Schlesinger for President 2012

Arthur Schlesinger’s book, War and the American Presidency, was published around the time of the 2004 Presidential Election, and by no coincidence criticizes the idea (and execution) of “preemptive war”, since at the time America was faced with the choice of whether or not it should perpetuate war in Iraq under the Bush Administration’s second term, or turn a new leaf by electing a new leader. Unfortunately, the American people did not collectively realize their government’s mistakes and voted to continue America’s unsuccessful stint in Iraq, and in doing so, gave Schlesinger’s book even more weight through the events that unfolded as a cause of this decision. Schlesinger’s main argument was that although the military has intelligence and capabilities to achieve great things, it could only do so to achieve limited goals that must be realistic and valid. He also examines a variety of aspects that affected the way the war in Iraq was framed, but specifically focuses on how the government and the media seemed to work together to portray the war as both a realistic endeavor and an action backed by valid reasons.

Schlesinger first attributes the idea of “preemptive war” to American isolationism, and the general cultural belief Americans feel when it comes to conflict, they are better off alone than with the help of other nations. He goes further in pointing out how isolationism led to Bush’s unilateral approach to combat, which ended up depriving the US military, media, government, and most importantly, people of actual facts about the invasion and if any other approaches were possible. From there on, the book discusses a variety of ways in which the Bush Doctrine set the US up for failure on a global scale with not only foreign relations, but with national patriotism. Countries that used to praise the United States now turned away with contempt, while the American people continued to operate under false pretenses in their blind patriotism. In his discussion about how patriotism is supposed to be perceived, Schlesinger states that, “true patriotism consists of living up to a nation’s highest ideals” and that the US allowed itself to divert away from that since everyone was reluctant to admit any faults in these operations at the risk of seeming unpatriotic. By monopolizing the public’s opinion through the media, and keeping out foreign opinions that criticized his actions, the Bush Doctrine made the United States look like a global bully with no morals and no respect for history. According to Schlesinger, this disrespect to its own heritage created an imperial image of the US because not only did we forget the Alien and Sedition Acts, the internment camps of Japanese and Italian Americans, and the Palmer raids, but we forgot how our own people felt when we were on the receiving end of the same kind of treatment. In summation, the most valuable point of this book is that wars increase executive power because they allow the President to manipulate any and all information about the war at hand.

As someone studying journalism, reading this book made me feel ashamed of our government and our media, as this “preemptive war” tactic was a textbook definition of indexing (the tendency of the media to gravitate towards powerful sources for information and heavily depending on the government). I found myself nodding to myself as I read the section discussing how shocking it was that even the New York Times (!) wouldn’t go against the Bush Doctrine in criticizing what was about to happen. What’s more, it is completely illogical to me (and was illogical at the time, even though I was an uninformed high school freshman) that a leader can shove his country into an uninformed war so readily.

There was a time when the media and government to created propaganda to beat the Nazis while raising national morale, but it came at a cost as we turned our backs to internment camps and war crimes like the bombing of Dresden. Clearly, we had not learned our lesson and allowed Iraq to happen, and torture to occur. I completely agree with Schlesinger that the Bush Administration’s manipulation of the way our society operates is ruining our nation’s ideals, and hope our nation will finally realize that we can’t exist as a nation of one opinion who believe we are the only ones who matter in the world.

Justice Jackson-1, Harry Truman- 0

The extent of presidential power is always in question—we see this with President Obama’s desire to change healthcare; saw it with President George W. Bush wanting to invade Iraq; and probably every president before them. American Presidents seem to come to a political double bind when performing their duty, since his constituents (and sometimes Congress) want a leader who is willing to make difficult decisions but do not want him to overstep his boundaries, whatever those may be.

The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer ruling examined how far Presidential power could go in the realm of business. This case limited the power of the President of the United States in taking private property without the authority of Congress or his outlined power in the Constitution (during the time it regarded President Harry Truman). Justice Jackson’s three pointed opinion is the most cited opinion from this case regarding the relationship between the executive and legislative branches, stating that the relationship falls into one of the following three categories:
1. Cases in which the President was acting with authority from Congress
2. Cases in which Congress had remained silent with regards to Presidential actions
3. Cases in which the President defied Congress (Truman was put in this category)
This breakdown of executive authority can be explained as a balancing act. The first case exemplifies the ideal situation of having both the executive and the legislative branches working together to achieve a consensus. This case would probably be the poster child of checks and balances at work because it would allow more than just the president to make important decisions; therefore hopefully guaranteeing the avoidance of making unfavorable wills into reality. The second case depicts the balance in government being skewed towards the executive, which is probably what Truman wanted, but constitutionally cannot have. This situation blurs the line between the two branches of government since it erases the legislative branch’s responsibility of keeping the executive in line. If this case were a reality, there would probably be no need to give Congress any legislative powers at all since the President would just run them. The final case would probably make the Founding Fathers roll in their graves considering it would essentially mean the President was behaving according to his own will, rather than on behalf of his constituents and without consultation of his governmental colleagues.

