The folks who are running the Iraq War from the White House are constantly claiming that critics "hurt national security." This was the claim when reporters started reporting on Abu Gharaib. It is the claim from the Intelligence services as their systematic use of renderings, secret prisons, and torture was revealed, and as they now seek to prosecute those responsible -- for revealing the crimes. It is now the claim of some complaining about the press reporting of the killing spree that some freaked out Marines went on. While there is no excuse for those Marines, there is even less excuse that the military only admitted these things after the broader world brought them to light. As their Commandant is saying to them, there is a code of honor in the military and a proud history of following that code of honor, and that code of honor includes not coverying up crimes. It is equally criminal that anyone should have buried those crimes after the soldiers tried to commit them.
But of course that is a pattern of criminality in this administration. It's not the crimes, abu Gharaib, this recent attrocity, others, but the pattern of covering them up, attacking those who first report them, and never conceding that these actions represent the responsibility of the administration. No one of any real rank was ever punished about Abu Gharaib. The spooks involved were promoted and the theories involved have been modified but are still being justified.
There is no excuse for the soldiers who tortured, went on killing sprees, or in the case of abu Gharaib followed perverse military orders, but there is even less excuse for the Administration that has given orders that have thoroughly demoralized and criminalized the military, punished anyone who spoke up, and made it a crime to do so. That Abu Gharaib at least represents the influence of the top of the military chain of command was demonstrated long ago with the Torture Memos, and the fact tha the people directing the worst of the abuse were under direct orders from the Pentagon to "gitmoize" Abu Gharaib. Abu Gharaib represented high crimes and misdemeaners not mere low crimes and stupid people with too much time on their hands. But the low level people who carried out these orders are still being punished and the rest of the story is still being repressed. It's a shame.
And when the press, congressmen such as Murtha, or anyone else complains about these things, they get accused of "damaging national security." The criminals blame the reporters, not themselves. Abu Gharaib damaged national security, and would have even if its reporting had been restricted to the Iraqi rumor mill and never been broadcast in the form of sickening pictures. The acts of torture and repression damaged our credibility with potential friends, the Iraqi people, and made them our sworn enemies. Nobody wins a war when they are perceived as torturers, as murderers, as callous people with no self control or honor. By resorting to torture and kidnappings (arrests without charges, disapearances, can only be considered kidnappings), we set a precedent that is now being followed by our Shiite Students (as if we needed to teach them!). We lost the "war" for democracy and now must watch while the Iraqi people duke it out among themselves. The damage to National Security takes the form of loss of intelligence possibilities, cooperation from ordinary Iraqis, reputation among allies and enemies, and trust. Along with the other deceptions and lies, we have managed to make the Chinese and Russians look honest by comparison.
So nothing has damaged our National Security more than the twits who thought that violating the Geneva convention would buy them a few confessions and maybe the location of a fall guy or two. This has demoralized the troops far more than anything the enemy could have done. Our troops have always conducted themselves with the highest standards. As Murtha says:
"I will not excuse murder, and this is what happened," Murtha said. "This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterward and it should have been made public and people should have been held responsible for it."
And likewise with Abu Gharaib, and Guantanamo, and the men who should have been held responsible for those attrocities should have been the people handlers, not the dog handlers, the people who wrote those memos jusfifying breaking years of Army doctrine. This means the President and his "In"justice secretary on down. These are the people damaging national security. These are the people who have intentionally damaged the CIA in order to prevent their cooked intelligence about Iraq from coming to light, and who appear to be bstructed justice and in the process besmirching the name of the United States.
I can't believe the damage done to national security here. I have people telling me "we don't live in a free country anymore. -- That is real damage. I am ashamed.
Like many "centrist" democrats I was not one to be carried by the high anger case for impeachment. As Angry as the "torture memos" made me, I figured the Supreme Court, court cases and Congress would put a stop to this travesty, and that military justice would eventually hold those really accountable for the abuses at Abu Gharaib accountable. I thought that when McCain finally stood up for himself, and the Senate agreed, that the President would finally take International and National Law seriously. For all that this is a neo-conservative administration I didn't think this was a fascist administration. I may have been mistaken. The President interjected this passage into his signing statement for the Emergency appropriation bill that is funding the fight in Iraq:
The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks. Further, in light of the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2001 in Alexander v. Sandoval, and noting that the text and structure of Title X do not create a private right of action to enforce Title X, the executive branch shall construe Title X not to create a private right of action. Finally, given the decision of the Congress reflected in subsections 1005(e) and 1005(h) that the amendments made to section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, shall apply to past, present, and future actions, including applications for writs of habeas corpus, described in that section, and noting that section 1005 does not confer any constitutional right upon an alien detained abroad as an enemy combatant, the executive branch shall construe section 1005 to preclude the Federal courts from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over any existing or future action, including applications for writs of habeas corpus, described in section 1005.1
Now that is a lot of words about a provision intended to ban torture. Why all these words?
