Reader Feedback and UET cont.

Though I agree with Karl's last post thematically, I found a couple of minor points of departure. I wouldn't characterize the U.S. aggression in Iraq as a "pseudo-war." It seems to meet every generally recognized and age-old criteria of full-scale warfare: rolling tanks, toppled government, thousands of body bags, the whole nine. If by "pseudo-war" Karl means "illegal war," then I'm probably on board. A legitimate argument can be made that the invasion of Iraq violated international law, which generally regards the insertion of non-peacekeeping forces as an absolute last resort and emphatically recognizes each nation's right to political self-determination. The idea of one state forcibly re-organizing another according to its own preferences is repugnant to the central tenets on which international political organizations such as the U.N. are founded. And while I agree that congress is not providing the check on our out-of-control executive that it should, I don't think it is entirely fair to say that the judicial branch, while not as bold as I'd prefer, has been equally acquiescent. The UET has, in its different permutations, been rejected, at least partially, in several major cases, including Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, each decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The lower courts have been skeptical as well. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of The Federal District Court in Detroit recently wrote a scathing rebuke of Bush's warrantless NSA wiretapping scheme in a case called ACLU v. NSA. She struck down the scheme (subject to appeal) as violative of the 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and, in a ruling the warmed my libertarian heart, also violative of the First Amendment right of free speech. Fear that the government, no longer burdened with the need of a warrant, might be listening to phone conversations, she reasoned, unconstitutionally chilled the speech of those using the telephone. This isn't to say that, on balance, the executive branch isn't growing more powerful at a rapid clip. It is. But there are some forces of resistance, however ineffective on balance. It is also good to remember that this particular president has always shown an impressive readiness to disregard the other branches--to refuse to allow himself to be checked, that is. His continued use of interrogative torture, for example, despite the manifest intent of the McCain Detainee Amendment is an illustrative instance of his continued semi-regal methodology. The McCain amendment, basically stated, limits the brutality of U.S. treatment to what has already been codified in the Army's training manual. The president, in a tight political spot, fought hard to do away with or water down the amendment. Finally he signed it. But only after making it clear in his signing statement--by using the very phrase "unitary executive"--that he is not going to enforce it: "The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks." The constitutionality of these signing statements is highly debatable, especially when presidents use them, as Bush routinely does, to declare his subversion rather than his interpretation of the law he is signing.