CLINTON AND CONGRESS HAVE COMPROMISED U.S. DEFENSE ARSENAL MAKING WAR AGAINST A REGIME FAR LESS THREATENING THAN CHINA, RUSSIA, CUBA, OR KOREA

Joe Farah points out in his Between the Lines (12/18/98) that "As president, Bill Clinton has...squandered $5.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars on containing the Iraqi threat — and that's before the costly Desert Fox operation launched Wednesday. On Wednesday alone, some 200 cruise missiles were fired by the Navy at Iraqi targets. Each one of those high-tech bombs cost about $1 million. that's $200 million right there, just on ordnance, in one day...."

CRUISE MISSILES COST MORE THAN ALL INDEPENDENT PROSECUTORS

"Yesterday, they began launching the more expensive cruise missiles — fired from the Air Force's B-52s. Those two-ton babies cost more than $2 million each....

"Last October, Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act, which provided $97 million in military aid to opposition groups in the country....Earlier this year, the U.S. set aside $5 million for the support of Iraqi political opposition, and another $5 million for broadcasting by Radio Free Iraq. But all that is peanuts compared to the price tag for enforcing the no-fly zones. That project cost U.S. taxpayers $2 billion in 1998 alone, and that's far from the total cost. It doesn't include expenses involved in deploying forces in the region last February.

"That was the last big buildup by Clinton. It involved 34 ships, 440 planes, and 44,000 troops. In November, we went through a similar exercise involving 14 ships, 300 planes and 27,500 troops. Now we've got Desert Fox...."

EVEN IF THE WAR WERE MORALLY OR GEOSTRATEGICALLY WISE, IT IS A FAILURE

"Can anyone honestly say that the $5.5 billion we've invested in our Iraq policy over the last six years has proved worthwhile? Are we not exactly where we started six years ago?"

GOP AGREES THAT SADDAM'S SIN IS FAILING TO OBEY UNITED NATIONS

H. Res. 612: "Whereas the President of the United States has ordered military action against Iraq in response to its refusal to comply with international obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions;

IS SADDAM HUSSEIN LESS "DEMOCRATIC" THAN RED CHINA?

"(b) the Congress reaffirms that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

H. Res. 612 was enacted on a 417 to 5 roll call vote (#539, 12/17/98). Those voting in opposition were: John Conyers (D-Mich.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), Ron Paul (R-Tex.), and Mark Sanford (R-S.C.).

THANK GOD THAT RON PAUL WAS THERE TO SPEAK AND VOTE AGAINST THE BIPARTISAN INTERVENTIONIST WAR ON JUSTICE, MORALITY, AND THE RULE OF LAW

Congratulations to Ron Paul who had this to say about Clinton's Iraq ploy:

"[A]s a 5 yr Air Force veteran I rise in strong support of the troops: we all do. Everybody supports the troops. But this resolution is a lot more than supporting the troops...."

WITHOUT RIGHT PURPOSE, VICTORY IS IMPOSSIBLE

"[I]t is clearly stated in the Constitution that only Congress has the authority to declare war. It is precisely because of the way we go to war these days that we are continuing to fight the Persian Gulf War. We did not win the Persian Gulf War because we did not declare war since there was no justification to because there was no national security [interest] involved."

CUI BONO? (Who Benefits?)

"Saddam Hussein is not threatening our national security. This is a concocted scheme to pursue bombing for oil interests and other reasons, but it has nothing to do with national security.

"This resolution is an endorsement for war. We are rubber stamping this action."

SHOULD CONGRESS BE IMPEACHED FOR ABANDONING THE RULE OF LAW?

"We should follow the rule of law. The rule of law says that resolutions, to begin war, should come to the House of Representatives and pass by the Senate. But we have been too careless and too casual for many, many decades, and this is the reason we do not win wars any more.

"We are in essentially perpetual war. We have granted too much authority to our President to wage war....We, as a House, must assume our responsibilities.

