"What is the common term for ordering soldiers to kill vast numbers of innocent people?
A war crime. But not when it is done on the command of the U.S. president. Killing innocent foreigners seems to be a perk of the modern presidency - akin to the band's playing "Hail to the Chief" when he enters the room. Bush is revving up the war threats against Iran. Seymour Hersh reported in the current issue of the New Yorker that the administration is advancing plans to bomb many targets in Iran. British newspapers have confirmed that the Pentagon has a list of thousands of bombing targets. Hardly anyone claims that Iran poses a threat to the United States. Yet few people in Washington seem to dispute the president's right to attack Iran. It is as if the presidential whim is sufficient to justify blasting any foreign nation that does not kowtow to the commands of the U.S. government. Jack Goldsmith, a former top Bush appointee in the Justice Department and now a Harvard Law professor, observes in his new book, The Terror Presidency, "The president and the vice president always made clear that a central administration priority was to maintain and expand the president's formal legal powers." And the power to attack foreign nations is one of the most valued prerogatives of today's Republicans. Bush's top advisors - and especially the vice president - are devoted to a Nixonian view of absolute power for the commander in chief. After he was driven out of office in disgrace, Nixon told interviewer David Frost in 1977, "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal." Frost, somewhat dumbfounded, replied, "By definition?" Nixon answered, "Exactly. Exactly." This seems to be the attitude of Bush and his war planners towards Tehran. Pentagon Deputy Assistant Secretary Debra Cagan recently told several British Members of Parliament that "I hate all Iranians." Perhaps Cagan got her position because of such prejudice towards nations that Bush formally designated as "evil." At the same time that Congress is considering hate-crime legislation, ethnic hatred may be driving U.S. plans to slaughter Iranians." http://www.lewrockwell.com/bovard/bovard50.html [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
