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A
Bleak Day for America
By
David
Krieger
President, The
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
TFF
associate
October 19, 2002
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,î 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.î
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 Iraqís 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 worldís 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 ìaggressive war,î 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.
Read about (and buy) Krieger's book here (amazon.com):
Choose
Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear
Age
Or here (amazon.co.uk) : Choose
Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear
Age
©
TFF & the author 2002
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