Urban Unrest

22 January 2007 | Politics | Ernesto Aguilar

High lies and presidential misdirection

By Greg Guma

With anti-war protests being staged around the country and the President’s annual State of the Union address apt to confuse public discourse again (Pacifica Radio will cover both events), we’re also coming up on the “celebration” of President’s Day in February. Some might call this irony. But what better time to consider whether the office of president itself is still working!

The actions of Pres. George W. Bush certainly raise some serious concerns about whether the president has too much power. Erosion of constitutional rights, wiretapping of average citizens, an illegal war, justifying torture, and lying about the activities of so-called enemies — If these were just occasional aberrations, created by a handful of zealots, Congress could purge the offenders and get back “normal” — whatever that is. But the unspoken truth is that things like US-backed terrorism, human rights abuses, disinformation and even selective assassination, both at home and abroad, are standard tactics of the modern presidency.

The imperial presidency stems from the widely accepted notion that only a single executive can manage US foreign affairs. Often at the urging of business interests, this has led to literally hundreds of US interventions around the world, with Congress partially, wholly or willingly kept in the dark. The pattern that began as early as President James Polk’s 1846 calculated provocation of war with Mexico crescendoed in the 1980s with a worldwide crusade to arm, train and direct various Contra forces. That wasn’t “official” public policy. And yet it was the centerpiece of presidential foreign policy during the Reagan years.

Such activities are difficult to manage and control, however, since they require a private, often underground network, relations with criminals, and a conscious effort to mislead other parts of the government — not to mention allies and the general public. In the case of Contragate, for example, the connection between arms shipments, drug smuggling and assassination attempts was a natural development, but one the administration couldn’t fully “manage.” In other words, things quickly got out of control — something that has happened again in the Middle East.

Not all of this emanates directly from the President’s office, National Security Council, or the CIA. But the presidential system makes such policies commonplace. And unless they’re exposed unfavorably, they’re considered acceptable “policy initiatives.” Reagan’s argument that the Boland Amendment didn’t apply to him or his staff was merely another attempt to assert unilateral executive power, much like Bush’s push to unilaterally wage war by claiming it was part of a new “Bush Doctrine” of preemptive war.

Two centuries after the US constitutional system was created, it is publicly unraveling, mainly due to the explosive force of the imperial presidency. The framers of the Constitution, although they couldn’t predict the global dominance of the US, were certainly aware of the dangers of a drift toward monarchy. Unfortunately, their handiwork apparently no longer meets the test. Even though the president needs congressional approval for expenditures and declarations of war, a “national security” rationale can be manufactured for almost anything a US president wants to do.

Congressional approval wasn’t needed to bomb Libya or invade Afghanistan, and was easily obtained when Bush launched his crusade for “regime change” in Iraq.

Some may say: Well, we can still impeach them. But impeachment won’t counter the long-term drift toward presidential sovereignty. A president can only be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Most of the military aggression and human rights abuses condoned or promoted by various presidents have been tried-and-true policies that Congress didn’t dare condemn, criminal as they were.

According to historian Barbara Tuchman, the presidency itself “has become too complex and its reach too extended to be trusted to the fallible judgment of one individual.” She and others have suggested restructuring ideas like a directorate or a Council of State to which the executive would be accountable. Ironically, these ideas were discussed and rejected at the Constitutional Convention.

Some basic changes are clearly needed. Regardless of political party, presidents will continue to seek expanded power until clear limits are imposed and broad public pressure reverses the trend. In the end, the US may need another Constitutional Convention. But like the original, its stated, narrow purpose may be eclipsed by a revolutionary move to revamp the entire document. There is clearly a risk that something worse might be imposed, along with more restrictions on basic rights and freedoms. But many other things would also be possible at a Constitutional Convention. And that could turn out to be preferable to the ongoing drift toward presidential tyranny.

