The Final Act of Submission
Posted on Apr 13, 2007
By Scott Ritter
In the months leading up to President Bush’s ill-fated invasion of Iraq,
I traveled around the world speaking to various international groups, including
many parliamentary assemblies. I spoke about democracy and the need
of any nation or group of nations espousing democracy as a standard to embrace
the ideals and values of justice and due process in accordance with the rule
of law. I spoke of international law, especially as it was manifested
in the charter of the United Nations (a document signed and adopted by all
of the countries I visited).
Invariably, my presentation focused on the nation in question, whether it
was Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan or Great Britain, and the status
of its relationship with the United States. As an American, I said,
I appreciated each nation’s embrace of the United States as a friend and
ally. However, as a strong believer in the rule of law, I deplored
the trend among America’s so-called friends to facilitate a needless confrontation
which would severely harm the U.S. in the long run. These nations were
hesitant to stand up to the United States even though they knew the course
of action planned for Iraq was wrong.
Such permissive submission was deplorable, and invariably led to a comment
from me about the status of genuine sovereignty in the face of American imperial
power. If a nation was incapable of defending its sovereign values
and interests, then it should simply acknowledge its status as a colony of
the United States, pull down its disgraced national flag and raise the Stars
and Stripes.
Now the tables have turned. Americans, through the will of the people
as expressed in the November 2006 election, voiced their dissatisfaction
with the conduct of the American war in Iraq, and empowered a new Democratic-
controlled Congress to reassert itself as a separate but equal branch of
government—especially when it came to matters pertaining to war and the threat
of war.
This new Democratic leadership has failed egregiously. Not only has
the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, been unable to orchestrate any meaningful
legislation to bring the war in Iraq to an end, but in mid-March she carelessly
greased the tracks for a whole new conflict. By excising language from a
defense appropriations bill which would have required President Bush to seek
the approval of Congress prior to initiating any military attack on Iran,
Pelosi terminated any hope of slowing down the Bush administration’s mad
rush to war.
Despite the fact that Congress was only stating through this language a simple
reflection of constitutional mandate, Speaker Pelosi and others felt that
the inclusion of such verbiage put the security of the state of Israel at
risk by eliminating important “policy options” for the president of the United
States. In short, Israeli national security interests trumped the Constitution
of the United States.
I consider myself to be a friend of Israel, a status which has been demonstrated
repeatedly through words and deeds from January-February 1991, when I was
involved in the effort to stop Iraq Scud missiles from striking Israel during
the 1991 Gulf War, to the period between October 1994 and June 1998 when
I served as the lead liaison between the United Nations weapons inspectors
and Israeli intelligence, working to find a final accounting of Iraq’s proscribed
weapons of mass destruction. I know only too well the precarious reality
of Israel’s security situation, and am sympathetic to its need to proactively
deal with threats before they manifest themselves in a manner which threatens
Israel’s ability to survive as a nation-state.
However, as an American who served on active duty in time of war as an officer
of Marines, I also remember the oath I took to “uphold and defend the Constitution
of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
As such, I am troubled by the recent actions of Speaker Pelosi and other
members of Congress who have not only abrogated their collective responsibility
to uphold and defend the Constitution but have taken actions which, under
normal circumstances and involving any other nation, would border on treasonous.
Our collective duty as Americans must center on defending the very document,
the Constitution, which defines who we are and what we are as a people and
a nation. To have our elected representatives flagrantly push aside
their constitutional responsibilities in the name of the security interests
of another nation is unthinkable. And yet it has just happened, apparently
without consequence.
Sadly, the new Democratic Congress has cemented its status as yet another
iteration of a system which long ago sold its soul to special interests.
Democrats can cackle about Republican scandals, including the Jack Abramoff
affair, which brought down Rep. Tom DeLay among others. But history
will show that the Pelosi-led sellout to Israeli special interests endangered
the viability and security of America as a sovereign state governed by the
rule of law more than Jack Abramoff ever could.
In this time of constitutional crisis, the American people need to wake up
and demand that the basic tenets of the Constitution be adhered to. Congress
is solely empowered by the Constitution to declare war. Demanding that the
president of the United States adhere to this prerequisite is a logical and
patriotic stance. Allowing any non-American interest, even one possessing
such highly charged political and emotional sensitivities as Israel, to dictate
otherwise represents nothing more than a capitulation of sovereignty.
We the people need to rally around this defense of sovereignty. We
must demand not only that Congress reassert its constitutional responsibilities
and authority by demanding the president obey the letter of the law when
it comes to war, whether against Iran or any other nation, but also to place
in check the anti-American activities of one of the most powerful lobbies
in Washington, D.C., the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
For decades AIPAC has operated in the shadows of American foreign policy
decision-making, exerting its influence on elected officials away from the
public scrutiny of the very constituents who elected those officials to begin
with. It is impossible to hold someone accountable for actions that
are kept secret, and as such AIPAC’s ability to secretly influence American
foreign and national security policies represents a flagrant insult and threat
to the very essence of American democracy. I am not advocating the
dissolution of AIPAC. However, I am demanding that AIPAC be treated
as any other representative of a foreign nation is treated. It should have
to register as an agent of a foreign power so that the totality of its interactions
with American officials can become a part of the public record. We
require this of all other nations, including our good friends the British.
To state that AIPAC, and by extension Israel, is above the law in this regard
is to acknowledge the reality that American national sovereignty no longer
matters when it comes to the state of Israel. So be it. But then
we are, collectively, no better than those nations I mocked prior to the
invasion of Iraq in 2003 as “colonies” of the United States. So if
we are to continue to permit AIPAC to operate as an undeclared agent of a
foreign nation, and to influence American foreign and national security policymaking
at the expense of our Constitution, then we should acknowledge our true status
as nothing more than a colony of Israel, pull down the Stars and Stripes
and raise the Star of David over our nation’s capitol. While representing
the final act of submission, it would also be the first truly honest act
that occurred in Washington, D.C., in many years.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_final_act_of_submission/