In "Cowboy Republic," Marjorie Cohn offers a penetrating analysis of the six most important ways in which the Bush administration has weakened the rule of law. Cohn, a respected legal scholar, details the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq; the policy of torture; war crimes; Guantanamo's kangaroo courts; unconstitutional laws; and the unlawful surveillance of American citizens. She concludes with practical ways to strengthen the rule of law domestically and internationally, including both political and legal remedies.
Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Marjorie Cohn is a law professor, President of the National Lawyer's Guild, and a regular BuzzFlash columnist. Cohn is a passionate, incisive and compelling commentator on the Constitutional violations committed by the Bush Administration. Cohn pretty much nails it in the introduction to "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law:: "The American cowboy is by now a richly symbolic, even mythical, figure. The hero of countless western movies and dime novels, he has become an international icon of rugged independence, freedom, and self-sufficiency. But at least one dictionary definition of cowboy is less flattering. According to Webster s, a cowboy is also one "who undertakes a dangerous or sensitive task needlessly." In a rodeo, that kind of danger is part of the appeal. But in national politics, this cowboy ethic clashes with an even more basic American tradition: a distaste for tyrants. Long before six-shooters and ten-gallon hats became the rage, the Founding Fathers were making sure that our system of checks and balances would prevent presidents (and other public officials) from going off half-cocked. Perhaps the most important protection against cowboy recklessness is the U.S. Constitution, which carefully divides political and legal powers among the three branches of government. Even if a cowboy manages to become president, he still needs congressional approval for his shootouts. And if he turns out to be an overzealous vigilante instead of a reliable enforcer of the nation s laws, the courts can rein him in. As a law professor and president of the National Lawyers Guild, I m a true believer in the Constitution. It s the foundation of our political and legal system, and when I see it violated, I consider it my duty to speak out. In my view, this is what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he called dissent the highest form of patriotism. In "Cowboy Republic," Cohn divides her chapters into six of the most egregious Bush Constitutional violations. This is a cogent book, with plenty of footnotes to back up Cohn's lacerating dissection of the lawlessnes of the current occupants of the White House. In his introduction to "Cowboy Republic," Richard Falk notes: "We can only be thankful that we have brave citizens of moral and legal clarity such as Ehren Watada and Marjorie Cohn, who remind us by their vivid words and deeds that international law is worth taking seriously not only for self-serving reasons, but also for the welfare of the country and the world. Fortunately, there have been many others with professional legal backgrounds who have defended detainees abused at the Guantánamo Bay prison and elsewhere, and who believe that international law and human rights are precious pillars of genuine constitutional democracy. President Bush likes to call the war on terror the great ideological struggle of our time; but truly if there is such a struggle, it is to establish some form of humane global governance that incorporates at its core the rule of law and then enforces it vigorously against the strong as well as the weak. If this struggle is lost, the Iraq War in all its ugliness and criminality will doom our future. Marjorie Cohn s fine book should inspire us to wage this struggle for a better future with all the energy at our disposal. --Buzzflash
If you can only take only one book to the beach, take this one: "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," by Marjorie Cohn. --Bill Fisher on Truthout
If you can only take only one book to the beach, take this one: "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," by Marjorie Cohn. I'll give you just a couple of provocative bits of the Foreword by Richard Falk: "The dismal experience of the Iraq War should contain many lessons for Americans, but the most important may be that adhering to international law serves the national (as well as human) interest in times of war. [T]he one thing worse than chaos and defeat in Iraq would have been a decisive and quick American victory. Why? Such an outcome would have encouraged the further pursuit of imperial goals by recourse to war and spread the war zone to other Middle East targets in the neoconservative gun sights." Cohn chronicles the crimes, international and domestic, of the cowboy now running our empire. Copies of this book should be hand-delivered to every editorial board and congressional office in the country. As impeachment gains traction, the big pushback is going to be the claim that no crimes have been committed, only unpopular blunders. Cohn's book puts such nonsense to rest. --David Swanson
The past six years have seen an avalanche of books excoriating President George W. Bush, the key figures in his administration, and the ideologies, policies and practices they have embraced . . . So was there a need for yet another anti-Bush book? Well, it turns out there was. Because Marjorie Cohn's modest new volume, "Cowboy Republic," achieves two goals so often missing from the growing library of tomes chronicling Dubya's failings. First, it includes the exquisite legal detail one would expect from a distinguished lawyer. But arguably more important, it does so in straightforward, everyman language that makes it accessible to ordinary folks who don't happen to be either lawyers or political junkies. Marjorie Cohn seems to have been around forever. A professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and president of the National Lawyers Guild, she has been a powerful voice on both mainstream and alternative radio and television, in major newspapers and magazines, and on the web . . . Her case against the Bush administration's contempt of the rule of law lays out most of the high crimes and misdemeanors with which Truthout readers - and almost everyone else - have become familiar. The hypocrisy of US "support" for the United Nations. The "marketing" of the Iraq invasion. The unending conflation of Iraq and 9/11. The torture memos. Guantanamo. Extraordinary renditions. National Security Letters. The "disappeared" in CIA "black sites." The euphemisms - i.e. "enhanced interrogation" - used to sanitize repeated US violations of the Geneva Conventions. The warrantless surveillance programs. The roundup and detention of foreigners suspected of being of Middle Eastern descent. The overhyped press conference trumpeting the arrests of "the worst of the worst" - later set free, deported or charged with far