A partial list of presidential lies and high-level falshehoods that have made a difference follows. (1650 words)

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PRESIDENTIAL LIES

James Polk — became president in 1844 with the clear intention of taking Texas away from Mexico. He ordered troops to guard an undefined “border” against a so-called Mexican invasion, then escalated the provocations until obtaining the pretext he needed. Finally satisfied, he announced, “War exists,” a clever way to avoid explaining how it happened.

William McKinley — Explaining why the US bought the Philippines from Spain after defeating it in the Spanish-American War, he said: “There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filippinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.” By this time, Emilio Aguinaldo, “the George Washington of the Philippines,” had declared the country’s independence. Thus, doing the best actually meant allowing the worst, including thousands of deaths, burned villages,and widespread torture during a 12-year war of national resistance.

Harry Truman — “I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way,” Truman said in 1947, defining what became known as the “Truman Doctrine.” But this didn’t stop him from approving CIA manipulation of elections in Greece and Italy. Apparently, destiny didn’t include allowing leftists to take power. Truman was also one of the first presidents to formally play the “terrorist” card. For him, it meant anyone who resisted the corrupt post-war Greek government the US opted to support.

Dwight Eisenhower — The US was instrumental in overthrowing the democratically elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1953. Asked about it at the time, a State Department spokesman called the charges ridiculous and untrue. “It is the policy of the United States not to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations,” he said. This saved President Eisenhower the burden of lying about it himself. But in his memoirs, Ike stepped up to the plate, still denying that the US had anything to do with the coup.

Explaining the “Eisenhower Doctrine,” Ike said: “The United States regards as vital to the national interest and world peace the preservation of the independence and integrity of the nations of the Middle East.” Meanwhile, the US was conducting a covert operation to overthrow the government of Syria.

Lyndon Johnson — His most famous fib was probably his 1964 announcement that two US destroyers had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin. This provided a convenient pretext to escalate the war against Vietnam. Actually, the resolution giving him authority to “take all necessary steps” in Vietnam had been drafted months before the trumped-up incident. Johnson later confided, “Hell, those dumb stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish.”

The following year, Johnson railed about “atrocities” being committed by rebels in the Dominican Republic. None of the reports proved true, but the charge provided a fine excuse to occupy the country. Afterward, officials denounced the media for reporting rumors their own colleagues had circulated.

Richard Nixon — Tricky Dick lied about everything from bombing Cambodia to covering up White House dirty tricks. But less noted, to this day, are the many lies of his chief advisor, Henry Kissinger, who displayed a remarkable ability to say one thing while doing precisely the opposite. In 1971, for example, he gave his personal word to Chile’s ambassador that the US had no plans to intervene. At precisely the same time, the administration was plotting to overthrow the Allende government.

Some of Kissinger’s best double-talk came after Nixon was gone. “The CIA is not involved” in the recruitment of mercenaries in Angola, he told the Senate in 1975. Meanwhile, the agency was shipping weapons, training combat units, and financing those non-existent mercenaries. Around the same time, he gave Jamaican Prime Minister Michel Manley his “personal word that there is no attempt now underway involving covert action against the Jamaican government.” In Kissinger-speak, that meant destabilization was well underway, including financial support to the opposition, fomenting labor unrest, a credit squeeze, and promotion of anti-government opposition groups. It took a few years, but Manley was ultimately driven from office.

Ronald Reagan — Sometimes it was hard to know whether Reagan was lying or just performing. But someone wasn’t leveling with the public in 1983 about the invasion of Grenada. The official line was that the Organization of Caribbean States pleaded for US intervention. In reality, the pleading came from the other side.

Two years later, Reagan began talking about “precise” and “irrefutable” evidence of Libyan responsibility for bombings in Rome, Vienna, and Berlin. German officials were skeptical, but kept quiet. The US bombed Libya, but the proof never surfaced.

Reagan also claimed that the Russians sprayed toxic chemicals known as “yellow rain” over Afghanistan and other countries. He denounced the “evil empire” more than 15 times for this terrible deed. Turns out it was just pollen-laden feces dropped by honeybees over Laos and Cambodia. Afghanistan wasn’t even affected, but adding it was just too tempting.