Several sources say that the President is saying he's not going to abide by this law. Are they right or wrong? Well to figure this out we need to read the citations the President put into this signing statement and find what the hell he is talking about. What is Alexander versus Sandoval. What principles is he referring to? Ah it's hard to find, but the opinion is in a "bound volume" at the Supreme Court website. It's a huge volume. Basically Alexander versus Sandoval held that unless Congress expressly held that people could sue to enforce the law, they couldn't sue. Or to put it in the proper parsing language
"There is no private right of action to enforce disparate-impact regulations promulgated under Title VI."
The principle the Attourney General Gonzales is asserting is that while the Congress may tell the government not to use torture, no private person may sue to enforce the McCain Amendment, unless the McCain Amendment expressly put in a provision calling for such a capability. Basically it is saying that unless the right is expressly granted to the people by a law it is denied to the people. And it is saying that "okay you want to pass this law, nobody can enforce it unless we decide to enforce it." Which gets back to the parsing language that was in the first and second torture memos. The ones that spawned the policy that led to Abu Gharaib.
Okay, bad enough, but what does the line "...in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks." Well the notion of the "Unitary executive" is the most problematic line of the entire paragraph. This line is saying that the President cannot be constrained by validly enacted laws during time of war. This notion was at the heart of the case made in the two torture memos written in 2002 and 2003. The Cato Institute reprises much of this notion in their article "PowerSurge."
The Bush administration’s view that the
president, in time of war, is unrestrained by
law is on display in a series of internal Justice
and Defense Department memoranda written
in 2002 and 2003 and publicly revealed in
2004. In those memos, Bush administration
lawyers argued that Congress is powerless to
interfere with the president’s authority to
order torture of enemy prisoners if the president
decides such action will be useful in
prosecuting the war on terror.
Much of the public discussion about the
“torture memos” has focused on the narrowness
of their definition of torture and the question of
whether the Geneva Convention covers Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. Reasonable people can debate those issues, but what’s perhaps
most disturbing about the memos is their assertion
that the president cannot be restrained by
validly enacted laws.2
This is visibly on display in this quote. As the Cato Institute notes:
According to the memos, prohibiting torture
infringes on the president’s constitutional power
as commander in chief. As an August 1, 2002,
memo puts it, “Congress can no more interfere
with the president’s conduct of the interrogation
of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic
or tactical decisions on the battlefield.”36 The
legal reasoning employed in the August 2002
memo resurfaces in a March 2003 Pentagon
memo prepared for Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld, which holds that “[a]ny effort by
Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful
combatants would violate the Constitution’s
sole vesting of the commander-in-chief authority
in the President.”3
This is the unitary executive theory, which justifies itself on the notion that the United States is a battlefield, and that therefore the President is able to do what he wants unrestricted by law when it comes to national security, military matters, and dealing with the Enemy. The Cato institute article also quotes from the Padilla Case:
During oral argument
in the Padilla case, Judge Luttig told
Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement that
accusations that Padilla was an enemy combatant
“don’t get you very far, unless you’re prepared
to boldly say the United States is a battlefield
in the war on terror.” Clement replied,
“I can say that, and I can say it boldly.”4
As the Cato institute notes next, this doctrine is nonsense.
The Constitution’s text will not support anything like the doctrine of presidential absolutism the administration flirts with in the torture memos. It gives Congress powers that bear directly on the issue of military conduct and war crimes, including the power “To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces” and the power “To define and punish . . .Offences against the Law of Nations” — such as violations of international covenants against torture. And the president, in addition to his oath to uphold the Constitution, is commanded by that document to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.
The Constitution says: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." The President may be able to abrogate treaties, but when a treaty is backed by law, it is pretty clear that such laws bind the President as much as the rest of us.
