De Oorlogsstaat 43

Legal analyst Brendan Smith and historian Jeremy Brecher are the editors, with Jill Cutler, of In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond (Metropolitan/Holt, 2005) (http://www.americanempireproject.com/), and the founders of http://www.warcrimeswatch.org/ . In de Asia Times schrijven ze: 'Attack Iran, destroy the US constitution. During the 2004 election, President George W Bush famously proclaimed that he didn't have to ask anyone's permission to defend the United States of America. Does that mean he can attack Iran without having to ask Congress? A new resolution being drafted by Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio may be a vehicle to remind Bush that he can't. Bush has called news reports of plans to attack Iran "wild speculation" and declared that the United States is on a "diplomatic" track. But asked this week if his options included planning for a nuclear strike, he repeated that "all options are on the table". The president is acting as if the decisions that may get Americans into another war are his to make and his alone. So the Iran crisis poses not only questions of military feasibility and political wisdom but of constitutional usurpation. Bush's top officials openly assert that he can do anything he wants - including attacking another country - on his authority as commander-in-chief. Last October, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee whether the president would circumvent congressional authorization if the White House chose military action against Iran or Syria. She answered, "I will not say anything that constrains his authority as commander-in-chief." When pressed by Senator Paul Sarbanes about whether the administration can exercise a military option without an authorization from Congress, Rice replied, "The president never takes any option off the table, and he shouldn't." The founding fathers of the United States were deeply concerned that the president's power to make war might become a vehicle for tyranny. So they crafted a constitution that included checks and balances on presidential power, among them an independent congress and judiciary, an executive power subject to laws written by Congress and interpreted by the courts, and an executive power to repel attacks but not to declare or finance war. But the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, as laid out in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States and reiterated this year, claims for the president the power to attack other countries simply because he asserts they pose a threat. It thereby removes the decision of war and peace from Congress and gives it to the president. It is, as Senator Robert Byrd put it, "unconstitutional on its face".' Lees verder: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HD26Ak01.html