John Birch Society: No, Mr. President: The Iraq War Is Not the American Revolution

No, Mr. President: The Iraq War Is Not the American Revolution
By Gary Benoit Published: 2007-07-06 18:31

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:
Speaking to West Virginia’s Air National Guard on Independence Day, Bush not only promoted his war policy but wrongly compared the Iraq War to our own War for Independence.

Follow this link to the original source: "President Bush Celebrates Independence Day With West Virginia Air National Guard" http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070704.html

COMMENTARY:
“On Independence Day we give thanks, we give thanks for our Founders, we give thanks for all the brave citizen-soldiers of our Continental Army who dropped pitchforks and took up muskets to fight for our freedom and liberty and independence,” President Bush told West Virginia’s Air National Guard. “You’re the successors of those brave men. Those who wear the uniform are the successors of those who dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty.”

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Yes, our “men and women of the Guard” do stand ready to “fight for America.” Yet many of them have been maimed and killed in Iraq for reasons unrelated to defending our beloved country in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

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If America were attacked by Iraq on September 11, then the Congress should have immediately declared war against Iraq. But that is not what happened. Iraq did not attack us, and Congress did not declare war.

In fact, as President Bush himself acknowledged on September 17, 2003, months after our invasion of Iraq was launched, “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th .” Even today, that admission may sound surprising to many Americans who mistakenly believe we went into Iraq because Iraq attacked us here. After all, in his public speeches, including his recent Independence Day speech to West Virginia’s Air National Guard, President Bush has repeatedly juxtaposed references to Iraq with that of 9/11. These juxtapositions have created the false impression that Iraq had attacked us, without the president actually saying it.

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President Bush may glowingly cite the American War for Independence and the Founding Fathers when he trumpets his Iraq policy, but the truth of the matter is that his Iraq policy runs totally contrary to the intent of the Founders when they fought the War for Independence and later drafted the Constitution.

Bush is not upholding American independence by launching an offensive war against a foreign nation. He is not defending our freedom by sending our troops abroad to put in place and then prop up an increasingly radical Islamic regime in the midst of a civil war. He is not even helping the victims of the civil war by doing that.

The Founding Fathers recognized the follies of interjecting ourselves into foreign quarrels and warned against it. “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world,” George Washington wisely counseled in his Farewell Address to the nation.

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Our modern-day citizen-soldiers should never have been sent to war against Iraq, and they should not be there now. If we truly want to celebrate the Founding Fathers who won our independence for us, and support our modern-day citizen soldiers who have been placed in harm’s way in Iraq, we would bring our soldiers home — now!

The John Birch Society is a conservative American exceptionalist organization founded in 1958 to fight what it saw as growing threats to the Constitution of the United States, especially a suspected communist infiltration of the United States government, and to support free enterprise. In the past it was known to have promoted a conspiracy theory view of history, and this was one of the reasons the Society had been marginalized within the conservative movement since the 1960s.

It was named after John Birch, a United States military intelligence officer and Baptist missionary in World War II who was killed in 1945 by armed supporters of the Communist Party of China, and whom the JBS describes as "the first American victim of the Cold War." His parents joined the society as life members.

Based in Appleton, Wisconsin, the society describes itself as "a membership-based organization dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom under the United States Constitution." It says that members come from all walks of life and are active in all 50 states via local chapters. Its mission is to achieve "Less Government, More Responsibility, and — With God's Help — a Better World." The JBS was formed as an educational organization and does not endorse candidates, but has often come out against political figures seen as un-American.

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New American

The New American <1> is a biweekly news magazine published by the John Birch Society, created from the merger of Review of The News and American Opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society