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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
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IF BOB NOVAK IS RIGHT, THIS MAN MUST BE IMPEACHED!
As someone who supported the war against Saddam Hussein, I was pained to write about how horribly handled the occupation was. The whole situatation could have been much more wisely handled, from the second that the statue of Saddam came down in central Baghdad forward. As I've written earlier, disbanding the Iraqi military and police forces virtually guaranteeing more, rather than the fewer, American casualties. Further, it complicated international forces moving in, as it would have been seen as cleaning up an American mess as opposed to securing a sovereign country. Everything that has happened since mid-April of 2003 has been a titanic mess and there appears to be no end in sight.
If the President of the United States, whoever that may be next year, is serious about this ridiculous idea that Iraq is going to be a "democracy" or "liberated from tyranny" American boys and girls are going to be there for five years minimum. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Building a democratic society is difficult in optimum circumstances. It becomes virtually impossible when some 20,000 people are determined to use all the explosive power they can muster to prevent it. The very idea of holding national elections in January if these circumstances persist would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.
However, Bob Novak is reporting that things might actually get worse. Much, much worse.
Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.
This prospective policy is based on Iraq's national elections in late January, but not predicated on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement. Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction.
If true, this is unforgivable. If the Bush administration is seriously debating withdrawing it's force from Iraq, it will prove right every tinfoiled liberal psychopath of in the Internet and in the streets in 2002. If this is a serious option, the United States will have left Iraq, and the Middle East, far worse than they found it. If the President goes forward with this, over a thousand Americans and God knows how many Iraqis will have died for nothing.
The reality of hard decisions ahead is obscured by blather on both sides in a presidential campaign. Six weeks before the election, Bush cannot be expected to admit even the possibility of a quick withdrawal. Sen. John Kerry's political aides, still languishing in fantastic speculation about European troops to the rescue, do not even ponder a quick exit. But Kerry supporters with foreign policy experience speculate that if elected, their candidate would take the same escape
route.
That is one of the primary reasons that I felt that John Kerry would be dangerous as President. A withdrawal from Iraq, under any circumstances short of total victory in the reconstruction will do more to reinforce the Islamist belief that all one need do is kill a few Americans and they win. More than anything, a withdrawal from Iraq virtually assures another attack on the United States. You'll note that I didn't say "US interests", but the United States itself. A withdrawal from Iraq is a virtual invitation for another 9/11.
This messy new Iraq is viewed by Bush officials as vastly preferable to Saddam's police state, threatening its neighbors and the West. In private, some officials believe the mistake was not in toppling Saddam but in staying there for nation building after the dictator was deposed.
This view is worse than stupid, it is evil. If this is, in fact, an honest view of any government official, it is morally repugnant.
An Iraqi civil war will kill hundreds of thousands. As there is no Thomas Jefferson waiting in the wings, it is a virtual certainty that the most extreme elements of Iraqi society will prevail. If the war does not spread to include most of Iraq's neighbors -which it will, Such a government in Iraq will be far more supportive of terrorism than Saddam Hussein ever was. An Iranian style theocracy in Iraq will provide groups like Hezbollah an invaluable base of support. This would constitute a clear and present danger to Israel. An Israeli response would be swift, certain and could lead to yet another war.
None of these things are "vastly preferable to Saddam's police state."
My support of the war was predicated on the inevitability of a war with Saddam Hussein. Much better to fight it while he was boxed in than after he rearmed after the lifting of UN sanctions. I did not support this war to create geopolitical chaos and to kill as many people as seems probable after a US withdrawal.
An Iraqi withdrawal would create more, not less, terrorism. In fact, it might well provide al-Qaeda the base it lost in Afghanistan. Terrorists everywhere would be emboldened by what would be perceived as American weakness. One of the lessons of the 1982 Beirut bombing was that running from an attack serves only to invite more attacks. Pulling US forces out would hand the terrorists an invaluable victory, one they never could have won on their own.
A withdrawal from Iraq would destroy any remaining goodwill of the Iraqi people toward the United States. They will have seen the Americans as having destroyed their society and abandoned them to a fate worse than Saddam. Furthermore, all of the progress that the United States has made in the Muslim world in the last decade will evaporate. For the United States to topple an existing government and then leave that nation in anarchy will do more to destroy the world's view of America than the invasion itself.
Any withdrawal at this point would lead any rational nation to conclude that the United States cannot be relied upon. Nations in the world's most dangerous places, such as Israel, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea will know that America is not to be taken seriously. Friend and foe alike will cease to consider the United States as a long term strategic consideration.
This would also have incalculable consequences for the War on Terror. If America's allies cannot rely on its seriousness of purpose, a war against trans-national terrorism becomes impossible to fight. Under those circumstances, al Qaeda will have a free hand.
The President took an oath to "uphold, protect and defend the Constitution." The consequences of leaving Iraq prematurely, both immediately and long term, both in terms of foreign policy and domestic security, will clearly demonstrate that President Bush failed to uphold his oath of office. In the event of his re-election, the only recourse provided is impeachment, conviction and removal from office.
Many believe that only a criminal offense is sufficient grounds for impeachment. Not so. Of the three articles of impeachment passed by the House judiciary Committee against President Nixon in July of 1974, only one, obstruction of justice was a criminal violation. In his book, "Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems", Raoul Berger cites the example of a president moving to Saudi Arabia so that he may have four wives as grounds for impeachment. Using that example and the existing case history, George W. Bush could be impeached for recklessly wasting the lives of American troops to no end, endangering the national security of the United States and creating international conditions that would end America's place as a respected world leader. To invade another nation, topple its government and then to abandon it to murderous chaos is arguably nothing short of a war crime.
If Robert Novak is correct, impeachment proceedings against George Walker Bush, President of the United States, and Richard Bruce Cheney, Vice President of the United States should begin the very day of the troop withdrawal announcement.
I have generally supported this President for re-election despite my many problems with his policies, both foreign and domestic. But I have no doubt that Novak's report is legitimate, and highly sourced within the administration. This course of action would undoubtedly be the most irresponsible and dangerous in American history. However much I may have supported the President in his original war plan, if he cuts and runs now, I shall be among the first to call for his removal from office.
The situation is too dangerous and too many people, both American and Iraqi, have died for this to have been for nothing.
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