Posted on 03/18/2003 1:47:00 PM PST by quidnunc
Hello and welcome to Review of the News Online. I'm William Norman Grigg, Senior Editor for The New American magazine — an affiliated publication of The John Birch Society.
On literally scores of occasions since the latest crisis in Iraq began last fall, President Bush has stated unambiguously that the purpose of military action against Saddam's regime would be to enforce the will of the United Nations. In addresses to the UN, speeches to the American public, and pep talks to the troops, Mr. Bush has repeatedly and emphatically said that he considers Saddam's defiance of the UN to be intolerable, and that war with Iraq is necessary to enhance the world body's prestige, and its power to disarm supposedly sovereign nations.
The president pointedly reiterated that theme during his March 6th prime-time press conference. According to Mr. Bush, the matter of war and peace in Iraq depends on a single question: "Has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed, as required by [Security Council] Resolution 1441, or has it not?…. The only acceptable outcome is the one already defined by a unanimous vote of the Security Council — total disarmament…. Should we go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament."
Whether or not a second Security Council Resolution is adopted, American military action against Iraq would be a mission to empower the UN. Mr. Bush made that undeniably clear in this remarkable statement from the March 6th press conference:
"[I]t's hard to say that the United States is defiant about the United Nations, when I was the person who took the issue to the United Nations, September the 12th, 2002. We've been working with the United Nations. We've been working through the United Nations…. I want the United Nations to be effective. It's important for it to be a robust, capable body. It's important for its words to mean what they say…."
During that same press conference, the president recalled: "I swore to protect and defend the Constitution; that's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the Bible and took that oath, and that's exactly what I'm going to do." By his own public testimony of his intention to build and sustain the power of the UN, the president convicts himself of perjury in swearing that grave oath to defend our Constitution.
Many of the president's most outspoken conservative supporters are also vehement critics of the UN. For some reason, conservatives of that variety are unwilling to take the president at his word when he says that he intends to use our military to empower the anti-American United Nations.
The term used by most commentators to describe the Bush administration's foreign policy is "unilateralist." It's true that the president claims the right to attack Iraq unilaterally if the UN Security Council fails to adopt another resolution specifically authorizing a military strike. But little attention has been paid to President Bush's unprecedented decision to define Saddam's defiance of the UN as a threat to our national security.
Under the Bush formula, we can only be secure if the UN has the power to enforce its disarmament decrees. Granted, few regimes are worthier targets of disarmament efforts than that of Saddam Hussein. But the precedent set by using our military to carry out UN disarmament designs will haunt our nation someday — and that day will come much sooner than most people think if we insist on squandering our wealth and resources on unnecessary foreign wars.
Saddam is incontestably a world-class thug, but he is not a credible threat to American security. The Iraqi people and the world at large would be better off if Saddam were Stalin's roommate in hell. But sending him there and reconstructing Iraq's government are not America's job.
Even though the president's supporters, dutifully taking their cues from the White House, depict Saddam's regime as a mortal threat to our national security, the president's behavior suggests that he doesn't really believe the party line.
Here's one telling illustration: During his February 5th presentation to the UN Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell outlined what he called the "sinister nexus
between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder." That network, Powell explained, is "headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a … collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants."
Zarqawi was among the American-sponsored Mujahadin warriors who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s, and oversaw an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan until he was forced to flee the U.S.-led military coalition in 2002. According to Powell, "[T]he Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq." The Secretary of State buttressed this alarming claim with satellite photos of the terrorist training camp.
This dramatic disclosure was heralded by administration supporters as proof of Iraqi connivance with the 9-11 plotters. But that characterization is difficult to reconcile with a small but crucial admission made by Powell during his presentation: "Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq."
In other words, that group is actually operating out of territory under the protection of the so-called international community.
We know where that terrorist training camp is located. Saddam's writ does not run over that corner of Iraq. We have military assets in the region that have been used for over a decade to enforce "no fly zones" over Iraq, and conduct periodic bombing campaigns in Iraq proper. Why, then, doesn't the administration simply bomb Zarqawi's camp, rather than citing its existence in an attempt to win support for a UN-sponsored war on Iraq?
More to the point: If Saddam's regime poses an apocalyptic threat to us, why is the Bush administration taking the time and trouble to get UN approval, rather than presenting its case to Congress and securing a declaration of war? Last fall, Texas Representative Ron Paul proposed a resolution declaring war on Iraq, only to have it voted down in committee by congressional allies of the White House. (Rep. Paul, who voted against the measure, sponsored it to call the Warhawks' bluff.) So Saddam allegedly poses a threat so grave that it justifies a UN-authorized pre-emptive strike against Iraq — but not a congressional declaration of war.
It is possible that the Iraqi crisis will be resolved short of outright war, perhaps through Saddam Hussein's abdication. However, the Bush administration and the UN are planning for a lengthy U.S. occupation of Iraq, whether or not a war occurs. In a February 26th speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Bush described in detail how the envisioned occupation would disarm Iraq and reconstruct its political system. Comparing the proposed occupation with the post-World War II reconstruction of Japan and Germany, the president insisted that "we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more." He declined to mention that U.S. military personnel are still in Japan and Germany more than a half-century after their surrender.
According to the March 5th Times of London, "The United Nations has drawn up a confidential plan to establish a post-Saddam government in Iraq…. It proposes … the creation of a UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, known as UNAMI, to help to establish a new government. UN sources expected the plan to be implemented even if the U.S. goes to war without a UN resolution authorizing military action." Following the leak of that document, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan denied that a "secret" plan exists — but nonetheless confirmed many of the particulars described in the London Times account.
Retired General Jay Garner, head of the newly created Pentagon office of reconstruction and humanitarian affairs, would serve as proconsul in Iraq for at least three months, after which the mission would be turned over to the UN. And according to the March 6th Washington Post, the Bush administration plans to put the UN in charge of revenue from Iraq's oil exports.
This open-ended mission would tie up tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of U.S. military personnel. It would devour tens or hundreds of billions of dollars. It will almost certainly precipitate more terrorist attacks against our nation. And if Mr. Bush gets his way, all of this will proceed without a congressional declaration of war.
During his most recent State of the Union Address, President Bush declared: "Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make." The same point was made in questions posed during the March 6th presidential press conference. Correspondent Ron Fournier asked: "Are we just days away from the point [at] which you decide whether or not we go to war?" Reporter Jim Angle asked Mr. Bush if "you haven't already made the choice to go to war…." Another reporter identified in the transcript as "Gregory" began his question, "If you order war…"
But the Constitution does not give the president the power to decide whether or not to go to war. Only Congress, by declaring war, can make that decision. Nor can Congress delegate that power to the president, as it supposedly did in last November's "use of force" resolution regarding Iraq.
As Abraham Lincoln observed in 1848: "Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our [Constitutional] Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."
On occasions too numerous to list, and in language too candid to ignore, President Bush has said that he intends to bring on our nation precisely the type of kingly oppression denounced by Lincoln — war without end, and without benefit to our national interest. Conservatives who wish to avoid that fate really need to take President Bush at his word.
Thank you for listening. Please join us again next time.
However, over time I came to see that the JBS is obsessively anti-Semitic and not worthy to be associated with the decent conservative mainstream. They are but a step removed from the Aryan Nations.
-ccm
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