| 
Recent Stories
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz--Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Stephen Banko
I Was a Soldier
Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch from
Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The Erosion
of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush:
A Draft Resolution
Click Here for More
Stories.
Burn Your Sweatshop Clothes!
Buy Union Made Apparel!
|
March
25, 2003
Bush is Acting
Like a Judicially-Selected Dictator
Pre--emptive
War on a Defenseless Country
By RALPH NADER
As
this is written, the campaign known as "shock and awe" has
begun over Iraq and the five million civilian inhabitants of Baghdad.
Bombs indeed shock, but why the word "awe"? This is Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's way of turning the Iraq bombardment against
what he knows is a defenseless country, run by a brutal dictator, into
a metaphor for the rest of the world. He wants the whole world in "awe"
of the mighty military superpower in preparation for the next move against
another country in or outside the "axis of evil".
This is truly an
extraordinary time in American history. A dozen men and one woman are
making very risky consequential decisions sealed off from much muted
dissent inside the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA and other
agencies that have warned the President and his small band of ideological
cohorts to think more deeply before they leap. They are launching our
nation into winning a war which generates later battles that may not
be winnable -- at least not without great economic and human costs to
our country.
But let's back up
a moment. Our founding fathers most emphatically placed the warmaking
power in the hands of Congress. They did not want some arrogant or brooding
successor to King George III to plunge the country into war. They wanted
a collegial body of many elected representatives to decide openly (Article
I, section 8).
Last year, Congress,
with leaders of both Parties, surrendered their warmaking power to George
W. Bush. This itself is unlawful. But unfortunately, there is no judicial
remedy for any citizen to challenge assigning the warmaking power to
the President. Senator Robert Byrd (D--West Virginia) eloquently and
repeatedly objected to this constitutional abdication. The large majority
of Congress just shrugged. They knew that there was no punishment for
this institutional crime.
Mr. Bush, on the other hand, was only too eager to strip the Congress
of such authority, just as the Attorney General, both by action and
by demanding and receiving such crushers of civil liberties as the so--called
U.S. Patriot Act, was eager to diminish the role of the judiciary. Having
turned our federal system of separation of powers between three branches
into a one--branch hegemony, Mr. Bush proceeded to flout the U.N. Charter,
which the U.S. mostly drafted and signed on to in 1945.
His preemptive war
-- the first in U.S. history -- against a nation that has neither attacked
nor threatened our country cannot be construed as self--defense and
therefore violates international law. Washington would certainly make
exactly this point were another nation in the world to attack a country
it finds noxious.
Then how do the arguments for going to war that Bush has made endlessly
on the mass media for a year, without a steady rebuttal by the cowering
Democratic Party, stand up? Bush's assertion that Iraq is reconstituting
its nuclear weapons program is based on evidence that Congressman Henry
Waxman called a "hoax." In a blistering letter to the President
on March 17th, Congressman Waxman all but called Bush's assertion that
Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger a lie, citing both the CIA and the
International Atomic Energy Agency as his authorities. Neither agency
has evidence of a rebuilding nuclear weapons program.
President Bush has repeatedly tried to tie Iraq with Al--Qaeda. There
is no evidence to support these allegations. The two are mortal enemies
-- one secular and the other fundamentalist. The CIA informed Congress
that confronting a U.S. overthrow attack, our former, supplied ally,
Saddam Hussein "probably would become much less constrained in
adopting terrorist actions." Even then, analysts have published
articles casting doubt on the efficacy of whatever mass destruction
weapons he may have against a modern air and missile attack followed
by spread--out armored vehicles racing toward a surrendering army.
The UN inspectors
found nothing in their forays inside Iraq before Bush stopped their
increasing penetration of that regime.
On March 18th, the
Washington Post, which avidly favors the war, felt obliged to publish
a story by two of its leading reporters titled, "Bush Clings to
Dubious Allegations About Iraq." The article questioned a "number
of allegations" that the Bush administration is making against
Iraq that "have been challenged -- and in some cases disproved
-- by the United Nations, European governments and even U.S. intelligence
reports."
Now that the short
war has begun, it is hoped that there will be minimum casualties on
both sides. But after the U.S. military prevails, the longer battles
during occupation begin. They are fires, disease, hunger, plunder and
looting by desperate people and roving gangs, and bloodletting between
major religious and ethnic factions.
U.S. intelligence
agencies say the Iraq war will likely increase global terrorism including
inside this country. Respected retired military generals and admirals,
such as Marine General Anthony Zinni, believe it will destabilize the
Middle East region, undermine the war on terrorism and distract from
the Israeli--Palestinian conflict. "King George" is not listening
to them or to other prominent former leaders in the State Department,
Pentagon or the major intelligence agencies, including his father's
own National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft.
This must be the
only war in our history promoted by chickenhawks -- former belligerent
draft dodgers -- and opposed by so many of those inside and outside
of government who served in the armed forces.
Still the Messianic
militarist in the White House refuses to even listen -- either to opposing
viewpoints held by tens of millions of Americans or to viewpoints counseling
other non--war ways to achieve the objectives in Iraq. Indeed, he has
refused to meet with any domestic antiwar delegation. Groups representing
veterans, labor, business, elected city officials, women, clergy, physicians
and academics with intelligence experience have written requesting an
audience (see www.essentialaction.org).
Michael Kinsley
is a sober, bright columnist who said that "in terms of the power
he now claims, George W. Bush is now the closest thing in a long time
to dictator of the world." One might also use a Canadian phrase
-- an elected dictator. Correction -- a judicially--selected dictator.
Yesterday's Features
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links / |