The Third Bush War (by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.)

[kurth]

There is nothing more dangerous for our democracy than presidential preventive war. Yet, as his term winds down, George Bush might start a third.

Bush's Thousand Days
By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Monday, April 24, 2006; Page A17

The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy. But as of this week, a thousand days remain of President Bush's last term -- days filled with ominous preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran.

The issue of preventive war as a presidential prerogative is hardly new. In February 1848 Rep. Abraham Lincoln explained his opposition to the Mexican War: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so WHENEVER HE MAY CHOOSE TO SAY he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure (emphasis added). . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' "

This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative: Be silent; I see it, if you don't. However, both Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War, explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin's attempt to dominate Europe. And in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, President Kennedy, himself a hero of the Second World War, rejected the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a preventive strike against the Soviet Union in Cuba...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042301014.html

[chookie]

1. "Be silent; I see it, if you don't."

A little ironic coming from the administration that had facts on their desk informing them that Al Qaeda -- famous for its spectacular attacks -- was targeting the US mainland in 2001....

A little ironic coming from this administration who, in order to protect monkey boy when he travelled to Genoa in 2001 to attend the G8 summit, placed him on a American ship, because there was intelligence that Al Qaeda was planning to attack the summit using airplanes as missiles....

They have no credibilty, in my opinion. And increasingly in the minds of ordinary Americans.

[GetTheRightVote]

2. May God save us all from * madness.

:kick:

[Imagevision]

3. I wonder how many Senators would give Bush the green light for nuking Iran

[unschooler]

4. I wonder whether he'd bother to ask.

:shrug:

[Dunvegan]

5. Touche, unschooler.

[unschooler]

6. Isn't nuking Iran part of his "inherent authority" to stop terra?

What kind of Amurikan are you anyway? :shrug:

[madokie]

7. You can bet the * cabal thinks it is.

[unschooler]

8. And they've got an Attorney General, seven Justices and a handful

of "legal experts" to prove it!