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Regarding the Iraq, war I think Collen Powell paid a price for disagreeing with the Administration, agree or disagree with him I don't perceive Powell as being "fucked".
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He sure isn't the Republican Nominee for president.
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Quiting a job does not equate to ruining your life. You present a false choice.
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Clearly you don't have a career-dominated life. :-)
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Also, the thing about Bush is everyone knew his views. You can not realistically suggest that anyone was surprised by anything Bush has done.
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I was somewhat surprised when a "we will not engage in nation-building" isolationist turned out to be planning of an invasion of Iraq from before he was elected president, yes. I was actually +shocked+ that the US President would put forward bald-faced lies in order to attempt to convince the world that Iraq was worth invading.
I mean, I didn't think someone would be that destructive of US interests.
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For example the guy said he was going to do everything in his power to go after terrorists.
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Until the amount of raw destructiveness of the administration was revealed, I figured that it meant that he would do everything that the US president has the legal power to do. You know, "in his Power".
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(i.e. - water boarding, which was not defined as torture when it was being employed),
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What the fuck? Are you joking?
Water Boarding was called torture when Japanese military members where tried on War Crimes charges after World War II. By the US fucking government. 50 fucking years ago.
Or are you saying they tortured people, while saying "This is totally not torture, right guys? Right?"
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If I felt a President was going to execute an illegal war, I would put a lot of effort into organizing people to protest, stand-up against it, use whatever power/influence I had to stop it.
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I actually vaguely recall that the US President stated that he had evidence and knowledge that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical weapons, and possibly nuclear weapons. And that this information came from confidential sources that the US President couldn't share, because it would endanger them.
Can the US President have sources that aren't safe to share? Yes, the US President can.
If the US President
actually had that knowledge, would the war have been illegal? No, it probably wouldn't have.
Now, let's suppose the US President then goes and engages in the war, and the pretenses under which he engages in war are false. There is no such evidence has any real reliability, and the statements made by the US President do not align with reality.
Does my believing the lies of the US President mean that he didn't unliaterally lie and bring the country into an illegal war?
I'm just checking if I have to be psychic or not.
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I would not presume anything. I would question the President until I was satisfied that the decision was correct. I don't think I am unique in that regard.
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You don't have the power to ask questions of the President. You probably get next to zero face time with the President. You get orders from the President, not justifications.
The President
does not have time to get into a philosophical argument over the rightness or wrongness of every action. The US President has too much to do, too many responsibilities.
As an exmaple, the US military is based around that idea. You don't ask your superiors to justify every order to your satisfaction. If you find the order to be illegal, you are expected to disobey it. If you find it stupid, depending on your relationship with the source of the order, you might have the privledge of saying "sir, what about X, sir".
Because it is better that you obey a somewhat stupid order, than the commander have to spend 30 minutes justifying each order to each of her subordinates, find that 25% of them disagree anyhow, and only have 75% of the force to actually carry out the mission.
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We don't have a legal relationship with each other as the President and the other branches have a constitutionally defined relationship.
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Under which, the Judges interpet the law, the Congress writes the law, and the President executes the law. The Congress can Impeach the President if they think the President has engaged in high crimes.
But what if the President just is incompetent? Or the President engages in crimes that aren't high crimes? Or the President fucks up his job?
What is worse -- what if the cost exceeds the benefit? At this point, Bush is less than a year from getting kicked out, and an impeachment trial would take most of that time, might not even win, and Cheney could proceed to pardon Bush for it after he was sacked (see: Nixon). Do you hold your nose for a year, or not?
And what if you think Bush might be pulling a fast one, but are not sure?
And what if you think that, if push comes to shove, Bush might do something extremely destructive if you attempted to impeach him? (Say, a unilateral invasion of Iran, which under current law the military has to obey the orders for 30 days without Congressional approval... go go cold war!)
I suppose the first step would be to try to pass a law preventing Bush from engaging in military aggression without the consent of congress?