president can safeguard "national security" with virtual dictatorial powers. A new precedent on an old principle is in order.
Commencing with this administration, and following with every one hereafter, any president or member of the executive branch who takes action to exceed or attempts to exceed strictly delegated Constitutional authority, should be subject to impeachment and possible removal from office by authority vested in Congress under Article I-section 2-clause 5 and Article I-section 3-clause 6, in conjunction with the provisions of Article II-section 4,.
President Bush, like Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and FDR, epitomizes H. L. Mencken's adage, that "the only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and its good-by to the Bill of Rights." Armed with the Patriot Act and a blank check to wage war anywhere on earth, he is a constant danger to personal liberty and national security.
Under the pretense of defending the nation against never-ending threats, President Bush claims his actions and pronouncements have been in accordance with his oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." He claims to be well within his "right" to exercise the powers at his disposal, acting according to precedent, executive practice and judicial review. Regardless of the legacy of his predecessors, President Bush should be judged on the merit of his words and actions as president.
President Bush deceived the American people on numerous occasions, first to promote his war in Iraq, then to rationalize its continued occupation. Deception is a breach of public trust. Lies soon follow. According to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 65, impeachment of a president is justified for "offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."
There was the State of the Union Address and the president's "technically correct" statement about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from Niger. The president needed a hook to scare the American people. As James Bovard reported, aids that initially defended the president by blaming the CIA changed their tune, conceding, "the CIA had sent two warnings to the White House in early October 2002 casting grave doubts on the Iraq-Niger uranium claims." Claiming a false statement to be true goes beyond deception; it is lying.
The American people were told that Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent threat" to the United States. Hussein supposedly had weapons of mass destruction, "WMDs," which he could use at any moment. The president's advisors claimed to know exactly where Hussein was hiding them. This "threat" to "national security" had to be neutralized.
When the war was declared over and no WMDs were found, the story changed. Anonymous sources, once ridiculed by Republicans when speaking for President Clinton, made repetitive claims that WMDs didn't matter because liberating the Iraqi people from the clutches of a tyrant was a good enough reason for going to war. Skepticism of the administrations' motives began to mount.
Then mass graves were found in southern Iraq, supposedly containing the bodies of rebels who fought to overthrow the Hussein regime following Gulf War I. The story changed again. We went to war to avenge these brave Iraqis who gave their lives fighting for freedom. Lest some of us forget, those graves were full of Shiites who acted upon the assurances of then-President George H. W. Bush, the current president's father, that the United States would help them fight Saddam. The help never came and they were slaughtered.
Time passed and still no WMDs. Skepticism persisted. The story changed again. Finally, someone in the administration stated the truth - long after it didn't matter since we were fully entrenched in Iraq. Deputy Secretary of War Paul Wolfowitz said that WMDs were never really important, only the administration's agreed-upon reason for war. They did raise the anxiety of the American people. Finding them was secondary to removing Saddam. The American people were deceived, but for a good reason.
Because President Bush's predecessors have taken liberties with the military does not extend cart blanche to him to condemn thousands of American troops to constant danger in Iraq. Contrary to administration claims, not every Iraqi who resists the occupation is a Saddam "loyalist" or foreign "terrorist" that has infiltrated Iraq just to kill Americans. Many are average Iraqis who have ample reason to strike back at American troops as vengeance for Bush's war: dead wives, dead children, destroyed homes and destroyed dignity. Only the president can pull the troops out; he chooses to leave them there to bleed and die.
Republican apologists have resorted to a Clintonesque defense of President Bush, saying that regardless of what he said or did to get us into war with Iraq, it doesn't matter because the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. Perhaps. As Republicans and any supporter of the president's actions must remember and accept responsibility for, "blowback" could come at any time years into the future and its results could be catastrophic (9/11). The destruction Bush reigned down upon Iraq ultimately makes all Americans less safe in their own country.
Impeachment safeguards the Constitution and the liberties of the American people, both of which transcend the presidency of George W. Bush. As Joseph Sobran said, impeachment is "merely a legal correction to the abuse of power. It shouldn't be considered an extreme measure . . . Every public official should have to worry about it, just as elected officials should have to worry about losing their offices in the next election."
I teach my students that every president should face impeachment at least once during his term in the White House. It checks the propensity to become a tyrant. Right now, it's GW's turn. |
