Mr. Bush's War
23 Mar 02
Article I section 8 of the Constitution of the United States clearly states, "The Congress shall have the power to…declare war." Our founding fathers wisely put this clause in the Constitution to prevent presidents from frivolously getting our country into unnecessary, undefined or unreasonable wars.
When President Bush declared his "War on Terrorism" he skipped this critical step. At the time, most of us went along with it because we were in shock from the devastation of 9/11. That atrocity has now been revenged by the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That is not to say that terrorism has been stopped forever, but no war can bring an end to terrorism. Nor should we end our hunt for terrorists who still wish to attack innocent Americans.
But now Mr. Bush wants to widen his unconstitutional war and attack Iraq. While Iraq may be run by a rouge dictator who is deserving of our scorn, we have been presented with no evidence that Iraq is involved in any way with terrorist plots against our nation. So this can not and should not be an extension of the president's self-declared "War on Terrorism." Further, even if it is shown that Iraq has plans for terrorist attacks against us, it would still be an out right attack against another sovereign nation that legally must require an official declaration of war by Congress. If the president can sell his case to Congress that we ought to go to war against Iraq, so be it. But he has no constitutional right to keep dictating his current course of endless unlawful wars against anyone he chooses.
It would seem that Bush Jr. has learned a lesson from his father's downfall. Namely, you can win a war but lose an election. So to avoid this political pitfall he has decided to continue to find reasons to extend his police actions until he wins his next election in the hope that no one would vote against a sitting president during a time of war. Of course the lesson that he has not learned from his Father's administration is that the American people will not support an illegal war.
If Mr. Bush wants to attack Iraq he must first convince Congress to declare war; otherwise he should bring our troops home.
Steve McGourty