Iraq @ MindSay

by Jacob G. Hornberger

If anyone still has any doubts about whether President Bush is exercising powers that any self-respecting dictator would relish, all he has to do is consider the military pact that Bush is entering into with Iraq. The pact involves the continued U.S. military occupation of Iraq as well as a date on which U.S. military forces will be expected to exit the country.

Let’s first place things in the context of the U.S. Constitution, the higher law that the American people have enacted that controls the conduct of federal officials, including the president.

One provision of the Constitution requires the president to secure a declaration of war from Congress prior to waging war against another nation. With respect to Iraq, everyone knows that Bush refused to do that. After unsuccessfully exploring the possibility of securing UN approval for his war (which is not in the Constitution), Bush unilaterally decided to wage war on Iraq without first securing the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war.

The Constitution also provides that the president shall have the “Power and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”

So, is President Bush complying with that provision of the Constitution with respect to his military pact with Iraq?

Why should he? If the Congress and the American people don’t care that he violates one important provision of the Constitution, why should the president care whether he violates other important provisions?

The president’s spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, set forth the president’s position at a recent press conference: “So it's not a treaty, so it would not require Senate ratification or anything like that. It's a bilateral agreement that would provide the authorities for our troops to operate in Iraq.”

So, there you have it. We now live in a country in which the ruler has the power to send the entire nation into war on his own initiative and then unilaterally bind the entire nation with a long-term military agreement with the conquered nation without any legislative approval.

If that’s not dictatorial power, what is?

Oh, by the way the Iraqi president is submitting the proposed military agreement with Bush to the Iraqi Parliament, as required by Iraqi law.

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the

Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

-Gerard Baker

The Town of Apex, NC is in my radar this week.  They have hired, as their newest police officer, a fired ex-trooper found guilty of abusing his K-9 police dog.  Kicking, strangle-hold by suspending him from his leash, etc.

Shame on Apex!  The position of police officer is one to be looked up to and respected.  Their difficult job is to protect and serve, and they put their lives on the line for us daily.  Whether human or canine, they deserve our respect.  Inherent to that, we also expect from them to be treated respectfully, with dignity, and kept safe from harm.

What happens when the one you expect to protect you is the abuser?  I feel that animal abusers - Michael Vick, this police officer, and the US soldier in Afghanistan who threw a puppy off a cliff - have something basically evil deep inside of them.  Maybe not so deep after all.  To harm a creature - ANY creature whether human, animal, or what have you - on purpose, when that creature looks to you for protection and care is the sign of a warped and unstable individual.

These people probably start with those unable to protect themselves, and it escalates to children wives, husbands, elderly parents, and maybe even on to murder, rape, and other mayhem.

And besides - the officer's K-9 is a designated partner.  Would he have done this to a human partner?  And what if the dog would have defended itself?  The dog would have gotten a death sentence.

Shame on you, Apex for rewarding this man with a new job.  Let him clean streets where no one gets hurt and no one depends on him.

By Jacob Hornberger

Supporters of the U.S. occupation of Iraq sometimes point out that U.S. soldiers are doing good deeds there, such as establishing electricity, water, and other essential services. They also say that the U.S. government liberated the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator. In fact, many of the soldiers themselves honestly feel that they are helping the Iraqi people and look upon Iraqi insurgents who are trying to oust them from Iraq as “terrorists” or “bad guys.”

Suppose I broke into your home and killed your son and your wife. When you try to evict me from your home, I respond, “Wait a minute! I am remodeling and upgrading your home. I’m doing good things for you. The killing of your wife and son are in the past. We now need to look to the future and get your house rebuilt. I’m the best one to do it. And since I sort of made a mess of things, I have an obligation to stay and help you rebuild your home and your life.”

What would be your response? My hunch is that you would not be favorably inclined to my staying in your home, no matter how much I was improving and upgrading it. My hunch is that your anger and rage at me for having broken into your home in the first place and, more important, for having killed your son and wife would not dissipate for a long time.

Or suppose the Chinese military successfully invaded the United States, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process, under the guise of putting a stop to kidnapping and rendition, indefinite detentions, torture and sex abuse, kangaroo tribunals, and wars of aggression against Third World nations. Suppose that during the Chinese occupation, Chinese officials were spending billions of dollars upgrading American schools and the infrastructure. During the occupation, Chinese researchers, tourists, and journalists would be traveling to the United States and expressing friendliness to the American people.

While there undoubtedly would be Americans who would be calling for cooperation with the occupiers, pointing out how they were improving life in America, other Americans (including myself) would be taking the following position: “I don’t care how much you’re improving life in the United States, either in terms of infrastructure, services, or anything else. You had no right to invade our country and you have no right to be occupying our country. Get the heck out of here now or we insurgents will continue to kill you until you do.”

The fact is that U.S. troops, on orders, have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a war of aggression against a country that never attacked the United States. The position of U.S. officials, including some of the soldiers, is: “Those deaths are worth it because now the Iraqi people are free of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. And now we have an obligation to rebuild Iraq after destroying it during the invasion, and no Iraqi has any right to stop us. ”

How cavalier! There are at least two big problems with that reasoning, however.

1. Who gave the U.S. government the right to determine that any Iraqi would have chosen death and maiming over living under tyranny? Wasn’t that a choice that the Iraqi people had a right to make rather than having it imposed on them? Isn’t a violent revolution, where countless people are going to lose their lives, a choice best left to the people of each nation? Isn’t that what was done with Eastern Europeans who had to live for almost half a century under Soviet communist tyranny? How about Vietnam today? What about North Korea, a country with whom President Bush just struck a deal? Zimbabwe? Cuba?

Why shouldn’t regime change be left to the citizens of each country rather than have it forcibly and violently imposed on them by the imperial politicians and bureaucrats of Washington, D.C.?

2. For many survivors of the U.S. intervention, living under the brutal occupation in Iraq, combined with an extremist pro-Iranian Islamic regime in Iraq and a violent insurgency, is as bad, if not worse, as living under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. The fact that millions of Iraqis have fled the country is strong circumstantial evidence of that fact.

Since the U.S. had no moral right to invade and occupy Iraq, there is only one moral and honorable course of action for the U.S. government to take. It is the same course of action that the hypothetical burglar or Chinese occupier should take. That course of action is: immediate withdrawal from Iraq. No more rebuilding. No more improvements. No more control. No more killing and maiming. Just immediate withdrawal. The Iraqi people, for better or for worse, have the right to finally be left alone by the U.S. government. The issuance of an apology would be good too.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.