Even the following passage of the Constitution, "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." has been held to mean that only Congress can suspend the writ of habeas corpus -- and nobody can suspend it indefinately. Even during the first civil war Lincoln was prevented from permanently suspending habeas corpus and rebuked for trying. Again the Cato institute notes;
The federal government did try people
before military commissions during the Civil
War. To facilitate that process, President
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus—
so that the prisoners could not challenge the
legality of their arrest or conviction in a civilian
court.91 The one case that did reach the
Supreme Court, Ex Parte Milligan (1866),
deserves careful attention
Speed was the first to advance the notion of "unitary executive" when he maintained "that
the legal guarantees set forth in the Bill of Rights were “peace provisions.” During wartime,
he argued, the federal government can suspend the Bill of Rights and impose martial
law. If the government chooses to exercise that option, the commanding military officer
becomes “the supreme legislator, supreme judge, and supreme executive.” If that view then we might as well promote Bush to "President for Life" now. Wars and Rumors of war have become permanent features of our terrorism driven Republican politica class. They want us to be at war forever. If it's not a literal enemy it's some figurative enemy like "terrorism." The war on terrorism is the war on fear. If the enemy can't make us give up our constitution by fear, why should we give it up by letting our own leadership scare us into that?
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the
legal position advanced by Attorney General
Speed.
The President has been asserting that he has the power tot has been asserting that.
Congress has the "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." Not the President.
So what does all this mean? It means we have an executive bent on breaking the law, that is breaking the law and justifying it on grounds that will break the constitution if allowed to stand. At this point the Congress should be conducting an impeachment hearing, or we need to replace Congress.
I think we need to replace Congress. Even McCain is not doing his job.
Sources:
Further reading:
Actually I got back from vacation last Monday, but this if the first day I've had something concrete to say that I felt belonged on this blog. I just finally had some time to read what "clown hidden" wrote on my blog. I'm glad he wrote there, but I'm still on vacation on that subject. My mind right now has other things on it than the minutae of what Nichiren did or did not believe. How can I be more right or more wrong than he is? I don't have any way of knowing.
What really piqued my interest was an old subject. One that got my interest even before I got into Buddhism. I've always loved King Arthur, the knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood. At the same time I always loved the Jewish and Hebrew heroes, Solomon and David, Moses and Joseph, etceteras.... Now this movie has come out "The Da Vinci Code." I'm planning to see it. Nichirens teachings about esotericism, plus what I've learned by following up on what he said, puts this material into a whole different mode from the way I used to see it. For one thing my heroes have been turned upside down.
Richard the Lion Hearted, Edward the first, Knights of the Temple? Masonry, well I've been around them all my life. My Grandfather was a Mason, though I was never initiated into what he knew. My Father was a DeMolay. Those stories get put into a whole different perspective in the context of underground paganism and gnosticism, religious intolerance, authoritarianism, and persecution; and the attraction of magic.
I used to think that there were no parrallels between Shingon, for instance, and Christian religion. But then the recent works fairly much show that many of the same ideas thrived in an underground of Christianity and "heresy." No parrallels between Buddhism in general and Judeo-Christian heritage -- but that is not true. Almost everything but the Lotus Sutra has been propagated before as part of the religious underground. Although lacking legal continuity the heritage has mostly been oral in the west, a haunt of rich and powerful people with too much time on their hands, chemists seeking power and magic, and an excuse to form secret clubs with secret handshakes and levels of initiation and sometimes BS. Amazing stuff, but thanks to Nichiren I'm a bit unimpressed. Now I wish I'd known my Grandfather better.
Repression doesn't always mean that ideas are valid. Suppression rarely works in stamping out ideas, it just drives them "underground" where they mix, get lost and confused with other ideas, and often loose their integrity. King Edward expelled Jews from England. A plot accused Jews of using the blood of children to make Matzah and was used to drive observant Jews from England -- as a pretext. And it was illegal to practice Judaism for 300 years afterwards. Years later the Church launched a horrible crusade, first against the Cathars and later against the Knights Templar. Both merely went underground. The Jews mostly left, but a few may have stayed, living underground in London. The inquisition was first directed against the Cathars and then against the Jews.
Why did these things happen? What is the dynamic that drives religious intollerance, murder, and genocide? More importantly, what can we do to keep it from happening again? The massacres of the Jews in England, prefigured worse massacres in the rest of Western Europe and Spain. The crusades against the Cathars prefigured the destruction of the Moorish/Jewish presence in Spain. And all of this seems to have prefigured the horrible wars of the "Reformation" and the early 20th century. The Holocaust of WWII wasn't the first one for Jews. I pray it will have been the last one but the murderous confusion that drove it is still present in this world.
I still think that the message of the Lotus Sutra has the key to ending these cycles. However, not as a seperate religion. The first half of the Lotus Sutra is the "trace teaching" which teaches the integration of the truth; the second is the origin teaching which teaches the origins of all great religion. But Buddhists have rarely been willing or able to practice the Lotus Sutra in a vacume. And what passes for Buddhism in most cultures is neither purely Buddhism nor purely non-buddhism. Tantra predates Buddhism. We find it in underground Christianity/Johanism. "Hinayana" barely seperates itself from the Hindu millieu it draws from. And most "Mahayana" religions are a mix of Bon, Shinto, or other nativist religions and Buddhism. So the Lotus Sutra is the highest teaching, but teaching Buddhism as a seperate religion seems a waste of time. Where is the seperation? I see the path as teaching the lotus Sutra as a paradigm shifting approach to religion. But this is a revolutionary idea needing development. Anyone want to run with it?
