Constitution? We Don't Need No Constitution!

In John Huston's 1948 study of the dark side of human nature, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a group of bandits claim to be federal police officers. Humphrey Bogart and his fellow prospectors ask to see their badges. In a line that has gone down in movie history, the leader of the bandits replies, "Badges? We don't need no badges!" In a Hobbesian world, intimidation and brute force equal legitimacy.

The president and the vice president of the United States live in a Hobbesian world. The forget, however, that the men who founded their nation -- men they say they revere -- were products of the Enlightenment. The American Constitution was a firm and direct rebuke of everything Hobbes stood for.

It is interesting that one of the main sources of opposition to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney comes from former aides to Ronald Reagan, whose mantle Bush and Cheney have claimed. Last week, in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, P.X. Kelley (a former commandant of the Marine Corps) and Robert F. Turner (who served as one of Reagan's lawyers) condemned the president's recent executive order, which "interprets" Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

They wrote, "we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national honor and that well may promote the commission of war crimes by Americans and place at risk the welfare of captured American military forces for generations to come." Mr. Bush's order displays a long established pattern of rewriting or simply ignoring laws or treaties he finds inconvenient.

In a recent article in Slate, Bruce Fein -- who also worked for Reagan -- called for the impeachment of Dick Cheney. "In grasping and exercising presidential powers" Fein argued, "Cheney has dulled political accountability and concocted theories for evading the law and Constitution that would have embarrassed George III." Fein then went on to list a number of, what he considered, were impeachable offenses.

Most disturbing of all is Bush's attempt to thwart congressional oversight, which the authors of the Constitution took as axiomatic in any democracy. Alberto Gonzoles continues to serve as Attorney General, despite what Congress sees as his clear incompetence and less than honest stewardship at the Department of Justice. But, in a stunning claim of executive privilege, Bush has forbidden employees and former employees of his administration to testify before the justice committees of both houses; and he has gone so far as to insist that, since U.S. attorneys serve at his pleasure, he will order any government attorney to refuse to expedite any claim of contempt of congress. Finally, Mr. Bush has proclaimed that politicians have no expertise when it comes to running a war. He vows that no decisions will be made about the war in Iraq until David Petraeus reports to Congress in September -- refusing to acknowledge the fact that politicians originally authorized his disastrous invasion of Iraq and -- under the Constitution -- they have the responsibility to declare when the war is over.

As Frank Rich made clear in the New York Times on Sunday, everyone knows what Petraeus will report in September. He has already hinted at what he will say. Patraeus told the Times of London last month that September "is a deadline for a report, not a deadline for a change in policy." Remarkably, a significant number of legislators have given up waiting for Godot, but not for Petraeus. Lindsay Graham has perhaps given the most succinct summary of their position. Speaking on Meet the Press three weeks ago, Graham proclaimed that he would "not vote for anything" unless "General Petraeus passes on it."

In other words, the policy which has been applied disastrously for over four years will not change. Perhaps because Bush and Cheney worked so hard to stay out of Vietnam, they are determined to display their courage now; and they define courage as staying the course. Mr. Bush knows there will not be any change in policy because a majority in the senate is 60, not 51; and, even if that threshold were reached, it would take 67 votes to overturn his veto. So the dance continues. So far, only four Republicans have -- when push came to shove -- voted against Mr. Bush's conduct of the war.

So the burden now falls on those senators -- the old lions of the Republican Party, like Senator Warner and Senator Lugar -- who say they harbour grave doubts about the course this administration has followed. There will not be a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. Logistically, it will take a lot of time. But, until the withdrawal begins, the bodies will pile up; and the members of the president's party will have as much blood on their hands as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. Together they will have to answer the question which John Kerry asked thirty-five years ago -- long before he became a senator, and long before the Swift Boat Veterans impugned his patriotism -- "What do you tell the last man to die for a mistake?"

MacArthur in the White House

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have now informed us that -- despite the results of last November's election, the consistent results of polls for the last two years, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and congressional opposition from both parties -- they will go ahead with their troop surge.

