It seems incredible, but the more we learn about Dick Cheney's activities during the Bush administration, it seems that Dubya was in fact the only thing standing between the US and a dictatorship!
Just imagine if Dick Cheney had been president on 9/11 - or if Bush had somehow been killed in the attacks. Here are some of the changes President Cheney presumably would have introduced:
- The use of military forces during arrests of American terror suspects (a group which would have been much larger than you might think). The Posse Comitatus Act would be dead. Would the declaration of a state of emergency have been far away?
- Indefinite detention of suspected terrorists. Obviously, you got that anyway (thanks a lot Obama!) - but what would the program have looked like if Dick Cheney had been in charge? It seems fair to assume that far more people, including American citizens, would presently be held without trial. And the number who would be released when no evidence of their guilt turned up would presumably have been smaller, as Cheney has consistently argued against turning them loose. Mitt Romney's wish that Gitmo should be doubled in size would presumably have been fulfilled - and then some.
- Torture would not only have happened on occasion, but would presumably be official policy. Cheney has made the fight to defend and maintain illegal interrogation methods a focal point of his legacy.
- There would obviously be massive illegal surveillance of American citizens. In the end, John Ashcroft's Justice Department revolted against the most extreme of the administration's illegal programs. Bush gave way when they threatened to resign en masse. Would Cheney have done the same?
- The secret death squads that Cheney is believed to have instigated would be roaming the world, killing suspected terrorists all over the place. Given the lack of evidence against many of the detainees at Guantanamo, it seems a reasonable assumption that many innocent people would have died. The US would be the world's most dangerous rogue state, showing nothing but contempt for international law.
- The US would probably have launched bombing raids on Iran. Cheney has argued for such a move for years. One can only speculate how the sitation in Iraq would have developed after an American attack on its neighbour. It seems a safe bet that no withdrawal would be forthcoming any time soon. Most likely, the war would have seen a dramatic escalation.
- The president would have been all-powerful, completely unrestrained by laws or congressional oversight as long as the nation remained at war - which would presumably mean indefinitely, as the war on terror is never likely to end.
And these are just the things we know about. What else happened behind closed doors? What other measures were discussed? Would the elections in 2004 and 2008 even have taken place? Would they have been free and fair? I find it difficult to say yes with full conviction. Dick Cheney's America could easily have made the movie V for Vendetta look like a documentary.
George Bush, we hardly knew ya! As bad as you were (and you were very bad indeed!), there's now no question that your vice president was infinitely worse. While there were some depths Bush would not stoop to, his running mate never seems to have encountered a constitutional line he would not cross. Since the Civil War, the US has probably faced no greater threat to its democracy than Dick Cheney.
H/t to Tom Engelhardt for useful links.
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Rick Lucke
Tim4change
AtHomePilgrim
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Comments
Cause as ‘W’ was deciding.. Dick was destroying!
Strokes do that sometimes, like Wilson, making the irrascible paranoid.
Alex, what is The most absurd question ever.
However, if we take your premise seriously, it does come back to W. for a whole bunch of reasons -
1) the obvious - he picked Cheney & set him loose. One must question how much of this was to provide "deniability" for the President and how much was to further hide what was going on.
2) If Cheney had been THE ACTUAL PRESIDENT, I believe there would have been MORE scrutiny of these activities and a clearer chain of command vs. this shadow chain that seems to have developed.
I've always believed Cheney was evil. The information is just confirming it, but W clearly was a tool that was played to advance the ends of the neo-cons.
aristotle came up with 'oligarchy' for this situtation, call it elective oligarchy if you think the voting is significant. but using 'democracy' just legitimizes the newspeak/doublethink that is part of the reason cheney got where he did.
did bush save america? more like delayed the process of transforming bucolic oligarchy into genuine dictatorship. obama inherited new limits on government activity, and continues to use them. erosion, evolution, the inability of a passive people to resist the 'salami technique' means they are not saved.
My point exactly. Will you dodge that bullet the next time terrorist's strike on American soil?
And for that, we were saved from Iran, but nearly handed an economic apocalypse. That said, still very much rated. :)
That's pretty much how I see it, too. Bush apparently discovered (after about six years in office) that Cheney could not be trusted, so he turned increasingly to other advisors. That probably saved you from war with Iran. So Dubya's legacy could well be that he was a blundering idiot, but not quite as extreme as the man he put in charge in his first term - and luckily, his ego was big enough to make him resist Cheney on some points, at least.
It's scary to think that a man like Cheney could get this close to absolute power...