"How Does the War Party Get Away with It?"
This is the reason for Dean's popularity. Niether GOP nor Dems will fix this, other than someone out of the Beltway like Dean.
independent.org
"By “autocratic government,” I refer to the reality of how foreign policy is actually made in the United States. Notwithstanding the trappings of our political system’s democratic procedures, checks and balances, elections, and so forth, the making of foreign policy involves only a handful of people decisively.
"When the president and his coterie of top advisers decide to go to war, they just go, and nobody can stop them. The “intelligence” agencies, the diplomatic corps, and the armed forces do as they are told.
"Members of Congress cower and speak in mealy-mouthed phrases framed to ensure that no matter how the war turns out, they can share any credit and deny any blame. No one has effective capacity to block the president, and few officials care to do so in any event, even if they object.
"Rarely does anyone display the minimal decency of resigning his military commission or his appointment in the bureaucracy. In short, in our system the president has come to hold the power of war and peace exclusively in his hands, notwithstanding anything to the contrary written in the Constitution or the laws. He might as well be Caesar." |
