War With Iraq: the Constitutional and Moral Questions
By Rep. Paul "Pete" McCloskey of Los Altos Hills, CA

America and the World
In the past few weeks, warlike statements by the American President and Vice President have focused national attention on the question: Should the United States force a "regime change" in Iraq by a pre-emptive strike of some sort, in effect declaring war on Iraq? Are we prepared to accept a new principle of international law: that the threat of use of weapons of mass destruction by a third-world nation justifies a unilateral attack by one nation in violation of the UN Charter?

This question comes before us in connection with September 11, America's first taste of the type of civilian casualties our crucial bombardment has inflicted on others in Lebanon, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Afghanistan in recent years.

More importantly, the stakes in the November congressional elections are enormous. The President is understandably dedicated to staying in office and having a Republican majority in both houses during the next two years.

I suggest that the American political system which evolved over the past 225 years is not well suited for a quick decision on the serious question of whether or not to go to war in violation of international law. I believe this is because of two aspects of our system. First, in times of domestic difficulty, presidents have learned that their popularity will most certainly increase if the people can be convinced we are threatened by a foreign "enemy."

Second, our elected representatives in Congress have learned to never challenge the decisions of a President who is the Commander-in-Chief in a war situation. In such a situation, the Congress can be expected to act more like a herd of sheep than as the sober decision-makers the Constitution intended when our forefathers assigned the war power solely to Congress.

Largely ignored in the current debate is another constitutional provision: that treaties ratified by 2/3rds of the Senate become the law of the land, of equal stature with the Constitution.

In 1945 we were proud to lead the world to a new type of treaty, the United Nations Charter, dedicated to the principle that no one nation should ever again invade another save with UN support. In the light of the tremendous human tragedies of World Wars I and II, the concept of world peace under world law seemed clearly preferable. In 1950 we went to war to support that principle, but should it be our unilateral decision to go to war with Saddam Hussein?

Nuclear weapons, nerve gas, shoulder-fired missiles and anthrax, largely perfected by U.S. technology, have proliferated throughout the world by U.S. dispensation over which nations should be allowed to have certain weapons systems and which should not. No nation can be sure such weapons won't fall into the hands of a hostile entity. But, does the most powerful country in the world have the right unilaterally to decide who is hostile enough to justify war?

Whatever may be the threat of religious leaders who believe in the eradication of evil, as religious leaders have believed since the Spanish Inquisition, we are not at war. It is a time for cool heads, not wartime hysteria.

Prerequisite to Middle East Peace
I suggest that we should take a prior action before unilaterally going to war against Iraq. If we really want to achieve peace in the explosive Middle East, we should turn our efforts towards achieving the goal of UN Resolution 242, a Palestinian state with dignity for Palestinians as well as security for Israelis.

The September 11 attack, which the President maintains put us "at war," came from the understandable perception in Muslim and Arab countries that we, not the Soviets, Iran or Iraq, have become the "evil empire." Ordinary people in the Muslim world believe that the U.S. has become an international bully with enormous material wealth, a dependency on drugs, and a hypocritical promotion of our own special brand of democracy while supporting monarchies and tyrants around the world. Our greatest evil, however, in the eyes of most countries of Europe and Asia has been our armed and financial assistance to over 50 years of Israeli repression of Palestinian aspirations.

Even our greatest patriots have to admit that these new Muslim and Arab "enemies" present a case of some merit. While young Israeli infantry officers and soldiers refuse to serve in the occupied territories, in their words, "to humiliate, terrorize and remove" the Palestinians, the United States continues to veto all UN Resolutions critical of Israel, continues to countenance the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Israel, and, worst of all, continues to finance Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory and the killing of Palestinians with U.S.-supplied helicopters and weaponry.

Enjoying the American heritage of "Give me liberty or give me death" and "I regret I have but one life to give to my country," we should be the first to understand why young Arabs and young Muslims are willing to become suicide bombers against oppressive forces. The Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, financed with U.S. dollars, not only destroy the U.S. reputation for fairness in world affairs, but also make it impossible for the Israeli political system to turn its back on those 300,000 often fundamentalist Jewish militants.

President Bush has committed the United States to Palestinian statehood, a statehood that cannot be achieved without the removal of those 300,000 settlers, yet -- unlike his father in 1991 -- he has done nothing to deter their continued growth. Ariel Sharon is called "a man of peace" [sic] by the younger Bush, but to most of the world he is perceived as a war criminal, who stood aside willingly 20 years ago to permit the massacre of over 800 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

So long as the United States unconditionally supports the Israel of Sharon, we can expect some day to reap our own holocaust from young people who see moral victory in attacking the richest country in the world, a country which is willing to use unmanned cruise missiles with "necessary" civilian casualties, but unwilling to see its own soldiers die in the same numbers as the civilians killed by those cruise missiles and “smart” bombs.

To invade and occupy Iraq will require courage of as many as 100,000 young Americans, many of whom may die. But to attack Iraq without showing the courage to stand up to our Israeli allies and their supporters in the United States may doom our children and our future generations to the resulting hatred and ultimate revenge. We may be the greatest military power in the world today, but no American can ever feel safe again, here or abroad, if we fail to return to an even-handed policy with the Israelis, Palestinians, and other nations based on the principles of the U.N Charter and Security Council Resolution 242, so strongly defended by George Bush, Sr. --a combat veteran-- and now nearly abandoned by his son, who did not have the privilege of combat experience to temper his aggressive concept of peace through armed victory rather than international law.

The high moral purpose we demonstrated during the last half-century in UN leadership, foreign aid and the ending of colonialism seems regrettably subordinated today to an obeisance to Sharon and his supporters in Israel and the United States. There can be no peace until we return to the high ground and insist that Israel remove its settlers from the territories occupied since 1967, and that a Palestinian state be established amongst the family of nations, free of occupation by Jewish militants.

If peace is to be preserved, it is time to stand up to Sharon before we attempt to deal with Saddam. A regime change in Israel may offer more to world peace than removing Saddam.