Bush, Heroes, and What's Left of My Idealism

For me, the biggest problem with the Bush administration is not its incompetence (though the chaos in New Orleans, not to mention in Iraq and Afghanistan, will be remembered as one of Bush's most important legacies). The biggest problem is not tax cuts for the rich, starvation-inducing agricultural subsidies, or economically crippling tariffs (though each has weakened our economy and made the world less fair). The biggest problem is not its cynical exploitation of sexual minorities' unpopularity (though countless Americans will suffer emotionally and economically because they have been denied legal protections and the right to marry). The biggest problem is not pork (though under Bush, the government has become increasingly corrupt, and countless dollars that could have gone to good causes have been squandered). The biggest problem is not even the dishonesty, militarism, or single-mindedness that caused the Iraq war (though this country and the entire Middle East will suffer as a result). The biggest problem may not even be the damage done to voting procedures, the independent judiciary, or political discourse (though each of these should terrify all of us).

There can be lots of legitimate disagreement on this point, but for me, the most threatening aspect of Bush's policies is manifested in the unchecked and unreviewable executive authority he has claimed—the power of a King, whose actions are by definition legal because he is the State, the State is at war, and he alone can determine who the Enemy is and what happens to him. Some of this was inevitable after September 11th and has been authorized by statute. Some of it, like the warrantless NSA wiretapping program, is clearly illegal. But the single biggest issue, in my opinion, is the authority to arbitrarily incarcerate and illegally interrogate (read: torture) innocents whenever Bush waves his hands and says "National Security." Abu Ghraib is what brought out the issue for me, and it has been building steadily in my consciuosness since then as I read about illegal detentions, illegal wiretappings, and harassment by the FBI. It had taken away my faith in my country and its values. I felt betrayed.

My strong feelings led me to Glenn Greenwald's excellent blog, and when he asked for help researching Bush's monarchial abuses for his book, I eagerly volunteered. While researching it, and staring into 50 years of abuses by the intelligence agencies, I felt compelled to write something like what follows. To identify and thank the patriots that have defended my values--American values--from Bush's onslaught. Here is an augmented version of what I wrote.

Bush's lawbreaking has mobilized what one author has called "an army of lawyers" to defend their country from an administration run amok. Law professors like Jack Balkin and former Office of Legal Counsel official Marty Lederman, who have written extensively in their spare time to expose and criticize torture and other abuses have provided an invaluable service to the public by informing them of what their government was becoming. Likewise, Balkin's former student, Neal Katyal, who has donated well over a thousand hours of his time to defending the rights of people wrongly denied trials at Guantanamo Bay, and his own students--at least two of whom are working for the same cause--are fighting for the fundamentally American ideals they believe in. These values are limited government, presumption of innocence, safety from unreasonable invasions and restrictions, and the rule of law. P. Sabin Willett, who has worked pro-bono so that his client--whom the military decided was innocent years ago--can leave solitary confinement and be reunited with his family, is yet another hero, as are the countless lawyers and advocacy groups that have worked on behalf of lower-profile cases. The same is true of Department of Defense lawyers like Alberto Mora that forcefully opposed implementing John Yoo's dangerous vision for military prisons and interrogations. Within the military, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, who defied his instructions and worked to give his client a chance at a fair trial, and Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Shaffer who brought enough government wrongdoing to light that military prosecutors chose to resign rather than participate in scapegoating her client, are heroes we should all be thanking. Likewise, the principled prosecutors that made such real sacrifices for due process by resigning, are at least as admirable. Rank and file soldiers in the U.S. military like Captain Ian Fishback, who sacrificed his career and has endured incarceration and harsh interrogation for speaking out against illegal, immoral, disruptive, and foolhardy interrogation practices sanctioned by his superiors, are heroes as well.

Some of our elected officials deserve great praise, too. Senator Dick Durbin endured intense partisan pressure for documenting abuses at Guantanamo on the floor of the Senate in one of the most persuasive speeches I have ever read. Senator John McCain, who had himself been tortured in Vietnam, worked tirelessly so that the Congress would ban torture of U.S. detainees. While his bill was quickly gutted by amendments added by Senators Lindsay Graham and John Kyl--not to mention Bush's signing statement, and Rumsfeld's rewriting of the Army Field Manual--McCain demonstrated real courage in defending the people in our custody. Even Senator Graham, who would later eviscerate McCain's anti-torture bill and play a major role in excusing Bush's illegal wiretapping, has played an important positive role. Without him, we would never have known about the six Judge Advocates General that tried to stop torture policies from moving from Office of Legal Counsel stationery to prisons in Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe. Some members of the intelligence services, like Robert Grenier, who led the CIA's counterterrorism center, are heroes as well: Grenier and some of his colleagues were forced out of their jobs because they refused to implement policies like torture that conflicted with American ideals. Though the media aren't perfect, without their commitment to the truth, no one might have ever known that Bush lied when he said "we do not torture" or that Donald Rumsfeld lied when he said Guantanamo Bay prisoners were "the worst of the worst" of the "bad guys." Without the principled government officials that informed them through leaks of how un-American their policies had become, the media never would have known, either. Without support from groups like Human Rights Watch, the International Red Cross, and the American Civil Liberties Union, still fewer abuses would have come to light and still fewer detainees would have their rights protected. Without public support, human rights groups would collapse. Without public pressure, more of our elected officials would bend to the will of the president. Thus, even if we cannot all be a Neal Katyal or an Ian Fishback, there is a role for each of us to play.

This is a short and very incomplete list, and I believe that there are countless equally deserving people both in and outside of government that we still do not know about. These people, far more than those that reflexively support the president, are true heroes and patriots. As the president pays lip service to American ideals while secretly undermining them, many of these heroes have paid for those ideals with their careers. These people are as much the incarnation of America today as Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin were in the eighteenth century. Their commitment to separation of powers, the rule of law, accountability, checks and balances, due process, the presumption of innocence, justice, and good government is exactly what has made the United States a great nation. These men and women are the only reason I am able to maintain my pride in this country as I find its values slipping away with every flick of John Yoo's pen.

If you have another American hero you'd like to commemorate, please add them to the comments. This list is nowhere near complete.

Categories: bush, cheney, yoo, hero, rights, gitmo, terror, linkdump, america, cia, courts, legal, executive, fbi, geneva, torture, totalitarianism, graham