less egregious crimes. And the complicity of the president's lawyers in finding "legal justifications" to condone the uncondonable, to ignore the separation of powers, and to promulgate the notion of a "unitary executive." Ms. Cohn writes of these transgressions with economy and clarity. Moreover, she places them within the context of America's history, starting with the sedition laws of the late 18th century that imprisoned journalists for speaking out against the government, through Attorney General Mitchell Palmer's "Red Raids" to root out Bolsheviks in the 1920s, through the internment of Japanese-Americans in the Second World War, through the Cold War's shameful McCarthy debacle, through the myriad falsehoods perpetrated by government during Vietnam, though the lies of Nixon's Watergate nightmare. Her point is that the US has been here before, and that it has always been the law, in confluence with the activism of a minority of outraged citizenry, that has eventually righted the Ship of State. But Ms. Cohn refuses to rely solely on these tools. She is saying that time does not allow us the luxury of confidence in evolution and incrementalism alone. An activist needs action, and Ms. Cohn is nothing if not an activist . . . She concludes, "It is now time for us to demand truth, justice and accountability from the Cowboy Republicans. That means op-eds and letters to the editor, and writing, emailing and calling Congress, insisting that the Bush gang be held to account for its high crimes and misdemeanors. We must organize protests, marches and demonstrations to end the Iraq war and occupation and prevent the next war. Our lives and those of our children depend on it." --Bill Fisher on Truthout
If you can only take only one book to the beach, take this one: "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," by Marjorie Cohn. --Bill Fisher on Truthout
If you can only take only one book to the beach, take this one: "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," by Marjorie Cohn. I'll give you just a couple of provocative bits of the Foreword by Richard Falk: "The dismal experience of the Iraq War should contain many lessons for Americans, but the most important may be that adhering to international law serves the national (as well as human) interest in times of war. [T]he one thing worse than chaos and defeat in Iraq would have been a decisive and quick American victory. Why? Such an outcome would have encouraged the further pursuit of imperial goals by recourse to war and spread the war zone to other Middle East targets in the neoconservative gun sights." Cohn chronicles the crimes, international and domestic, of the cowboy now running our empire. Copies of this book should be hand-delivered to every editorial board and congressional office in the country. As impeachment gains traction, the big pushback is going to be the claim that no crimes have been committed, only unpopular blunders. Cohn's book puts such nonsense to rest. --David Swanson
The past six years have seen an avalanche of books excoriating President George W. Bush, the key figures in his administration, and the ideologies, policies and practices they have embraced . . . So was there a need for yet another anti-Bush book? Well, it turns out there was. Because Marjorie Cohn's modest new volume, "Cowboy Republic," achieves two goals so often missing from the growing library of tomes chronicling Dubya's failings. First, it includes the exquisite legal detail one would expect from a distinguished lawyer. But arguably more important, it does so in straightforward, everyman language that makes it accessible to ordinary folks who don't happen to be either lawyers or political junkies. Marjorie Cohn seems to have been around forever. A professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and president of the National Lawyers Guild, she has been a powerful voice on both mainstream and alternative radio and television, in major newspapers and magazines, and on the web . . . Her case against the Bush administration's contempt of the rule of law lays out most of the high crimes and misdemeanors with which Truthout readers - and almost everyone else - have become familiar. The hypocrisy of US "support" for the United Nations. The "marketing" of the Iraq invasion. The unending conflation of Iraq and 9/11. The torture memos. Guantanamo. Extraordinary renditions. National Security Letters. The "disappeared" in CIA "black sites." The euphemisms - i.e. "enhanced interrogation" - used to sanitize repeated US violations of the Geneva Conventions. The warrantless surveillance programs. The roundup and detention of foreigners suspected of being of Middle Eastern descent. The overhyped press conference trumpeting the arrests of "the worst of the worst" - later set free, deported or charged with far less egregious crimes. And the complicity of the president's lawyers in finding "legal justifications" to condone the uncondonable, to ignore the separation of powers, and to promulgate the notion of a "unitary executive." Ms. Cohn writes of these transgressions with economy and clarity. Moreover, she places them within the context of America's history, starting with the sedition laws of the late 18th century that imprisoned journalists for speaking out against the government, through Attorney General Mitchell Palmer's "Red Raids" to root out Bolsheviks in the 1920s, through the internment of Japanese-Americans in the Second World War, through the Cold War's shameful McCarthy debacle, through the myriad falsehoods perpetrated by government during Vietnam, though the lies of Nixon's Watergate nightmare. Her point is that the US has been here before, and that it has always been the law, in confluence with the activism of a minority of outraged citizenry, that has eventually righted the Ship of State. But Ms. Cohn refuses to rely solely on these tools. She is saying that time does not allow us the luxury of confidence in evolution and incrementalism alone. An activist needs action, and Ms. Cohn is nothing if not an activist . . . She concludes, "It is now time for us to demand truth, justice and accountability from the Cowboy Republicans. That means op-eds and letters to the editor, and writing, emailing and calling Congress, insisting that the Bush gang be held to account for its high crimes and misdemeanors. We must organize protests, marches and demonstrations to end the Iraq war and occupation and prevent the next war. Our lives and those of our children depend on it." --Bill Fisher on Truthout
About the Author
Marjorie Cohn lectures throughout the world and provides legal and political commentary on human rights and U.S. foreign policy for CBS News, Court TV, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Air America, and Pacifica Radio. She’s a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Marjorie Cohn lectures worldwide and does frequent interviews for national and international media. , she edited The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse.
