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Impeach George Bush
Congress Goes AWOL
Once again Congress Ron Paul of Texas cuts through the webs spun by those responsible for the mess in Iraq and reveals the treason that brought us to this sorry place. The President and Congress all pledge to uphold the Constitution, but they don't.
Source: Ron Paul, 2004-02-09
Candidate: TheTIP
Controversy is brewing in Washington over intelligence failures underlying the administration’s claims about the threat posed by Iraq.
The president has appointed a new commission to study the issue, but its true mission may be political damage control for the November election.
CIA director George Tenet, knowing he is the most convenient scapegoat, carefully distanced himself from the White House last week. He admitted that bad information caused the agency to “overestimate” Iraq’s weapons capability, and that the Iraqi threat was never labeled "imminent."
We should not make Mr. Tenet the scapegoat. The issue is not whether our intelligence was perfect, but rather the process by which we allow our government to commit troops to war. That process bypassed Congress almost entirely.
Congress is to blame for its craven failure to seriously debate, much less declare, war in Iraq.
The Constitution squarely charges Congress with the duty to declare war, a weighty responsibility that our founders thought should rest with the body most directly responsible to the people.
The president’s status as commander-in-chief grants him the power only to execute war, not to decide whether war is justified. This is not seriously debatable by anyone who honestly examines the Constitution and the Federalist papers.
Various weak and disingenuous arguments have been made claiming that watered-down congressional resolutions authorizing force are adequate, and that war has been waged in the past without express declarations. But the letter of the Constitution trumps political expediency, and past sins hardly justify ignoring the rule of law today.
It is pathetic to hear supposedly strict-constructionist conservatives use Clintonian verbal gymnastics to justify their party’s unconstitutional actions.
The furor over bad intelligence is a little late, to put it mildly.
A proper investigation and debate by Congress clearly was warranted prior to any decision to go to war.
The consequences cannot be undone.
Hundreds of American soldiers have been killed, thousands more maimed or injured. More than one hundred billion dollars have been spent, and billions more will be needed to support our open-ended occupation of Iraq.
The current after-the-fact debate is hollow and political. We now see those who abdicated their congressional responsibility to declare or reject war, who timidly voted to give the president the power he wanted, posturing as his harshest critics.
The administration rushes to claim that the justifications for war do not matter, because Saddam was worthy of removal anyway. But we’ve heard that tired argument a million times. Is the president prepared to commit troops to remove every bad guy around the globe? Of course not.
Iraq has been in this administration’s crosshairs since well before September 11th. It does matter if the administration lied or exaggerated to win public support; it does matter if our war in Iraq was just or unjust.
The president stated in a speech last week that had Saddam Hussein remained in power, the United Nations resolutions and condemnations would be “scraps of paper amounting to nothing.”
In the eyes of many conservatives and libertarians, it is our own Constitution being treated as a meaningless scrap of paper.
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User Originated Comments:
From: Linda
2004-02-13 00:00:00
1) the carlyle group - daddy bush, shultz, et
al.
2) the republican led congress
expects to be in session a total of 95 days this
year. that's the fewest days in the 230 year
history of congress.
figure it out.
less than 2 days a week. that's a part-time job.
for which they will receive $165,000 and all their
benefits.
nice work, if you can get
it.
From: albert g.
2004-02-13 00:00:00
new yorker,
you're so right. this
administration couldn't care less about americans
getting killed . the american public is left
holding the bag; lets follow the money and lets
get the thiefs.
From: new yorker
2004-02-13 00:00:00
okay we all know what is or has gone on, but now
we need to know who is benefitting from 9-11, and
who is getting rich off this war and how? we need
to start to follow the money.
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