"I cannot support this resolution because it is a rubber stamp, it is an endorsement for an illegal war. We should argue the case for peace. We should argue the case for national sovereignty. We should not allow our President to use U.N. resolutions to wage war...."

FOR USA TO BE SOVEREIGN, WE MUST RESPECT THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OTHERS

"There is an idea known as sovereignty, and that idea is integral to nationhood. Among other things, sovereignty dictates that a people be responsible for their own leadership, without the interference of other nations. Is it any wonder that the same American leaders who would invade other sovereign nations spend so much time surrendering the sovereignty of the United States? I think not. Simply, their efforts are designed to undermine the entire notion of sovereignty.

"One evident outcome of the anti-sovereignty philosophy is our dependence on institutions such as the United Nations. It is an affront to our nation's sovereignty and our constitution that the President presently launches war on Iraq under the aegis of a UN resolution but without the Constitutionally required authorization by the United States Congress."

IF IT'S OK FOR US TO INFLUENCE IRAQ ELECTIONS WHY CAN'T CHINA BUY INTO OURS?

"As Americans we are rightly offended by the notion that the Chinese Government has influenced our domestic elections. However, we are not free from hypocrisy. For recently this Congress passed legislation appropriating money for the sole and express purpose of changing the government of a sovereign nation....

"Namely, the price of successfully changing the government of Iraq is the blood of many thousands of innocent human beings."

Congressional Record, 12/17/98, pp. H11722, H11729

GEORGE WASHINGTON KNEW WHAT CONGRESS HAS FORGOTTEN

Terence P. Jeffrey (Human Events, 12/25/98, p. 5) observes that "Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution says, ‘Congress shall have power...to declare war.’

"Now, before some Clintonite tells you that it ‘depends on what the meaning of the word "war" is,’ reflect on the fact that every single man at the constitutional convention was a veteran, in some sense, of a war actually fought on U.S. soil. It was called the American Revolution. Its purpose was to overthrow a foreign monarchy, where just one man ultimately had the power to tax or imprison his subjects, or more importantly, send them off to war.

"George Washington, commanding general of U.S. forces in that revolution, also presided over the constitutional convention that gave Congress the power to declare war. Washington knew war. And, like his fellow framers, he knew it was too awesome a power to vest in one man."

DO WE HAVE A REPUBLIC — OR AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY?

"Justice Joseph Story, who served on the Supreme Court from 1811-1845, reflected the sentiment of the Founders in his famed treatise on the Constitution. The power to declare war, he said, cannot ‘be safely deposited, except in the general government, and, if in the general government, it ought to belong to the Congress, where all the states and all the people of the states are represented; and where a majority of both Houses must concur to authorize the declaration."

IN A REPUBLIC, WAR IS A LAST RESORT

"‘War, indeed, is, in its mildest form, so dreadful a calamity; it destroys so many lives, wastes so much property, and introduces so much moral desolation; that nothing but the strongest state of necessity can justify, or excuse it. In a republican government, it should never be resorted to, except as a last expedient to vindicate its rights; for military power and military ambition have but too often fatally triumphed over the liberties of the people.’...

"Story was not only emphatic on the constitutional necessity of vesting the power to authorize war in Congress, but also on what might happen if it were given to the chief executive instead. ‘In monarchies,’ he wrote, ‘the power is ordinarily vested in the executive. But certainly, in a republic, the chief magistrate ought not to be clothed with a power so summary, and, at the same time, so full of dangers to the public interest and the public safety. It would be to commit the liberties, as well as the rights of the people, to the ambition, or resentment, or caprice, or rashness of a single mind.’"

THE UNAUTHORIZED IRAQ ATTACK WAS GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT

"Instead of putting off the impeachment vote, the House should have voted to impeach him that very day. A President who uses his duties as Commander in Chief to bomb foreign countries every time he wants to change the subject ought to be removed with alacrity," according to Ann Coulter (Human Events, 12/25/98, p. 6).

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