The Iraq war
is turning into a war against the American
people and its institutions. According
to the latest poll, an overwhelming
majority of Americans (63 percent) want
U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by the
end of next year. This is the clear
message [1] the American electorate
is sending to President George W. Bush.
On February 16, 2007, 56 percent of
the members of the U.S. House of Representative
essentially said the same thing when
they adopted Resolution 63, by a vote
of 246 against 182, in which they stated
that “... Congress disapproves
of the decision of President George
W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007,
to deploy more than 20,000 additional
United States combat troops to Iraq.”
And, to make it complete, 56 percent
of U.S. Senators signified their opposition
to the war on February 17, 2007.
These clear democratic signals of the
people's wishes came after the November
7, 2006, election, in which pro-war
Republican candidates took a thumping.
They also came after a blue ribbon study
group [2], the Baker-Hamilton Commission,
unanimously concluded that the solution
in Iraq is political and not military,
and unanimously recomended that the
U.S. terminate its open-ended presence
in Iraq and begin its disengagement
and “redeployment” from
that country.
You would think that politicians who
respect democracy and the people's right
to govern themselves would pay attention
and listen to what the sovereign electorate
is saying.
But to no avail. The Bush-Cheney regime,
initially placed into power by one Supreme
judge[3] in 2000, after presidential
candidate Al Gore [4] won the popular
vote, went the other way and ordered
a military build-up in the Persian Gulf,
and, against the advice of the generals
on the ground, ordered a military 'surge'
in Iraq [5].
It is a strange spectacle in a democracy
when the influence of a few people trumps
the will of the majority. The Bush-Cheney
regime seems to be inclined to follow
the narrow advice of powerful lobbies
rather than listen to what the electorate
and elected officials are saying. In
Washington D.C., under George W. Bush
and Dick Cheney, the American Enterprise
Institute [6] has more clout than the
U.S. Congress. On January 14, 2007,
U.S. President George W. Bush [7] expressed
his personal conception of democracy
when he said: “.. they [the Congress]
could try to stop me from doing it.
But I’ve made my decision. And
we’re going forward.”
And two weeks later, on January 25,
2007, oil-man Dick Cheney [8] reinforced
this cynical point of view by saying,
after a Senate Committee adopted a resolution
in opposition to Bush's plan for a military
escalation in Iraq: “It won't
stop us”...“We are moving
forward.” ... “We need to
get the job done.” And Cheney
added defiantly it's “hogwash
to say Bush's credibility is at stake
in Iraq.”
It does not matter that the Bush-Cheney
team has made colossal errors of judgment
[9]. They feel they have absolute powers
in their hands and they intend to use
them for whatever project they have
in mind, and damn the American public,
damn the elected Congress, and damn
world opinion. Indeed, this regime has
resurrected President Richard Nixon's
old and infamous philosophy of “executive
supremacy” and has even gone further
in adopting the anti-democratic theory
of an “imperial presidency”
[10].
According
to this dangerous and discredited theory,
which the Bush administration now calls
the “unitary executive,”
there are no limits to presidential
wartime powers, even when no such war
has been declared by Congress. In such
circumstances of his own choosing, a
president could then stop recognizing
the authority of the elected Congress
and refuse to accept the courts as final
arbiters of constitutional rights, each
time he considers this role to be at
odds with his vision of national security.
Of course, such an outright grasp for
power smacks dictatorship and represents
a direct attack on the U.S. Constitution,
with its Checks and Balances between
co-equal branches and the Rule of Law
at its center, provisions which were
precisely designed to avoid the pitfalls
of dictatorship. Maybe people should
have paid more attention when George
W. Bush joked aloud that “If this
were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck
of a lot easier, just so long as I'm
the dictator!” (December 18, 2000),
or when he proclaimed that “I'm
the decider, and I decide what's best!”
(April 14, 2006).
As President and Father of the U.S.
Constitution James Madison (1751-1836)
put it: “There are more instances
of the abridgement of freedom of the
people by gradual and silent encroachments
of those in power than by violent and
sudden usurpations.” In fact,
most constitutional experts believe
that Bush's claim for an imperial presidency
is prima facie unconstitutional and
is not supported by anything in the
U.S. Constitution [11].
In particular, it has been pointed out
that the Bush-Cheney administration
cannot invoke the October 2, 2002, Iraq
resolution [12] as a blank check to
claim absolute powers, because this
resolution explicitly invoked the War
Powers Resolution (1976 War Powers Act),
at Section 2(b), which requires the
President of the United States to gain
congressional approval before any troop
deployment abroad [13].
Therefore,
it remains to be seen if the Bush-Cheney
regime can go on challenging the American
people, intimidating Congress, defying
the courts, and not even considering
international law and world public opinion,
for two more years.
Dr.
Roderigue Tremblay*
Montreal (Canada)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Rodrigue
Tremblay is professor emeritus
of economics at the University of Montreal.
He is the author of the book, The New
American Empire.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
End
Notes:
[1]
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-12-troops-poll_x.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Study_Group
[3] http://www.Democrats.com/node/11798
[4] http://elandslide.org/display.cfm?id=181
[5] http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/salon_1_06_07.htm
[6] http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/06/aei/print.html
[7]
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/01/14/national/w100915S46.DTL
[8] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/25/politics/main2397224.shtml
[9] http://www.antiwar.com/orig/odom.php?articleid=10396
[10] http://www.Democrats.com/Cheneys-Dead-Enders
[11] http://www.fff.org/comment/com0604b.asp
[12] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html
[13] http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=340251&rel_no=1
