Defending the Truth

By Robert Sheer
George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the “foreign entanglements” that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

With the “war on terror,” Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because the “terrorists” will always provide a convenient shadowy target. Just the “continual warfare” that Madison warned of in justifying the primary role of Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war—the very issue now at stake in Bush’s battle with Congress.

In his “Political Observations,” written years before he served as fourth president of the United States, Madison went on to underscore the dangers of an imperial presidency bloated by war fever. “In war,” Madison wrote in 1795, at a time when the young republic still faced its share of dangerous enemies, “the discretionary power of the Executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.”

How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the specter of our current King George imperiously undermining Congress’ attempts to end the Iraq war. When the prime author of the U.S. Constitution explained why that document grants Congress—not the president—the exclusive power to declare and fund wars, Madison wrote, “A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.”

Because “[n]o nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,” Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers he had codified be respected. “The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war ... the power of raising armies,” he wrote. “The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.”

That last sentence perfectly describes the threat of what President Dwight Eisenhower, 165 years later, would describe as the “military-industrial complex,” a permanent war economy feeding off a permanent state of insecurity. The collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the military profiteers and their handsomely rewarded cheerleaders in the government of a raison d’être for the massive war economy supposedly created in response to it. Fortunately for them, Bush found in the 9/11 attack an excuse to make war even more profitable and longer lasting. The Iraq war, which the president’s 9/11 Commission concluded never had anything to do with the terrorist assault, nonetheless has transferred many hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars into the military economy. And when Congress seeks to exercise its power to control the budget, this president asserts that this will not govern his conduct of the war.

There never was a congressional declaration of war to cover the invasion of Iraq. Instead, President Bush acted under his claimed power as commander in chief, which the Supreme Court has held does allow him to respond to a “state of war” against the United States. That proviso was clearly a reference to surprise attacks or sudden emergencies.

The problem is that the “state of war” in question here was an al-Qaida attack on the U.S. that had nothing whatsoever to do with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Perhaps to spare Congress the embarrassment of formally declaring war against a nation that had not attacked America, Bush settled for a loosely worded resolution supporting his use of military power if Iraq failed to comply with U.N. mandates.

This was justified by the White House as a means of strengthening the United Nations in holding Iraq accountable for its WMD arsenal, but as most of the world looked on in dismay, Bush invaded Iraq after U.N. inspectors on the ground discovered that Iraq had no WMD.
Bush betrayed Congress, which in turn betrayed the American people—just as Madison feared when he wrote: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it compromises and develops the germ of every other.”

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What the hell is so "Conservative" about destroying the foundations of our country?

I second that

Robert Sheer (no relation to Gary) is a true patriot.

Our paper used to run his column once a week, but pulled it when they were bought out by corporate America. So much for the so-called "liberal media".

While I personally believe there was no actual link between Al Qaeda and Iraq nor between 9/11 and Iraq, it is incomplete and misleading to say that the UN solely found Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

While it is true that the UN weapons inspectors stated that they didn't find any actual WMD's in Iraq just prior to the invasion of 2003, they also stated just prior to the invasion that there existed outstanding unanswered questions regarding Iraq's weapons programs.

Perhaps these outstanding unanswered questions didn't warrant an invasion of Iraq.

However, these outstanding unanswered questions did exist just prior to the invasion regardless if Iraq was invaded...or not.

(It should be interesting to note that there was no formal declaration of war during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts which, of course, were different situations when compared with the Iraq war.)

My understanding is that BushCo. was going to invade, no matter what information they received from the inspectors. They were hedging on them finding something to work with. Failing that, they proceeded per the pre-set game plan.

(No, looks like we're past the era of 'declared war')

I guess Mr Scheer forgot about this

But then Scheer has been repeating lies for so long, that he often believes they are the truth.

dmk

I know what's going to come next..."The Bush administration brainwashed Congress"

I don't see how this is relevant. The mandate contains no declaration of war whatsoever.

It's correct when he implies that the amount of war power invested in the executive is unconstitutional, but I agree that Congress is guilty of ignoring its obligations.

But I don't see how you consistently pointing out Congress' constitutional negligence is an excuse for the unconstitutionality of the war or the crimes of this administration. Two wrongs don't make a right. While you might be right that Sheer is ignoring a part of the story, it doesn't make much sense when you somehow attempt to rationalize the other side of the argument by doing the same thing Sheer does.

As long as we have the current REP-DEM Monopoly on the US Government things
like this are going to take place!

Look no matter what Bush has done sooner or latter his partners, friends, colleges
and "Sting Pullers" in the REP party will be back in power!

They might get a 4 or 8 year "Time Out", but they will be back in power! Why ?
Because America is stuck or brain washed in to thinking that we can only have
the lesser of two Evils in office.

At the end of the day is all the Reps or Dems have to do is be a little bit better/
"less destructive" than the other party(respectively) and they will win.

We get debit, world crisis, environmental crisis, social and economical strain
And politicians (REPS&DEMS) get power and a raise!


Maybe I should become a REP or DEM Politician! I can lie to you take your money
screw you over and you will just vote me back in to office!