By Chris Floyd
Published: July 29, 2005
Last week, we wrote of the Bush Faction's increasingly successful drive to establish the principle of unlimited presidential authority -- beyond the reach of any law or constitutional restriction -- as the new foundation of a militarist American state. This relentless push toward autocracy gained even more strength in recent days, in two cases centering on what has emerged as the very core of President George W. Bush's authoritarian philosophy: torture.
Vice President Dick Cheney was dispatched to Congress last week to strong-arm three Republican senators seeking to place the mildest limitations imaginable on Bush's power to do whatever he wants with his captives in "the war on terror," The Washington Post reports. The proposed amendments to the defense budget would simply require interrogators to follow whatever procedures the Pentagon establishes for questioning prisoners and to register all captives with the International Red Cross. A third provision would
take the radical step of prohibiting "cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment" of anyone in custody -- behavior that is already expressly forbidden in U.S. law.
But Cheney brought hard words from on high for the tepid trio: Bush will veto any attempt by Congress to place any fetters on his arbitrary power over the captives in his worldwide gulag. The grim-visaged veep put it plainly: Such legislation would "restrict the President's authority" to conduct the terror war as he sees fit, and thus cannot be tolerated. The whole defense budget will be tossed into the toilet if the amendments are attached, Cheney thundered.
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