I started chanting with the hope that with Daimoku there'd be automatic Kosenrufu. Is Daimoku enough to prevent holocausts from happening again? My arguments with fanatic Nichirenists (starting with me) have taught me that Nichiren might have been right about most everything, but that Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is a tool and no panacea. Daimoku chanting fools helped drive the Japanese Fascists between World War I and World War II. Daimoku chanting fools have proven that the Lotus Sutra is true, but that simply chanting its title without putting the principles of Buddhism to practice is worse than not practicing Buddhism at all. All that Bushido and Shinto syncretism plus neo-Christian, neo-Zen etceteras ideas got in the way of a clear path and a clear teaching for them.
Buddhism is not going to work out following the example of Christianity. Indeed the narrative of Christianity as initially an Western parrallel to Buddhism is more compelling than the counter-narrative as an "egyptian religion". It's neither, but that too is a set of ideas needing development. Anyone else have ideas?
So how do we propagate the message of the Lotus Sutra? I'm asking now. I've got some ideas, they haven't congealed.
Chris
I'm getting ready to go on vacation so I don't really have time to write a long detailed blog entry right now. Suffice it to say it is springtime. Life is moving with all its ups and downs. I still find myself interested in Nichiren Buddhism though not the same way I once was. I guess the closest I can get to a real posting is to steal something from a discussion group:
"Is the Lotus Sutra Self Sufficient"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SokaGakkaiInternational/message/64045
An anonymous interlocutor writes:
> Any one who reads the Gosho will plainly see. I don't have to
> argue, and yes I'm right and I'm surprised at you trying to say the
> gosho says other than it does. Provide any where in the gosho where
> he says something else is necessary or essential. In fact deny what
> I'm saying and you negate Nichiren entirely. Ridiculous to call
your
> self a follower then. As for great minds and much time, it seems
> they have missed the point. Show me one scholar of standing who
> presents your interpretation, it can't be done.
Generally before trying to prove a negative I'll do my own research.
It's easy now adays because the SGI thoughtfully put the Gosho on the
web. Nichiren talks affirmatively about the Lotus Sutra. He
says "even a word or a phrase." He doesn't say "close discard ignore"
and he criticizes Honen for doing so. I can't prove that he says
anything else is essential or necessary because his point is that the
Lotus Sutra is necessary and essential, not that the other sutras
should be discarded. I can't prove a negative, but then I never have
really been interested in doing so. To me this would be an absurd
conversation except the question drives me back to reading up on the
subject.
Do a keyword search on any words or combination of words and you'll
get reading materials that can edify you for hours. Try this one:
http://sgi-usa.org/cgi-bin/displaymultiword.cgi?search=LOTUS+SUTRA
The Gosho "The Teaching, Capacity, Time, and Country" is something
that we all should study again and again, and it has something to say
about this subject. Though I doubt its going to satisfy anyone
seeking absolutist answers.
http://sgi-usa.org/cgi-bin/pagecontext.cgi?page=48
He writes first about the category of "teaching:"
"The contents of these sutras, rules of monastic discipline, and
treatises can be divided into the categories of Hinayana and Mahayana
teachings, provisional and true sutras, and exoteric and eso-teric
sutras, and one should carefully distinguish between them."
Then Capacity:
"Second is the matter of capacity. One who attempts to propagate the
teachings of Buddhism must under-stand the capacity and basic nature
of the persons one is addressing. The Venerable Shariputra attempted
to instruct a blacksmith by teaching him to meditate on the vileness
of the body, and to instruct a washerman by teaching him to conduct
breath-counting meditation. Even though these disciples spent over
ninety days in their respective meditations, they did not gain the
slightest understanding of the Buddha's teachings."
These stories don't say that people can't learn and profit from
studying Buddhism, but that we have to tailor the teachings so that
the people receiving them can benefit from them. Nichiren goes on to
say:
"The Buddha, on the other hand, instructed the blacksmith in breath-
counting meditation, and the washer-man in the meditation on the
vileness of the body, and as a result both obtained understanding in
no time at all. If even Shariputra, the foremost in wisdom among the
disciples of the Buddha, failed to understand people's capacity, then
how much more difficult must it be for ordinary teachers today, in
the Latter Day of the Law, to have such an understanding! Ordinary
teachers who lack an understanding of people's capacity should teach
only the Lotus Sutra to those who are under their instruction."
