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CounterPunch
October
12, 2002
A Bleak Day
for America
by DAVID KRIEGER
Today is a bleak day for America, and for all
Americans. Congress, in its fear and conformity, has voted to
grant authority to the President to conduct a preemptive war
against another nation. Congress has joined the President in
assuming an imperial mantle, granting powers above and beyond
our obligations under international and domestic law.
Would that Congress had heeded its wiser
and saner voices, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who cautioned
restraint and warned that the vote to authorize the rush to
war undermined our Constitution. Only Congress has the power
to declare war under the US Constitution. It cannot legally
give this power over to the president.
"We are at the gravest of moments,"
Senator Byrd told his colleagues. "Members of Congress
must not simply walk away from their Constitutional responsibilities.
We are the directly elected representatives of the American
people, and the American people expect us to carry out our duty,
not simply hand it off to this or any other president. To do
so would be to fail the people we represent and to fall woefully
short of our sworn oath to support and defend the Constitution."
International law, as imbedded in the
United Nations Charter, allows for war under two tightly circumscribed
conditions. First, a nation may engage in force for self-defense
when an attack occurs or is imminent,  but only if there is not time to take
the matter to the United Nations Security Council and only until
the United Nations Security Council assumes control of the situation.
Second, a nation may engage in force when duly authorized by
the United Nations Security Council after all efforts to secure
the peace by peaceful means have failed.
Despite the congressional vote of false
authority to the President, neither of these conditions of authorization
to engage in war has been fulfilled. There is no evidence that
an attack by Iraq on the United States or any other nation
is imminent. Nor have the peaceful means to resolve Iraq's compliance
with earlier Security Council resolutions calling for dismantlement
of weapons of mass destruction been pursued since the United
Nations, under pressure from the United States, pulled its inspectors
out of Iraq four years ago. Iraq has indicated its willingness
to resume inspections, but the Bush administration has been
reluctant to take Yes for an answer and accept their offer of
compliance.
September 11th will be remembered in
America as the tragic day terrorists made evident the vulnerability
of even the world's most powerful nation. October 11th should
be remembered as the day that Congress meekly and uncourageously
gave to the President of the United States the illegal authority
to commit preemptive war. Such war, in the context of World
War II called "aggressive war," is what Nazi and Japanese
leaders were held to account for at the Nuremberg and Tokyo
trials following World War II.
Such war is far from the proud traditions
of America dating back to its Declaration of Independence. This
is not the way that America should be leading the world, for
it will result in international chaos, instability and increased
insecurity. Now it is up to ordinary Americans to take to the
streets and by their presence make it known in Washington and
throughout the world that the American public does not support
putting the face of Saddam on the innocent children of Iraq;
nor does it support high-altitude bombing and other of acts
of aggressive warfare in the name of a false and Orwellian peace.
David Krieger
is president of the Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation. His latest book is Choose Hope,
Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age. He can be reached
at: dkrieger@napf.org
Today's Features
Jason Leopold
The New
York Times, Salon, Enron and Me
Jennifer Loewenstein
Khan
Yunis:
Before the Juggernaut
Ben Tripp
Let Wag
the Dogs of War or No Peace at Any Price
Will Youmans
Israel's
Plans to "Transfer" Palestinians During Iraq War
Linda S. Heard
Israel's
Image Problem:
Fire Up the Propaganda Mill
Lawrence McGuire
Eight
Ways to Smear Chomsky
Baruch Kimmerling
Why
is the US Scaring Me?
Alexander Cockburn
Dwarf-Throwing
& the UN:
Shape of Things to Come
Tom Walker
The Work
Ethic and Its Discontents
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- How to Change the Subject: Corporate Scandal and Pension
Reform as Weapons Against Warmongering;
- Padilla's Predecessor: Court Ruling Cites 1904 War
Against Mining Union;
- Adios Hitchens: the Dorian Gray of Our Time;
- Object of Suspicion: How the FBI Watched Janis Ian
From Birth;
- First Carter, Then Clinton,
Now Sen. John Edwards:
Another "New South" Slimeball;
- Corporate Crooks: Nature or Nurture?
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October 9,
2002
Hesham Hassaballa
Here
We Go Again:
Rev. Falwell's Slurs
Ann Pettifer
Brainwashing
in America
Anita Ramasatry
Airline Security Run Amok
Josh Frank
Iraq: It's
About Globalization
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
Iraq:
the Double Standard
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Illogical War Speech
David Vest
Dylan in
Eugene
October 4,
2002
Ahmad Faruqui
The Anvil
of War and the Ailing American Economy
Norman Madarasz
The
Truth and Violence
of a Symbolic Act
William Hughes
Political
Show Trial for
Marwan Barghouti
Ron Jacobs
The Struggle
Against
Another Oil War
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Bush War
Plan:
Blind and Improvident
Michael Schwalbe
The
Costs of American Privilege
Ralph Nader
Holding
Politicians' Feet to the Fire on Corporate Crime
Robert Buzzanco
Pacifica
Caves in to Zionist Smear Campaign
October 3,
2002
Gary Leupp
Talking
to Your Kids About Fascism
Will Youmans
The New
Anti-Apartheid Movement: The Campaign to Divest from Israel
Deb Reich
Report from a Mad World
Todd Chretien & Sue Sandlin
"It's All About Power on the
Docks"
Kurt Nimmo
Poetry
as Treason
Amiri Baraka
Somebody
Blew Up America
Alexander
Cockburn
October Surprises
October 2,
2002
Carol Wolman,
MD
Is the
President Nuts?
Diagnosing Dubya
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Something
Rotten in Klamath
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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