Schlesinger

Arthur Schlesinger focuses on the office of the Presidency.  In particular, Schlesinger argues that the Bush administration’s use of presidential power in war tells an old and new story.  The old story is the unilateral warfare and the new is the preemptive war.  Schlesinger states that the preemptive view is extremely dangerous, which is the manner in which Bush has taken advantage of his wartime mandate.  Schlesinger says that the preemptive war is dangerous because the reasons to go to war are not facts.  Schlesinger uses the example in which the Bush administration went to war with Iraq because Saddam was trying to get weapons of mass destruction.  Schlesinger says that this warfare also gets rid of the dissenters.  For instance, President Bush painted the individuals against the war as unpatriotic.  The other view was the unilateral war that President Bush pursued.  Schlesinger makes the point that in the past, previous wars included the assistance of other countries, and in turn became the most effective and efficient.  This is why the war on terrorism is an unwinnable war, because we do not have the support of other countries.  Finally, Schlesinger talks about how Bush expanded his presidential power by using his lawyers to get around certain laws.  However, this is not rare during wartime.  Finally, Schlesinger says that the new Bush doctrine has moved away from the strategy that won the cold war, the combination of deterrence and containment.  President Bush has moved from a policy of prevention of war with preventive war.  All these factors have given the United States a dangerous path for the future.

I agree with Schlesinger on some points that the President has tried to get around certain laws and that fact that this Bush doctrine has taken the United States down a lonely road.  However, Schlesinger makes his points on other historical events, which is significant because today was not 1990.  In other words, times have changed in that the world is technology driven and there are many dangers that did not exist during the cold war for example.  To make his point by comparing past historical events with the war on terrorism are two completely different things.  I absolutely agree that there should be world support and the United States needs its allies.  Nevertheless, I am not sure how realistic that is in this day of age.  The Arab countries have never been fond of America, and these are the countries that are the most important.  There are certain times where we cannot just wait for other countries to get on board before an incident occurs.  

Justice Jackson

Justice Jackson’s opinion gives us great insight into how he views the Constitution.  Justice Jackson explains that the President has power, but it is limited. The President can expand on his power depending on Congress.  Justice Jackson explains executive action into three categories:  those cases in which the President was acting with express or implied authority from congress; cases in which Congress had thus far been silent; cases in which the President was defying congressional orders.   Action within that first category is constitutional, unless the federal government “as an undivided whole lacks power.”  This category gives the President the most amount of power. In the second category, “Congressional inertia, indifference, or quiescence may sometimes, at least as a practical matter, enable, if not invite, measures on independent presidential responsibility.”  The third category is the lowest amount of power the President can achieve.  Justice Jackson explains, “courts can sustain exclusive presidential control… only by disabling the Congress from acting from.”  From these categories, we can assume that the President has no significant legislative power and that the President must follow the law.  As for the judicial branch, the court is necessary to keep the President’s power in check and to make certain he is performing within the Constitution.  From Justice Jackson’s point of view, it is Congress that holds the true power, while the court is the President’s oversight.

 All these factors were designed to prevent the President from becoming too powerful and from reading his statement, it seems that the Constitution follows this interpretation for the most part.  From any power the President has, Congress and the judicial branch have an impact.  From the war powers act to appointing judicial officials and to judicial review; one way or the other Congress and the Courts has an effect on what the President does.  There have been instances where the President has circumvented Congress such as George Bush and interrogation methods.  Nevertheless, the implication for this view is that nothing would get done!  The government is extremely slow; therefore imagine if the government followed this view word for word.  I am not sure that Justice Jackson’s strict view is feasible in this day of age.  

Libya and Kosovo

Comparing the speeches between President Clinton and President Obama drew many similarities.  First, both stated that the United States needed to protect thousands of civilians because it was morally right.  Both Presidents say that by acting, the United States will uphold its values and interests.  President Obama and Clinton also make the point that the Untied States has a compelling interest because if massacre’s occurred in both regions, there could be a spillover in other regions.  Another similarity is that both Presidents made it clear that they were not acting alone.  The United States is acting with its partners and allies.  For example, President Obama states that the Arab league asked the U.S. to enter the fight.  Both Presidents seem to stress throughout their speech on why entering these conflicts matter to America.  While both Presidents state that there would be a spillover into other countries, Obama and Clinton have different reasons.  For Obama, If Gaddaffi overran the rebels and started killing thousands; additional refugees across Libya would flee into other countries that are going through a transition such as Egypt and Tunisia.  Also, President Obama explains that if the United States sat back and watched thousands of civilians die, that would give the impression to other leaders in that region that killing to suppress protests is acceptable.  President Clinton makes the point that if we did not enter, then Kosovo would spill into a wider war, and therefore threatening other democratic nations.  As far as a doctrine from both Presidents, I see that Obama and Clinton act with its allies, and if allies are not involved, then they want no part of intervention.  Besides the allies point I just made, I would say that both Presidents do not really have a doctrine because prior incidents contradict them.  For instance, Clinton would not enter Rwanda when clearly genocide was occurring.  If President Clinton wanted to protect civilians, why not enter that country?  Also, in 1993 why did Clinton pull U.S. troops out of Somalia even though many civilians were being starved and killed?  Shouldn’t he have protected the civilians on a moral ground?  For Obama, he wants to protect civilians and uphold democracy.  If that were the case, then why not enter Yemen?  The Yemen President has been killing more civilians than Gaddaffi?  The same situation with Syria because the Syrian President is killing civilians and on top of that is aligned with Iran.  The father of the Syrian President slaughtered 20,000 civilians in the early 1980s; why should we not think his son would do the same?  If the United States is going to enter Libya (which is not a threat to our national security), I think we should enter Syria.  Syria is a terrorist facilitator and a brutal regime.  If we removed Assad from power, this could shift the balance of power in terms of Iran.   Both actions by the President do not seem to make sense for the reasons I have stated.  Also, there are critics of President Clinton that state he entered Kosovo to keep the attention off the Monica Lewinsky scandal; therefore it could have been politically motivated. For President Obama, there have been many calls for him to intervene earlier, and if he did not, people would look at him as a weak President.  On the other hand, economically entering the conflict would not make sense because of all the debt the U.S. has.  Therefore I am not certain that there were political motivations for President Obama.  Having said all of that, I understand that Clinton and Obama entered these conflicts to protect civilians, and therefore I do believe that our role is justifiable.   However, to try and identify a doctrine is useless and I find both Presidents to be hypocritical for the reasons I have stated above.  Frankly, both Presidents leave me confused about what role the United States should have throughout the world.