Which is pretty good advice. A blacksmith has to know how to
breathe, while a washerman is familiar with the analogy of washing
out vileness. We common mortals of this later day, aren't going to
do a very good job instructing people in Buddhism unless we draw
wisdom from practicing the Lotus Sutra ourselves. So it is best that
we do everything we can to teach it. This is also the Gosho where
Nichiren talks about the Poison drum relationship. He figures that if
people don't get it, they'll still have a relationship with the Lotus
that will eventually lead to them getting it. It may take several
lifetimes of suffering first, but eventually it will sink in that
say "Oh this is what he means by cause and effect!" or "This is what
he meant by looking in the mirror and seeing ones true face!" "I
should have chanted." Or perhaps, "Oh what a joy it is to say those
words."
And of course the entire Fuje-Fuse (don't give don't receive)
doctrine is based on the following, which is part of a discussion of
the "considerations of the land" part of this principle:
"However, whether in the Former, the Middle, or the Latter Day of the
Law, one should never in any of these three periods give alms to
those who slander the Lotus Sutra, whether they keep the precepts,
break the precepts, or do not receive them at all. If alms are given
to those who slander the Lotus Sutra, then the land will invariably
be visited by the three calamities and seven disasters, and the
persons who give such alms will surely fall into the great citadel of
the hell of incessant suffering."
Of course none of this says "don't study the other sutras." but it
doesn't say "do study them." It says study the Lotus Sutra first and
formost -- and nearly everyone on this discussion group probably
agrees with that or they wouldn't bother to come here.
The last principle sheds some light on what he's talking about:
"If the Hinayana and provisional Ma-hayana teachings have already
spread, then one should by all means propagate the true Mahayana
teaching. But if the true Mahayana teaching has already spread, then
one must not propagate the Hinayana or provisional Mahayana
teachings. One throws aside shards and rubble in order to pick up
gold and gems, but one must not throw aside gold and gems in order to
pick up shards and rubble."
He really believed that it was time to propagate the true Mahayana
(Lotus Sutra). That's not saying don't collect and read those sutras,
just that the essential and most important thing to spread is the
Lotus Sutra. As he says on that page also:
"To understand that the Lotus Sutra is the king of sutras, the
foremost among them all, is to have a correct understanding of the
teaching."
In many Buddhist countries the sequence of propagation has actually
gone backwards. Folks threw out Mahayana and went back to Theravada
in several Southeast Asia countries for instance. The calamity of
foreign invasion indeed followed, and some of those countries are now
Moslem. Maybe Nichiren's propagation of Buddhism spared Japan
invasion by Moslems or Catholics. Who knows?
I really believe that this passage is the heart of the Nichiren
school's logic:
"If there are none who read the Lotus Sutra, there will be none who
can act as a teacher to the nation. If there is no one to act as a
teacher to the nation, then everyone within the nation will be
confused as to the distinctions within the body of sutras, such as
those between the Hinayana and the Mahayana, the provisional and the
true, and the exoteric and the eso-teric sutras. Not a single person
will be able to escape the sufferings of birth and death, and in the
end they will all become slanderers of the Law."
The Tendai sect had decided that the Esoteric sutras were superior to
the Lotus Sutra. The Shingon Sect had taught them this. Ritsu wanted
to start out all over again with precepts, while the monks were
actually practicing Shingon among themselves. The five older schools
had basically become Shingon, Zen or Nembutsu refuges, and many
Tendai Schools were also Nembutsu schools. The origin teachings of
the Lotus Sutra really are the "King" and the "source" of all the
other teachings. Why would one want to go backwards or get confused.
Yet monks and intellectuals get bored and find the stories and
psychology of esotericism fascinating, whether that esotericism is
Kaballah, Sufism, Rosicrucian or Masonic. When they do this they
forget their duty to learn innumerable sutras, to save others from
suffering, and to reach complete and comprehensive enlightenment, and
like Kobo Daishi presume themselves to be masters and enlightened
beings when all they've mastered is a partial enlightenment to
psychological insights within their own minds. Only the Lotus Sutra
can teach and edify the teachers so they can stay on track. I wish I
could get that point across better. It is essential to understand
the essential messages of the Lotus Sutra in order to propagate it as
widely as possible. The rest becomes easier once one enters the
treasure tower and wakes up to what Shakyamuni and Nichiren were
talking about.
But this sort of enlightenment is not complete and final
enlightenment, just an awakening that there is a road, it does lead
somewhere and that one should follow it. The hard part is to continue.
Chris