerial strike which my own research suggests could come as early as late October (See "War Signals" in The Nation online.
According to this confirmed White House criminal (he has been found guilty by the US Supreme Court of violating the US War Crimes Statutes and by a Federal District Court of violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment), he has the power as "commander in chief in time of war" to act in violation of both Constitution and law, as he sees fit.
The "war" in question is the so-called "War on Terror." The title Commander in Chief derives from the wording of Article II of the Constitution, in which the Founding Fathers said that a president would simultaneously be the top general of the military. Bush claims, with the backing of his "mob attorney," Alberto Gonzales, the head of what used to be known quaintly as the Justice Department, that when Congress, in the wake of the 9-11 attacks in 2001, voted an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against Al Qaeda--a measure that was meant to give the go-ahead for an attack on Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan--it was also giving him the power to act as Commander-in-Chief in a war on terror that would have no end and that would extend anywhere and everywhere in the world and within the borders of the U.S.
He claims, in other words, that the October 2001 Congressional AUMF effectively made him a generalissimo, a dictator, for as long as there were terrorists foreign or domestic trying to harm Americans or American interests.
We need only note how Bush, in his address at the UN General Assembly last week, was careful to describe the leaders of Iran as "supporters of terror." It was a carefully chosen construct which meant he is asserting his right to attack them as part of that phony "war" on terror, based upon the long-outdated and grossly misrepresented 2001 AUMF.
Unless the American people and their ostensible representatives in Congress act quickly to make it clear that the 2001 AUMF does not apply to an attack on Iran, and that it did not make the president a dictator with the power to make war at will, I’m betting that we'll be at war with Iran before Election Day.
Let's be clear. This has nothing to do with a threat to America. Even by the most generous of interpretations of administration-hyped "evidence" about Iran's alleged nuclear weapons development efforts, Iran could not have a nuclear weapon for four years or more (with some estimates saying ten to 15 years). That's plenty of time to mount a successful diplomatic campaign to block it.
No, incredibly this is all about an election. To put the matter bluntly, we have a president who is willing to put tens of thousands of American soldiers' lives at risk, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iranian lives at risk, simply to avoid having the Congress fall into the hands of the Democratic Party.
Why would Bush be willing to do such a thing, against the advice of his generals, against the wishes of the American people, and against all logic and decency?
At this point, all this president cares about is saving his own sorry hide.
It's a disheartening spectacle, but hardly surprising for a man who worked so hard and shamelessly to protect that same pampered hide during the Vietnam War by joining the National Guard and then checking a box saying he would not be available for overseas assignment. He must not be allowed to get away with this ultimate crime of a war for personal gain.
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This story was published on September 26, 2006.