She is an MWC News Magazine senior editor, a contributing editor to Guild Practitioner and Jurist, and a frequent columnist for AlterNet, HuffingtonPost, Counterpunch, CommonDreams, GlobalResearch, OpedNews, AtlanticFreePress, AfterDowningStreet, Buzzflash and ZNet.
The 2005 recipient of San Diego County Bar Association’s Service to Legal Education Award, Professor Cohn was named one of San Diego’s top attorneys in academics for 2006, was recognized as one of San Diego’s Top Attorneys in Academics for 2006, and was awarded the 2007 Bernard E. Witkin, Esq. Award for Excellence in the Teaching of the Law by the San Diego Law Library Justice Foundation. She was a legal observer in Iran on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in 1978 and has participated in delegations to Cuba, China, and Yugoslavia.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bush Administration Legal Record Eviscerated,
By
This review is from: Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law (Paperback)
What a well-reasoned legal analysis of Bush administration actions and policies. This administration is tried and found guilty. If you're looking for talking points to refute right-wing friends or talking heads, this book argues them for you in clear convincing language.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Restoring the Rule of Law,
By
This review is from: Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law (Paperback)
Professor Marjorie Cohn provides a much needed review of the Bush administration's legal record - from launching a "preemptive" war on the basis of palpable falsehoods, to advocating and even practicing torture at Guantanamo and by proxy through "extraordinary renditions," to warrantless wiretaps and spying on Americans, to overreaching claims of executive power that ignore validly passed laws and upset the framers' careful balance of constitutional powers.
Professor Cohn's book shows how an administration that claims a high regard for democracy and the rule of law has in truth demonstrated a deep-seated contempt for both -- explaining why the rest of the world is so fast losing faith in America and her ideals. Professor Cohn's book should help Americans to come to terms with the harm that the Bush administration has done so far. And that, I believe, is a critical step to restoring our national decency and honor. Eric Alan Isaacson
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cowboy Republic: Reader! Inform yourself with the very best..,
By
This review is from: Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law (Paperback)
Daniel Ellsberg likes this book and so do I. Geoffrey Stone, foremost constitutional scholar, likes this book, and so do I.
It is a scholarly and complete exposition of a vital subject, the ruination of our country both inside and outside. Ms. Cohn skillfully describes the Bush-led hollowing-out of our former constitutional liberties coupled with a catastrophic war. Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild, an organization of lawyers who value human rights over property rights, uses the analytical abilities of a skilled lawyer and law professor to point the way out of the mess. Ms. Cohn's writing makes you want to read on and on, and lay all other things aside until the book is read. How many books of any kind do that to you?
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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willful killing, spying program, signing statements, unitary executive, black sites Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Supreme Court, Security Council, Geneva Conventions, Guantánamo Bay, New York Times, Saddam Hussein, War Crimes Act, Patriot Act, White House, Abu Ghraib, Fourth Amendment, President Bush, Detainee Treatment Act, Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Cheney, Airborne Division, Justice Department, King George, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Armed Forces, Common Article Three, Vice President Cheney, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Nuremberg Tribunal Browse Sample Pages:
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willful killing, spying program, signing statements, unitary executive, black sites Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Supreme Court, Security Council, Geneva Conventions, Guantánamo Bay, New York Times, Saddam Hussein, War Crimes Act, Patriot Act, White House, Abu Ghraib, Fourth Amendment, President Bush, Detainee Treatment Act, Senate Judiciary Committee, Dick Cheney, Airborne Division, Justice Department, King George, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Armed Forces, Common Article Three, Vice President Cheney, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Nuremberg Tribunal Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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