Dem Congress Must Revoke Bush's War Powers ASAP

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_070103_dem_congress_must_re.htm

January 3, 2007 at 21:44:09

Dem Congress Must Revoke Bush's War Powers ASAP

by Rob Kall

One of the first things the Dem led congress must do is to formally revoke and rescind the congressional authorization for Bush to wage war.

This is absolutely essential. Otherwise, Bush could and probably will claim that he still has the congressional authorization to wage more blind, stupid, incompent war.

Congress must pass a motion clearly stating that it has formally, officially, conclusively and definitively taken away Bush's war powers and authorizations.

Failure to do so puts the nation at risk of being thrown, dragged, stumbled into another war without end without plans.

This should be one of the elements of the legislation the Dems commit to passing in the first 100 hours.

Now, in the senate, Joe Lieberman will probably block it. No matter. There should be enough sane Republicans who want to keep their jobs after the 2008 elections who will support this legislation.

It will be a real test for the presidential candidates. Will those who voted FOR the war in 2002 vote against it this time? There are no good excuses any more, unless, you are a war hawk Bush sycophant like McCain or Lieberman.

This should be a no-brainer for the dems. Of course, Hillary has been trying to walk the fence on this one and there may be some sort of tacit agreement amongst the dem insiders to save her from having to take a stand. That would be totally unacceptable. The war was THE issue that affected the 2006 elections. Failure by the dems to take this first step would be outrageous. This is an easy question. They don't have to decide about when or if to pull out the troops. They just have to make it clear to Bush he can't start a war anywhere else.

Revoke Bush's war powers/authorization!

http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=1341

The House can pass resolutions till the cows come home.

In the Senate, the split today is 50-49 (with Joe staying loyal to his word). And while Joe may vote for Harry to be the Majority Leader, I doubt that he will vote against any actual attempt to halt of the war machine. So we need some Republicans to help out. There are a few that might. And then it depends what it is you want to pass. Anything that is an actual law of some sort, or rescinds a law already on the books, can and will be vetoed by Bush, to override the veto, now you have a hill to climb, you will need 17 or 18 republicans to vote with the Dems, and in the House, well...

Anyway, thin majorities WITHOUT the President just can't get much done. Even the funding can't be cut for another year, since the last congress already approved this year's Iraq war budget (however, as they always do every year, there will be supplemental budget requests later, and THOSE can be defeated).

I'm afraid there isn't much the Dems can do right this instant to halt the war... which is why they have been so silent about it even after the victory in November.

I wish I had a better answer... I wish there was some other way.

I think a nation wide petition with 60 million unique signatures would help or a national strike, but the best thing would be to remove Bush and Cheney from power, and that's probably more difficult than rescinding the IWR.

---We talked about it only yesterday, in fact. In order to ensure the repeal of the original Authority to Use Military Force (AUMF), there would have to be full democratic support, plus the joining of forces with 18-19 republicans in the Senate,.... and that's damn near half of them,... in case it's necessary to over-ride a Bush veto with a 67-vote majority. I still want to know if a 60-vote majority, without a veto, would do the job.

---A couple of attending considerations to such a move: The democrats' original, and nearly unanimous acquiescence to the AUMF was possibly their most spineless moment in history. They can claim all they want that they were misled by the administration, or that faulty intelligence was the cause of their misguided votes,... but that does not wash with me. Sitting in the woods of southside Virginia, I could see precisely what was happening all along. The administration was deliberately lying in order to pursue the pre-determined PNAC gameplan,.,, and the democrats were politically intimidated by the possibility of appearing unpatriotic. That is simply the truth of what happened, and forgive me for saying it, but it is inarguable. Consequently, a lot of democrats would sooner forget that it ever occurred, than re-visit the occasion of their placement of political expediency above truth, law and the good of the nation. (John Edwards' repudiation of his vote should be a shining example to the rest of the democrats,... but NO.) In fact, given the colossal extent of the Bush-neocon failure, BOTH sides would prefer that their original votes were never again scrutinized.

---Furthermore, any effort to rescind Bush's personal, private war-making authority would necessarily involve a certain amount of prior discussion and debate among legislators and, naturally enough, coverage by the media. It would not be a "surprise" to anyone,... least of all, Bush,... and he could be spurred to launch his next petro-war in advance of any final action on his "authority."

---However, I feel that the debate on the matter could and would be a very positive thing in American politics. If the democrats handled it correctly (always in doubt), they could put Bush and the GOP in a deep hole, in terms of popular perceptions of government responsiveness to the majority will of the electorate. They could make it appear that the republicans were arguing in favor of a dictatorship, if they really tried. I think it's worth a shot.

--- For simplicity's sake, may we just say that every goddamned thing Bush has done needs to be erased from the books? The Patriot Act. The NSA domestic spying powers. AUMF. Signing statements. Internment camps. Tax cuts. Deregulation of every sort. His entire PRESIDENCY needs to be rescinded. Bush is The Plague. Democrats have to be the antibiotic.

A simple vote to de-authorize war powers is not an option. Such bill would either be fillibustered in the Senate or vetoed by the Chimp himself. The only way to end the war at this point in time is to remove the Chimp(and Dr Evil) from office. There should be plenty of fodder soon for this from illegal wire taps, illegal mail taps, grafting Iraq contracts, violation of Geneva Conventions regarding toture, unilateral abdication of treaties and general mismanagement of the war.

Part of the equation has to be violation of the Iraq War Resolution itself. The conditions required to conduct war by the Iraq War Resolution were not triggered. So Bush is in an illegal state of warfare. I would not look to the courts on help with this. The House of Representatives has the right to indict on this issue directly. Depending on what comes out of the myriad of hearings to come, they may be able to shame the Republicans into guilty votes (but only with some compromise Republican fill-in president (like Ford) rather than Pelosi).

Now you say that the Democrats have taken impeachment off the table. That was politics pure and simple. They were being accused of automatically impeaching the President so they said it was not their intention as a way of making it go away. There will be hearings and if the wrongdoings are strong enough they will come out and say that they didn't want to take such an extreme measure, but the crimes of the President are just to great to ignore and they are constitutionally compelled to impeach.

--- I've long wondered if the democrats could "farm out" the preliminary "building of the case" for impeachment to a private legal foundation,.. using evidence already available, and focusing on as many pertinent laws as is advisable,..... and producing the prototype impeachment "blueprint," according to which further investigation would occur. This way, the subject is kept somewhat out of the media spotlight,.. legislators can keep their hands clean a little longer,.. and the resulting legal case would probably be a good deal more professional, as well. Heck, for all I know, this is how it's actually done.

--- But somehow, some way,... the democrats have to see to it that Bush cannot attack another country on his own personal volition again.