Buchanan Takes Congress to Task

The neo-con war drums are beating again, at least according to Mr. Buchanan. My dad remarked yesterday that no one likes war, but the neo-con hawks could easily have me fooled. My stance on the pending Iran war is the same as my stance on the Iraq war. Both are neither just nor moral, and though they may achieve some good, it is intolerable, at least to the Christian, to use evil to achieve some alleged good end. Buchanan echoes this.

In all this hawk talk, something is missing. We are not told how many innocent Iranians we will have to kill as we go about smashing their nuclear program and defenses. Nor are we told how many more soldiers we will need for the neocons' new war, nor how long they will have to fight, nor how many more wings we should plan for at Walter Reed, nor when it will be over – if ever.

Evidently Buchanan missed Mr. Shapiro's column from earlier this week, in which he alleges that, "If we refuse to act in the face of such a threat, we may bear responsibility for tens of millions." In other words, if we don't kill the Iranians, people may be killed. The horror. Shapiro obviously thinks that human history was something other than a bloodbath with the occasional intermission, and that we have the power to achieve peace, ironically of course, by making war.

If we sat by while Stalin got the bomb, and Mao got the bomb, and Kim Jong-Il got the bomb, why is an Iranian bomb a threat to the United States, which possesses thousands?

Either we go to war with every country which possibly poses a threat to us or we return to a sensible isolationism, attacking only when attacked, but doing so with enough ferocity that all but the most foolish of terroristic termites avoids awaking the tiger which only appears to be sleeping.

It is time for Congress to tell President Bush directly that he has no authority to go to war on Iran and to launch such a war would be an impeachable offense. Or, if they so conclude, Congress should share full responsibility by granting him that authority after it has held hearings and told the people why we have no other choice than another Mideast war, with a nation four times as large as Iraq.

If Congress lacks the courage to do its constitutional duty, it should stop whining about imperial presidents. Because, like the Roman Senate of Caesar's time, it will have invited them and it will deserve them.

Indeed Mr. B., indeed. There is no way that Congress will perform its Constitutional duty. When the people back home ask questions about why Congress has yet to anything, Bush can be blamed for being "imperial". As most Americans are wholly ignorant of the way the system is supposed to work, this excuse slides and the cowardly Congressman is again elected. It is unfortunate, but not surprising to see history repeating itself. When the Democrats pick up the House and/or Senate in '06 the government will virtually shut down under a swarm of investigations. Wake me up for the next revolution.