How Bush Rules: Bush's Crusade for Lawlessness

The U.S. military is battling against Bush's torture policy and for the rule of law

President Bush's war on terror now exists outside the law. His great struggle for "freedom" and "democracy" has turned into a crusade for lawlessness. After the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v Rumsfeld that his policy of denying rights to detainees and practicing torture was illegal he could have agreed to uphold the Geneva Conventions, especially Article 3 against torture. Instead he has tried to force the Congress to legitimate the conditions the Supreme Court has outlawed. His insistence on torture has aroused the intense opposition of the senior military. The counter-proposal of senators John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham that adheres to the Geneva Conventions reflects the military's resistance to Bush's illegal regime. In this fight, the military stands against torture and for the rule of law.

In my new book "How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime," I have reported on the revolt of the generals. Their alienation was unexpected, a surprise perhaps most of all to themselves. As I write:

The analogy between Iraq and Vietnam has proved to be most compelling to the generals who planned and conducted the invasion of Iraq. They kept to themselves their profound disquiet about the rapid rejection of the original plan for invasion that had taken 10 years to develop, the inadequate downsized force, the absence of preparation for the occupation, and the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military. Almost all these generals voted for George W. Bush in 2000 as a statement of conservatism; they never expected radicalism. Serving their civilian neoconservative superiors, they endured contempt.

With the debate over torture intensifying the long war between Bush and the military has entered a new phase. Not only has former Secretary of State Colin Powell stepped forward to declare that Bush's support of torture has thrown into "doubt" the "moral basis" of his "war on terror"; not only have more than three dozen retired generals and admirals signed a letter denouncing Bush's policy; but now five former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have warned that Bush's effort is an "egregious mistake."

In his adamant demand fortorture, Bush has thrown his "war paradigm" into legal chaos. As I write in Salon, "Bush had intended to use his post-Hamdan bill to taint Democrats, but instead he has split his own party and further antagonized the military. His standoff on torture threatens to leave no policy whatsoever -- and threatens to leave his war on terror in a twilight zone beyond the rule of law."