[NYTr] Boyle: Fighting the Democrats' Complicity with Bush

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Fighting the Democrats' Complicity with Bush

by Francis A.Boyle
August 9, 2007
 
Despite the massive, overwhelming repudiation of the Iraq war and the
Bush Jr. administration by the American people in the November 2006
national elections conjoined with their consequent installation of a
Congress controlled by the Democratic Party with a mandate to terminate
the Iraq war, since its ascent to power in January 2007 the Democrats in
Congress have taken no effective steps to stop, impede, or thwart the
Bush Jr. administration's wars of aggression against Iraq, Afghanistan,
Somalia, or anywhere else, including their long-standing threatened war
against Iran. To the contrary, the new Democrat-controlled Congress
decisively facilitated these serial Nuremberg crimes against peace on
May 24, 2007 by enacting a $95 billion supplemental appropriation to
fund war operations through September 30, 2007.

In the Spring of 2007 all the Congressional Democrats had to do was
nothing. They could have sat upon the supplemental appropriation request
for war operations by the Bush Jr. administration and thus failed to
enact it into law. At that point, the money for war operations would
have gradually run out, and the Bush Jr. administration would have been
forced to have gradually withdrawn U.S. armed forces from Iraq and
Afghanistan. Instead of so doing, the Congressional Democrats knowingly
prolonged these wars of aggression and thus in the process became aiders
and abettors to these Nuremberg crimes against peace. 

Under the terms of the United States Constitution, the President cannot
spend a dime unless the money has somehow been appropriated by the
United States Congress. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the United
States Constitution expressly provides: "No money shall be drawn from
the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law..."
Furthermore, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the Constitution also
provides that "Congress shall have power... To raise and support armies,
but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term
than two years..." 

America's Founders and Framers deliberately strove to keep America's
prospective military establishment on a financial short-leash tightly
held by the hands of Congress precisely because of their well-founded
fear that a standing army would constitute a dire threat to the
continued existence of the Republic based upon their recent experience
confronting and defeating King George III's standing army. As the
American July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence stated their
objections in part: "...He has kept among us, in Times of Peace,
Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures. He has
affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
Power... For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us..." 

Congress must use its constitutional power of the purse to terminate the
Bush Jr. administration's wars of aggression immediately. Those
Congressional incumbents of either political party who refuse to do so
must be replaced by men and women of good faith and good will of any or
no political party who will do their constitutional duty to terminate
ongoing Nuremberg crimes against peace. To the contrary, the current
leadership of the Democratic Party (though, to be sure, not all
Democrats), let alone most of the Republicans, have been complicit with
all the atrocities that the Bush Jr. administration has inflicted upon
international law, international organizations, human rights, the United
States Constitution, civil rights, civil liberties, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Somalia, and elsewhere since September 11, 2001. 

Further confirmation of this proposition can be found in the fact that
when the self-described Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan went on July 23, 2007
with 200 protesters to speak with Democratic Congressman John Conyers --
Chair of the House Judiciary Committee that has supervisory jurisdiction
over bills of impeachment -- about starting impeachment proceedings
against President Bush Jr., at the end of an hour Congressman Conyers
ordered her and 45 others arrested for disorderly conduct when they
refused to leave his office.  In other words, one of the leaders of the
Democratic Party arrested one of the leaders of the American Peace
Movement for insisting that he and his congressional colleagues perform
their constitutionally-mandated duties. Nothing could be more
symptomatic of the constitutional, moral, and political bankruptcy of
the so-called two-party system of politics in the United States of
America: Republicans versus Democrats, Tweedle Dum versus Tweedle Dee. 

Since the Democrats' Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy
Pelosi had already ruled arbitrarily that President Bush's impeachment
was "off the table," Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan announced her intention to
run against Pelosi in the 2008 national elections. Once again Mrs.
Sheehan's instincts, principles, judgment, and strategy are directly on
target. The American people must oppose, defeat, and replace all members
of the United States Congress of any political party who will not
impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney in order to terminate
their needlessly - inflicted death and destruction in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and Somalia as soon as possible. The so-called leaderships of both
political parties have left the American people with no alternative.
Even more urgently, the Neo-Conservative cabal known as the Bush Jr.
administration are still threatening, planning, preparing, and
conspiring to attack Iran, which could very well set-off World War III.
Just recently they added nuclear-armed Pakistan to their publicly
proclaimed list of targets. 

Meanwhile, the Bush Jr. administration's "surge" of 30,000 troops into
Iraq announced in January of 2007 has marched on to its inexorable
bloodbath for the Iraqi people and U.S. armed forces.There is more than
enough circumstantial evidence to conclude that the underlying strategy
of the Bush Jr. administration is nothing more than to postpone their
inevitable defeat in Iraq until after their departure from office in
January 2009 no matter what the cost in lives to Iraqis and Americans.
But the world cannot wait until January of 2009 for America to start to
end these wars and their related war crimes, as well as to prevent more
threatened wars, especially against Iran or Pakistan, which could prove
catastrophic for humankind.

The United States Congress must immediately and simultaneously proceed
to exercise both its constitutional power of the purse and its
constitutional power of impeachment toward that end. That is the
bilateral strategy which the U.S. Congress pursued a generation ago in
order to terminate the Nixon administration's criminal wars of
aggression against Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. That must be the
bilateral strategy by which the U.S. Congress today terminates the Bush
Jr. administration's criminal wars of aggression against Iraq,
Afghanistan, Somalia, and otherwise perhaps soon Iran or Pakistan.
Despite Pelosi's disingenuous protestations to the contrary, the
Nixon/Vietnam precedent proves that Congressional impeachment and
cutting-off funds for wars are mutually reinforcing strategies. They
might even win the 2008 U.S. Presidential and Congressional elections
for those who embrace them.