The Bush agenda comes into focus

[Judi Lynn]

The Bush agenda comes into focus
The New York Times

Published: July 16, 2006

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration's response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever- cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

One result has been a frayed democratic fabric in a country founded on a constitutional system of checks and balances. Another has been a less effective war on terror.

This whole sorry story has been on vivid display since the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions and U.S. law both applied to the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. For one brief moment, it appeared that the administration realized it had met a check that it could not simply ignore. The White House sent out signals that the president was ready to work with Congress in creating a proper procedure for trying the hundreds of men who have spent years now locked up as suspected terrorists.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/16/opinion/edbush.php

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. A powerful and truthful editorial, though I am offended by the pretense

that the "Bush agenda" is only NOW becoming clear. Too bad the NY Times regularly speaks out of its other mouth endorsing and supporting the very crimes that this editorial attacks. Cowards and craven lickspittles, the editors and publishers of the once-great NYT, but there are some bright spots like this editorial and the hard-hitting work of columnists such as Krugman and others and some important reports.


K & R

[progressoid]

3. No kidding. We've been talking about this for years. nt

[chill_wind]

2. Wow. Just finished reading every word.

I agree completely that this kind of coherency comes much too late.
So much so that I'm amazed to see it all, but I'm sure glad for it all the same.

This is the sound of the American so-called "free" press finally sobering up and crapping itself in fear. Welcome, NYT, to the new proto-fascist state and all of your complicated entwinements.

[petgoat]

4. Wow. Strong words.

"Civil liberties have been trampled. The nation's image as a
champion of human rights has been gravely harmed. Prisoners
have been abused, tortured and even killed at the prisons we
know about. American agents "disappear" people, some entirely
innocent, and send them off to torture chambers in distant lands.
Hundreds of innocent men have been jailed at Guantánamo without
charges or rights."

But what's with the illiteracy of the "war on terror" reference?
Are they changing the grammar of the language to make the President's
pronouncements correct? Are they going to change the spelling of
"nuclear" to "nukular" now too?

Also, the assertion that "no one questions the determination of the
White House to fight terrorism" is laughable.

Five years after 9/11 Bush has done nothing to require chemical plants
to improve security--even though the EPA could require it under their
existing rules. Chemical plants need increased numbers of patrol guards,
and tank-trap obstructions to guard against truck bombs at the least.
These measures will not be instituted voluntarily.

Allowing the opium trade to resume in Afghanistan is a peculiar way to
fight terrorism. Perhaps the theory is that al Qaeda will be so busy
raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from opium that they won't
have time to conduct any attacks. The illicit drug business is worth
$500 billion a year. Money that big requires the complicity of banks
and governments. According to a study cited in Financial Times, Osama
got $600 to $1 billion a year from the opium trade before 2000. A
proportional piece of today's larger trade would be netting him
$1 billion to a bil and a half, and reportedly the middlemen in the EU
opium trade are the al Qaeda-affiliated Kosovo Liberation Army.

[petgoat]

5. $600 should be $600 million. nt

[Virginian]

6. From Jan 20 to Sept 11, 2001 bush waited for something to happen.

Bush was invisible. We did not see him, we did not hear him. He did not do anything when the spy plane was forced to land. He did not greet the returning crew after they were released.
After the attacks on 9/11, he came out of the chute ready to go. Everything was organized and he finally started to be visible to the US and to the world. Anyone who criticized him was attacked -- Just ask Bill Maher.
No paper would dare write anything but praise for him, even after he hid under the bed like a scared puppy on 9/11 until much later that evening.
His radical right wing supporters ran interference for him so that he could get his agenda pushed through an unquestioning congress.
When evidence did surface, the "librul" press was silent. It was an entire month after the Downing Street minutes surfaced on the internets before a story of it appeared in the print media. At that point, it was called old news and therefore unemportant.

[tomp]

7. i question the determination of the wh to fight terrorism.

"While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism..."

this line is total bullshit. bushco is terrorism. they are the world's biggest terrorists. this quote detracts significantly from the credibility of the article as a whole. they're trying really hard, they're just not following the rules? bullshit!

[stubtoe]

8. Painfully late but good to see nevertheless.

Evidently it's OK to speak out against Bushco now. What do you suppose changed?