Beware Unilateral War Without End

By: Helen Thomas

President Bush used his State of the Union address and some other recent speeches to flex the nation's military muscle and threaten several nations, designated as the "axis of evil".

Rarely has the world heard a more belligerent American president. His tone and substance have dismayed our allies as much as the targets he cites - Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

No U.S. military attacks are imminent, his spokesman reassures. And no, there's no new intelligence that makes these three nations any different now than they were last week.

Such strident statements from the Commander-in-Chief make you wonder. He's riding high in public opinion polls and is daring the world: "I can lick anyone on the block."

It seems to me that Bush has brushed off the man who knows more about war than anyone in his administration - Secretary of State Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Powell looked forlorn as he stood with other Cabinet officers when they rushed to congratulate Bush on his bellicose speech.

Bush, closer to the hawks in his administration, has not been happy with the retired general for urging him to announce that the United States would treat the detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base in Cuba in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners. Bush hasn't decided yet whether he wants to go that route.

American officials insist the prisoners taken in Afghanistan are being treated humanely but will not be designated as prisoners of war and thus automatically protected by the Geneva Convention.

Powell apparently is too dovish for Bush, who was recently dubbed a "freshly anointed American Caesar" by a German newspaper.

Considering the national gung-ho mood, I have no doubt that if Bush were to widen the war beyond Afghanistan tomorrow, he would have the strong backing of the American people, with few questions asked.

The Gallup poll shortly after Bush's speech Tuesday night gave him an 83% approval rating; 91% said his policies are taking the nation in the right direction and 64% thought his proposals on dealing with terrorism were "very effective".

Senior political adviser Karl Rove had already signaled that Bush would play the war card with the mid-term elections coming up in November. Rove told the Republican National Committee: We can go to the country on this issue because the American people "trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America".

His remarks infuriated Democrats who have gone all out to support the administration's conduct of the war. They are now in a political straitjacket. Rove has made the war a partisan issue and any criticism from the Democrats would be considered unpatriotic.

Bush also put terrorists of the world put on notice if they pursue their goals or seek to develop weapons of mass destruction, he would not hesitate to take preemptive action.

Do we really have the right to attack a country without provocation? To strike first is not our tradition. When he says "Let's roll", does that mean he believes he can undertake armed intervention anywhere in the world without any congressional or international go-ahead?

In his threatening remarks he did not bother to mention U.S. allies or Congress.

This unilateralism is Bush's foreign policy in a nutshell. Bush is saying we will go it alone. We don't need the rest of the world to take up arms against any country suspected of sponsoring or harboring terrorists.

After the Sept. 11 horror, Bush mustered the sympathy of foreign leaders with a marathon of friendly, soothing personal telephone calls. But many now are appalled at the new, pugnacious Bush. The New York Times said Britain was the only nation that came out stalwartly behind the aggressive speech.

Dimitri Rogozin, chairman of Russia's parliamentary international committee, said the speech seemed to indicate that the ultraconservatives in the administration had the upper hand.

Does the President really feel the United States is powerful enough to extend its military operations to so many places? Where is his diplomatic outreach? What makes him think that the world would be with him when he widens the war? Will the bombs be so smart they would only hit al-Qaida members and no innocent civilians?

Why hasn't the President put the case of global terrorism before the United Nations and tried to bring everyone into the act?

I remember Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson had most of the nation and the media with him in the beginning. But the futility of that war eventually turned the country against the war and the President. Retaliation was the right response in Afghanistan.

But looking to the future, the American people should be careful about embarking on a war without end.