“I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I’ve made my decision. And we’re going forward…” - president Bush, interview on 60 Minutes tonight

Key figures in the Bush administration have lately made more strikingly anti-democratic statements of intent concerning the war in Iraq.  It is reported today (see [1], [2], [3], [4],…) that vice president Dick Cheney has stated that opposition from the overwhelming majority of American people and their representatives on both sides of the aisle in Congress will not effect the administration’s unpopular war policy.  Cheney has put all the power to make decisions on this matter with the president and his advisors (which will not include public opinion, Congress, key voices in the Republican party), saying that the war cannot be run ‘by committee’.

Of course, what the vice president may or may not realize is that ‘by committee’ is really the essence of democratic politics, and the rejection of dissenting opinion in decision making is a key indicator of authoritarian rule.  One might think that it is actually the intent of this administration to (despite pious claims to the contrary) undermine real democracy, given the record of manipulation, ignoring of national and international law, and concentration of power in the last six years.  It is clear that those effecting policy most do not understand American democracy or history very well, as our own freedoms have not come about through invasion and the supposed ‘benevolence’ of a superpower but through rejection of that exactly, and by hundreds of years of political defiance and activity by the population as a whole that have slowly transformed public sentiment, often in direct opposition to national ‘leadership’.  That is how freedoms have been won for us, and others all over the world.  And if there is to be any freedom in the Middle East, it will obviously not come through terrorism and invasion, no matter who is responsible.  That has been tried not only recently, but all throughout history, and is a miserably failed policy.

Cheney went on to say that Democratic leaders “have absolutely nothing to offer [in place of the administration’s policies]…I have yet to hear a coherent policy from the Democratic side.”

Opposition to a ’surge’, however, is a coherent policy, as is immediate withdrawal, sincere apology, and humanitarian aid.  By ‘coherent’, the vice president must mean something like ‘our policy’, the only one he or anyone in this arrogant, authoritarian administration will consider implementing.  Of course very few intelligent, decent people on either ’side’ are advocating the administration’s policies: they were manipulated and lacking a basis in reality from the first, and have been a tragic failure for the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq, the 3,000+ U.S. killed and their friends and families, and America’s reputation as a democratic state.

The administration of George W. Bush is standing firmly against the democratic process, indicating their contempt for the opinion and concerns of the American people and their elected representatives.  A check on presidential power is in order, and has been for years.  That check should come from Congress as supposed representatives of the people, but more likely it will come, as most democratic and progressive reforms have, from “the bottom” up: from the people, from you and I.

- Peter Broady, pbroady@gmail.com