Chain the Dogs of War
Wild Country
through the long process of drafting a Constitution for the new United
States finally approved the document. The primary purpose of their creation
was, in the language of their time, to "chain the dogs of war."
The American colonies has suffered the cruel fates of wars plotted and
pursued by the royal families of distant Europe, and they set about to
assure that the nation they had freed from the grip of British imperialism
would not, itself, be subjected to the imperial whims of presidents who
might someday imagine themselves to be kings.
"The executive should be able to repel and not to commence war," explained
Roger Sherman, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Connecticut,
who moved to make clear the intent of the founders that nothing in their
exposition of the powers of the executive branch should be conceived as
authorizing the president to "make war." An executive could assume the
mantle of commander-in-chief only when it was necessary to defend the
country; never to wage kingly wars of whim.
Sherman's resolution was approved overwhelmingly by the Philadelphia
convention that finished its work September 17, 1787.
George Mason, the Virginia delegate who was the strongest advocate for
restraint on the executive, summed up the sentiments of the delegates when
he said: "I am for clogging rather than facilitating war."
So was the Constitution defined. Indeed, in arguing for its ratification,
Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson explained, "This system will not hurry us
into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power
of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress;
for the important part in declaring war is vested in the legislature at
large."
The procedures are clearly outlined. Wars must be declared by the houses of
Congress. And the power to continue any war is rested entirely in the
funding authority that is given Congress. The president does not enjoy the
privilege of declaring or maintaining a war. He is merely a manager of
military affairs in a time of conflict; and even in that he is required to
defer on matters of consequence to the Congress.
This, we know, to be the law of the land.
Yet, as we mark the 220th anniversary of the Constitution, more than 160,000
young Americans are mired in the quagmire of an undeclared war in Iraq. More
than 3,700 of them have died already, and the toll expands on a daily
basis - as does the rate at which innocent Iraqis are killed, maimed and
rendered homeless. More than $200 million is extracted from the federal
treasury each day to pay for this war, despite the fact that it is, by any
Constitutional standard, entirely illegitimate.
The founders would not question for a moment that the Congress has the
authority to use the power of the purse to end this war. Indeed, they would
argue today as they did in their time, that a failure to do so would imperil
the Republic.
But the founders would be even more worried about the precedent set by the
current president's seizure of ungranted authority for warmaking and so much
else, and they would remind us, as George Mason did, that with regard to the
Constitution: "No point is of more importance than that the right of
impeachment should be continued."
The voters dealt with last fall with the Republican Congress that had
collaborated with Bush to thwart the rule of law. The unfortunate reality of
the moment is that a Democratic Congress that was elected to restore a
measure of balance to the federal stage has responded to necessity with
caution. But that does not change the eternal reality of the Republic, which
is that this "opposition" Congress has a simple, basic, yet essential
Constitutional duty. Members of the House and Senate must impeach and try a
president who is assaulting the most basic precepts of the American
experiment. Anything less is a mockery of the document they swear an oath to
defend - and an invitation to this and future presidents to further unchain
the dogs of war that the founders struggled so mightily to contain.
John Nichols' new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for
Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic,
passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination
of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is
impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the
most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most
basic liberties.'"
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
My feeling, all along, has been that since Bush pushed us, illegally and
deceitfully, into an unnecessary invasion and "war" (and I use the term
loosely, since it's really an occupation), that he and his administration
should be made accountable for this horrific and unconstitutional threat to
the American people. Since he "broke it", the only legitimate restitution is
that he "fix it". Only impeachment (and more ideally, conviction and removal
from office) will clear the stench of illegitimacy that this government has
created since initially placed into office by a flippant decision made in
haste by the highest court in the land. Impeachment is the only way towards
"fixing" this.
Impeachment, through discovery, will clearly tell a story about how and why
this administration started an aggression. It will contain other sub-plots
about indefinite detention and torture and the means of repression here at
home, including the suppression of dissent. It will make it clear to future
administrations, that the American people elect, that they will not be able
to break or impede the constraints of the balanced branches of government,
which our founders so necessarily fought for.
A "Constitutional Crisis" is when the Constitution ISN'T followed.
Impeachment would not be a Constitutional crisis, it would mean the end of
the crisis. The Supreme Court, by law, is to have nothing to do with
elections. When an election is close, two slates of electors go to Congress
deliberately so that if the People disagree with who CONGRESS decides who
should be President, the people can REMOVE the Congressmen from office.
Supreme Court appointees are there for life.
"9/11?? The REAL attack on this country took place on "12/12?.
.a literal Fascist coup, like in 1933.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot