The Normality of Presidential Emergency Powers in Wartime
Inspired by and mostly lifted from a comment I posted in foxfire74's blog, made to a post (http://foxfire74.livejournal.com/41654.html?view=288182).
Many people believe that George W. Bush has somehow uniquely or severely curtailed our civil liberties during the current war. These people are unaware of several pertinent facts.
These facts are that
(1) War, among the other reasons why it's hell, requires measures to win which can be detrimental to civil liberties,
(2) The Founders, recognizing this, deliberately put a loophole in the Constitution that allows a President what amounts to a temporary dictatorship in wartime (they copied this from the Roman Republic), and
(3) Past Presidents, most particularly Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR, used these emergency powers to a far greater degree than has George W. Bush.
But these facts conflict with the desire to demonize Bush, so the American Left denies "1" and "2", and tries to forget about "3." This is damaging to our Republic, because it makes many ill-educated people really believe that none of these is true, which may impair our ability to respond to a war crisis without losing our civil liberties permanently, some time in the future.
Some more sophisticated opponents of Bush argue either that
(1) This is not "really" a "war," but rather either a gigantic police action or a gigantic fraud, or
(2) This is not "really" a "war," because we did not make a Declaration of War.
To the first point, the enemy is clearly real -- they struck us not only at home on 9-11 but also abroad, before and after 9-11. The scale of the operations against the enemy, involving hundreds of thousands of troops on battlefields all over the world using any and all weapons short of those of mass destruction, is at least as "warlike" as anything we've done since World War II In fact, because of the multinational nature of the enemy, and the secondary theaters in Africa, the Phillipines, and elsewhere, this could be arguably seen as a "small world war."
To the second point -- while I wish that we would return to formal Declarations of War again (because this is arguably necessary to activate the Presidential emergency powers), I will point out that we did not make a formal Declaration of War in 1861 (our argument was that the Confederacy wasn't an independent Power, but a rebel conspiracy) and that we in fact commenced warlike operations against the Japanese before FDR's declaration (both in the sense of covert aid to China, and in the sense that the military at Pearl Harbor fired back at their attackers). A Declaration of War is not necessary if the enemy attacks first (as they did on 9-11) and it is in any case really, really dumb to become so obsessed by the letter of the law that one forgets its spirit.
There is a final point, which is the claim that it is somehow unusual to capture enemies and then hold them without trial for an indefinite period. It is normal in war to capture enemies and hold them without trial, until either the end of hostilities or until an agreed prisoner exchange. The only time you give a war prisoner a "trial" is when you are accusing him of doing more than just fighting against you, in other words, when you are accusing him of "war crimes."
If we allow the Leftist hatred of Bush to cause us to permanently forget this fact, we will truly have taken long-term damage from this war, for it is not possible to fight and win a war if every enemy is treated as an "alleged" perpetrator and entitled to proof of his "guilt." No Power in human history has ever done so, and any Power that tries to do so will be fighting with both hands tied behind its back.
Many people believe that George W. Bush has somehow uniquely or severely curtailed our civil liberties during the current war. These people are unaware of several pertinent facts.
These facts are that
(1) War, among the other reasons why it's hell, requires measures to win which can be detrimental to civil liberties,
(2) The Founders, recognizing this, deliberately put a loophole in the Constitution that allows a President what amounts to a temporary dictatorship in wartime (they copied this from the Roman Republic), and
(3) Past Presidents, most particularly Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR, used these emergency powers to a far greater degree than has George W. Bush.
But these facts conflict with the desire to demonize Bush, so the American Left denies "1" and "2", and tries to forget about "3." This is damaging to our Republic, because it makes many ill-educated people really believe that none of these is true, which may impair our ability to respond to a war crisis without losing our civil liberties permanently, some time in the future.
Some more sophisticated opponents of Bush argue either that
(1) This is not "really" a "war," but rather either a gigantic police action or a gigantic fraud, or
(2) This is not "really" a "war," because we did not make a Declaration of War.
To the first point, the enemy is clearly real -- they struck us not only at home on 9-11 but also abroad, before and after 9-11. The scale of the operations against the enemy, involving hundreds of thousands of troops on battlefields all over the world using any and all weapons short of those of mass destruction, is at least as "warlike" as anything we've done since World War II In fact, because of the multinational nature of the enemy, and the secondary theaters in Africa, the Phillipines, and elsewhere, this could be arguably seen as a "small world war."
To the second point -- while I wish that we would return to formal Declarations of War again (because this is arguably necessary to activate the Presidential emergency powers), I will point out that we did not make a formal Declaration of War in 1861 (our argument was that the Confederacy wasn't an independent Power, but a rebel conspiracy) and that we in fact commenced warlike operations against the Japanese before FDR's declaration (both in the sense of covert aid to China, and in the sense that the military at Pearl Harbor fired back at their attackers). A Declaration of War is not necessary if the enemy attacks first (as they did on 9-11) and it is in any case really, really dumb to become so obsessed by the letter of the law that one forgets its spirit.
There is a final point, which is the claim that it is somehow unusual to capture enemies and then hold them without trial for an indefinite period. It is normal in war to capture enemies and hold them without trial, until either the end of hostilities or until an agreed prisoner exchange. The only time you give a war prisoner a "trial" is when you are accusing him of doing more than just fighting against you, in other words, when you are accusing him of "war crimes."
If we allow the Leftist hatred of Bush to cause us to permanently forget this fact, we will truly have taken long-term damage from this war, for it is not possible to fight and win a war if every enemy is treated as an "alleged" perpetrator and entitled to proof of his "guilt." No Power in human history has ever done so, and any Power that tries to do so will be fighting with both hands tied behind its back.