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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

The First Lie
John C. Bonifaz, TomPaine.com, 01.27.04

While all of the Democratic presidential candidates (except Sen. Joseph Lieberman) criticize President George W. Bush for his unilateral recklessness in starting a war against Iraq, they are missing a larger point: The invasion was not just reckless. It was unconstitutional. The United States Congress never voted for the Iraq war. Rather, Congress voted for a resolution in October 2002 which unlawfully transferred to the president the decision-making power of whether to launch a first-strike invasion of Iraq. The United States Constitution vests the awesome power of deciding whether to send the nation into war solely in the United States Congress. Those members of Congress - including certain Democratic presidential candidates - who voted for that October resolution cannot now claim that they were deceived, as some of them do. By unlawfully ceding the war-declaring power to the president, they allowed the president to start a war against Iraq based on whatever evidence or whatever lies he chose. The members of Congress who voted for that October resolution are as complicit in this illegal war as is the president himself. In the midst of the rushed congressional debate in October 2002, U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) warned that the resolution under consideration was unconstitutional. "We are handing this over to the President of the United States," Byrd said. "When we do that, we can put up a sign on the top of this Capitol, and we can say: 'Gone home. Gone fishing. Out of business.'" Byrd added: "I never thought I would see the day in these forty-four years I have been in this body... when we would cede this kind of power to any president."

The Iraq war is in direct violation of the United States Constitution. The president and the members of Congress who voted for that October resolution should be held accountable for sending this nation into an illegal war. It is time to hold up the Constitution to the faces of those who dare to defy it. It is time to demand our country back.

******As a veteran and a Patriot (I know the difference between "Patriot" and "Nationalist" (do you??)) this aspect of the past 3 years is the most egregious and heart wrenching. I find it incomprehensible that the people of this country have sunk so low as to be taken in by the "snake oil salesmen" who have driven a stake through the heart of this country. Especially saddened am I that the families of our Servicemen (and the Servicemen themselves) continue to support the regime that is using them to prop up the illegal occupation of another sovereign nation for the purpose of plunder and profit for those who bought the Presidency. I cannot understand why the obviousness of the truth continues to remain off the radar (except that the bought-off media choose not to report it, I guess). Saddened for what we have lost as a nation; once proud and respected now tattered and reviled. It makes me sick. *********** But that's just my opinion.

posted by An Old Curmudgeon 6:52 PM