George H.W. Bush — Experts differ over whether the war with Iraq was a set up. But there is no dispute about George Bush’s 1988 claims, during his presidential campaign, that he didn’t know Manuel Noriega was involved in drugs until he was indicted and had never even met the man while CIA director. Both statements were false. He later admitted that he and Noriega had met, but never came clean about what he learned as head of Reagan’s Task Force on Drugs. A year later, he sent in troops to capture the country’s enemy of the moment.

Bill Clinton — The seductive charms of this president were matched only by his ability to make unlikely statements sound plausible. A practiced liar, he led the nation further down the path to moral bankruptcy. Need I say more?

George W. Bush — The full scope of this Bush’s misadventures with candor may not be clear for some time, or ever if he succeeds in sheltering presidential papers from public scrutiny. But enough is known to ask some pointed questions.

Starting before he was even elected President, for example, why did Bush cover up his 1976 conviction for drunk driving, and deny spending a night in jail? Is there more to know about his problems with alcohol and drugs? Do felonies lurk in the past? What about his relationship with Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, clearly much closer than he chose to admit after the energy company’s bogus bookkeeping was exposed?

And of course, to what extend did his connections to oil interests, or Saudi Arabian players, influence his moves in the Middle East before and after 9/11?

Concerning Iraq, Bush has provided many versions of why the US invaded, and virtually all have been proven false. After a series of bogus claims about WMDs, aluminum tubes, 9/11 connections, and looming “mushroom clouds,” he later argued that removing Hussein from power had “strong bipartisan support” and that no one pressured the intelligence community to alter its apparently erroneous judgments. But even this is an historical rewrite.

What Congress authorized was the use of force, if necessary, to ensure that Iraq either gave up its weapons of mass destruction, or proved it didn’t have any. Although it is disingenuous for Democrats to claim that they didn’t know Bush’s true aim, the fact is that their votes voiced a potentially different outcome. It is also clear that the information Congress received was not complete, but rather scrubbed of all doubts, warnings, and qualifications.

So, what’s the real history of this war? It begins long before Congress voted, even before the 9/11 attacks so often used to justify an open-ended “war on terror.” In September 2000, prior to Bush’s installation in the White House, Dick Cheney commissioned a strategy paper by the Project for a New American Century. This telling document asserted that “the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” It also pointed out that the public would not agree to a war unless there was a “catastrophic and catalyzing event -like a new Pearl Harbor.”

During the campaign, Bush and Cheney presented a very different agenda, criticizing the idea of nation-building and, in Cheney’s word, any moves suggesting that “we were an imperialist power.” As soon as the new Pearl Harbor presented itself, however, the entire administration united behind a series of arguments favoring war, all of which have been proven false. Bringing democracy to Iraq, transforming the Middle East, and permanently installing U.S. forces in Gulf were not among them.

Were lies told? Obviously. But the Bush administration cares not, since many of the war’s architects are admirers of philosopher Leo Strauss, a great believer in the usefulness of lies in politics. Secrecy and deception, a veritable culture of lies, are necessary, he argues, to protect “the wise” — those with a natural right to rule — from the vulgar masses, who would otherwise be ungovernable and rise up against them. He calls such tactics “noble lies,” the grease of aggressively nationalistic politics.

“Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed,” Strauss once wrote. “Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united — and they can only be united against other people.”

This neatly explains not only why and how the nation was misled into war, but also why Bush and his cronies so aggressively attack their critics. Lying is more than an occasional option with this administration, it is essential, as is an endless supply of enemies, both abroad and at home.

The solution to all this lying isn’t another Independent Counsel or some blue ribbon committee appointed to avoid partisan bickering. To get even close to the whole story, the nation would need a long-term Truth and Reconciliation Commission; that is, an independent inquiry that brings the wholesale terrorism of this and past administrations to light.

Greg Guma is the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, but the opinions expresses in these articles are his own and do not reflect the position or opinions of the organization.

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