While these cases may involve the legislative and executive branches more directly than the judiciary, the law does have significant say in this statement as well. As Justice Jackson emphasized that no one is immune from the law, not even the President of the United States, and that while the responsibilities of the branches may inherently overlap, “the executive, apart from recommendation and the veto has no legislative power”. In this sense, Jackson pointed out how although the office of the President hold symbolic power, it does not necessarily translate into actual superiority within the government. This is also specifically stated in the Constitution as a check on the executive from taking over legislative responsibilities. Jackson also made a critical point of saying how if this boundary is overstepped, no one will know its limits and then the entire order of not only the government, but the country, will be disjointedly unpredictable, undemocratic, and even dangerous because of its lack of limits. However, Jackson did not leave out the judiciary in his warning by implying that although these discrepancies may occur, the courts cannot overstep their boundary in rectifying them without consulting the other two branches either.

In summary, Justice Jackson is not denying that there is an ambiguous quality to the way the checks and balances were expressed in the constitution. What he is implying is that the only way to avoid having these vague phrases cause problems is to allow the branches of government to retain their right to discuss their perceived powers among one another, no matter how tedious the process may be.

US Foreign Policy: How History Repeats Itself

The current situation in Libya under the Obama administration carries remnants of the turmoil that happened in Kosovo when Clinton was in office, as both conflicts involve mass killings of people under autocratic rulers that threaten life and liberty in surrounding countries. To justify America’s involvement in Kosovo, Clinton pointed out that it is America’s duty, (along with NATO), to intervene when people are being murdered in mass numbers due to ethnic differences, especially when this conflict could spill over into vulnerable surrounding countries. Similarly, Obama’s speech about involvement in Libya mentioned that the decision to intervene was a moral one that again, would be supported by NATO alliances, and again, served international interest in suppressing the spillage of violence to unstable neighboring regions like Egypt. Stylistically, both presidents did not hesitate to put a face on who was the “bad guy” in the situation by calling out Gaddafi and Milosevic as the culprits for the bloodshed. Both Clinton and Obama also attempted to seek sympathy from the American public by aligning approachable similarities to the targets of violence to more manageable US proportions (after all, it is much easier to imagine Charlotte, North Carolina or the entire state of Nebraska ceasing to exist rather than some population of people thousands of miles away).

Similarities aside, Clinton talked around exactly how the US was planning on achieving peace in Kosovo and what exactly was the concrete mission once peace was achieved. On the other hand, clearly tired of expanding American forces into foreign involvements (“we had been down that road before in Iraq”), Obama stated that no troops would be put on the ground and that the No Fly Zone was pretty much the extent of America’s efforts in Libya. Where Clinton urged Americans to accept the investment of rebuilding Kosovo for the greater well-being of Europe, Obama stated that the Libyan people need to have the opportunity to decide for themselves what kind of government and existence they want to have without hovering foreign intervention.

That being said, neither president seemed to be placing a doctrine into effect. Clinton’s situation with Kosovo came at a time when many other ethnic issues were happening around the world. Essentially, he was faced with picking which battles to fight that would end up being beneficial for NATO’s existence, which is why Rwanda, sadly, had little place in his agenda. Obama’s hesitant attitude in the Libyan conflict does not seem to set down a foreign policy doctrine either; rather it reflects the reality of America’s current position in foreign relations. In the past decade, America has been involved in two wars in the Middle East with its share of controversies and mishaps. The war in Iraq did little to exalt the US on the global stage, so intervening more forcefully in Libya would have made America look like it “hadn’t learned anything” from Iraq, while probably sparking more dissent from people who already think Americans just want to take over the world. Also, fiscally, America probably can’t afford to spend any more money than it has on military projects abroad, so in this way Obama can show America’s support for the Libyan Revolution (and perhaps, symbolically to the other revolutions happening in the region) in a frugal way.

This discussion leads to the question of how should the United States determine when to involve itself in conflicts abroad and when should it steer clear of such associations. President Clinton seemed to put it best in articulating the difference between people having violent disagreements in their own lands, and people systematically attempting to rid the world of a certain race or ethnicity of people based on these disagreements while threatening America’s well-being (even if its by extension through threatening Europe). Also, America’s allies are strategic and not limited to European nations, as is the case with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of the US’s key allies in the Middle East, and involvements in Bahrain would have tested that allegiance if not destroyed it. Although it is extremely sad and shameful to admit, we cannot be a nation of do-gooders all the time when faced with our own domestic problems—after a while the money DOES run out, and then what do we do?