In the face of such opposition, Mr. Bush likes to see himself as another Harry Truman -- someone reviled in his own day but admired by historians after the dust has settled. In that regard, it is instructive to read what Truman wrote about Douglas MacArthur in his diary on June 17th, 1945, long before Truman fired him on April 11, 1951: "Mr. Prima Dona, Brass Hat, Five Star MacArthur. He's worse than the Cabots and the Lodges -- at least they talked with one another before they told God what to do. Mac tells God right off."

Mr. Bush has told the people, who clearly disdain his war, that -- as long as he is "the decider" -- their opinions will not influence his policies. The problem is that instead of working for the White House, MacArthur now sits in the Oval Office; and he knows that he and Mr. Cheney cannot be fired. Now, with the hubris one is accustomed to see in a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, they insist that they know better than the people who elected them -- and, who most recently, passed judgment on their policies.

Clearly, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney's judgment has been appalling. Consider the record: They were wrong about Iraq sponsoring the 911 attacks; they were wrong about Saddam possessing chemical and biological weapons; they were wrong about Saddam having a nuclear weapons program; they were wrong about sending enough troops to Iraq; they were wrong about Iraqi oil money paying for the war; they were wrong about being greeted as liberators; they were wrong when they insisted that Iraq was a secular society; and, therefore, there would be no fracturing of the country along religious lines; they were wrong about de -Baathification; they were wrong when they disbanded the Iraqi army; and they were wrong when they proclaimed that there would be no insurgency.

They readily admit that their surge is a gamble. But, they insist, there will be a bloodbath and global instability if they do not make one last attempt to impose a military solution before the Iraqis get down to the business of finding a political solution. However, even their surge is a mere shadow of what was originally recommended. In their original proposal, Fred Kagan and retired General Jack Keene suggested that, to be successful, their proposal would require at least thirty to fifty thousand troops. Bush claims that those other troops will come from the Iraqis.

But three months ago, Bush's own head of the Security Council, Stephen Hadley, wrote a memo to his boss claiming that Mr. Maliki was an unreliable partner because he will not do what he has promised to do. When the memo leaked, Mr. Maliki stiffed Mr. Bush and did not show up for their dinner meeting in Jordan. Mr. Bush has decided to sit down at the roulette table and put all his chips on number 21, 500 and on a guy who Bush can't trust to keep a dinner appointment.

The question is, with the track record Mr. Bush has racked up over the last four years, would you put your life's savings in his hands? And, even if you told him you wanted out of the game, what would you do if his response was, "You're in. . .?"

Much fanfare has been made of the fact that Mr. Bush is the first MBA president. And, in homage to his alma mater, Mr. Bush has made much of the fact that Mr. Maliki and his government will now be held to strict performance appraisal standards; or else, "they will lose the support of the American people." It seems to me that what is fair for Mr. Maliki is only fair for Mr. Bush. The only difference should be that, instead of Mr. Bush holding Mr. Maliki accountable, the American Congress should hold Mr. Bush accountable.

There is precedent. On September 1, 1970, Democratic Senator George McGovern and Republican Senator Mark Hatfield offered an amendment which would have cut off funding for the Vietnam War in fifteen months if the situation did not improve measurably. The amendment was defeated that day; but eventually funding for the war ended after Nixon was told by a bipartisan delegation that unless he resigned he would be impeached. Nixon resigned and the war ended when the senior senator from Arizona led a delegation to Nixon which told him his time was up.

Today the senior Senator from Arizona favours the surge. And no one is suggesting that Mr. Bush resign. But congress ultimately has the power to shut Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney's operation down. However, that will only happen if Democratic and Republican statesmen with the gravitas of Barry Goldwater have the courage to bring the Iraq war to an end.

Those who say that such action is folly have it backwards. Bush's policies are not the solution to the chaos in Iraq; they are the cause of the chaos. There is a conflagration ahead. But Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney only know how to start a fire. Other --wiser-- men (or women) will have to find a way to put it out.