The commonest answer to this is ‘separation of powers’, the idea that the final power must be shared. The modern expression of this comes from the American constitution, which outlines the powers of three branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judiciary.
So that means Barack Obama, although he may be president of the most powerful state on earth, cannot do just as he likes. His powers are limited, because no-one, not even an archangel, could be trusted with absolute power.
That doesn’t mean we must copy the American constitution. There are different ways of limiting and balancing power. The American answers seemed best to the men who wrote them, but over the subsequent 227 years some people have found loopholes in what might have seemed clear, well-written law then. We can learn from those weaknesses and mistakes.
We don’t only need to limit the president’s power, whoever s/he may be. We need to be careful who else we give power to.
For example, although Obama may, constitutionally, declare war, even nuclear war, his predecessor George W. Bush declared ‘war on terror’ – a war of terror against an enemy so vaguely defined as to be a blank cheque entitling him to commit any aggression a dictator could want – Obama apparently does not have the power to end it. That should make all of us uncomfortable.
Many Americans voted for Obama who had never voted before, because they did not trust the system. A black man who could become president, and not get assassinated along the way, was a rare creature and seemed worth supporting. The trouble was that the system has other ways of frustrating a president without killing him.
Obama promised at his inauguration to stop the military torturing prisoners and to close Guantanamo Bay prison. Eighteen months later, Guantanamo is still open. And, if there is less torture in US prisons, can we be sure they aren’t still sending prisoners to countries where torture is still common? We can’t. It was Dwight Eisenhower, himself a general in World War II and then US president 1953-60, who warned of the growing power of ‘the military-industrial complex’.
Now we see how dangerous that combination of military methods of command, secrecy and big money can be. In America, ‘big money’ means the arms industry, the related oil industry (which owned the Bushes, father and son) and financiers with big investments in some of the world’s rogue states, including one that nobody dares to name. Big money here might be foreign companies, but not the ones ZBC rants against. It is tied up with the ‘security forces’.
We will find writing rules to control our military-money complex difficult enough. Enforcing them will be a bigger job.
The price of freedom is constant vigilance.
Post published in: Opinions