"The Secret Downing Street Memo" reputedly describes a July 2002 meeting between Tony Blair and his top aides, eight months before the U.S. and its allies launched their war on Iraq. In the meeting one aide, identified only as "C",reported on his recent talks in Washington. C noted a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. In other words, the decision to go to war was already made; we'll find the intelligence to justify it.
If this is so, then:
1. The President lied when he repeatedly stated that the admistration would exhaust all options before going to war. There were no options.
2. Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction were to be the justifications for the war; tapping into fear and revenge, these justifications would be more acceptable to the American public than the administration's true reasons. [in the absence of more "smoking guns," we can only speculate as to these true reasons: retaliation for the assassination attempt on Bush I' life, completing Bush I's war, using a weakened Iraq as a stepping stone to reshaping the Middle East.]
3. The whole discussion about flawed intelligence reports was a smokescreen; good intelligence or bad, the decision had already been made.
What strikes me is how little outrage these disclosures have generated. ZNet Commentaries, a lonely voice on the far left, refers to an "impeachment fever" which one finds little evidence of elsewhere. And even ZNet sees dim prospects given:
1. Republicans control Congress.
2. The media aren't raising it as a serious option; generally they're not raising it at all.
3. Most Democrats voted for the war.
4. The Democratic presidential challenger positioned himself as being even tougher than Bush.
5. The notion of the U.S. as engaging in a criminal adventure is unacceptable to the majority of Americans.
In his article, "The Origins and Scope of Presidential Impeachment," Matthew Romney observes the founding fathers paid little attention to defining exactly what constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors." "The scope of offenses," he notes, "is mentioned only in passing by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper # 65, stating his opinion that impeachable offenses are “political,” that they are “injuries done immediately to the society itself,” or actions that are “violations of the public trust." He suggests that since the founding fathers didn't spell it out, it is up to each generation to decide. And the question to ask is not what is an impeachable offense, but what should be. It is a reasonable question to ask: Is willfully deceiving the nation in order to go to war an impeachable offense?
The ZNet article points out that "crimes of war have rarely registered on the impeachment scale." Nixon was recommended for impeachment for obstruction of justice in the Watergate coverup, but not for the illegal bombing of Cambodia or lying about thar bombing. Reagan was not impeached for the illegal backing of Nicaraguan Contras in a war that led to the killing of thousands of civilians. Johnson was not impeached for taking the U.S. into the Vietnam War based on a trumped up incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, while confessing the real reason: not wanting to be the first American president to lose a war.
Lying about wars leading to death and destruction do not make it into the impeachment debate; however, apparently, lying about sexual encounters with a White House intern do. More puzzlement about an apparently twisted morality.
I am less concerned here with impeachment than with a Top/Bottom dance that occurs with great regularity in nations and organizations.
I do think that there will be a painful reckoning regarding this Iraq War. And, like such reckonings in the past, it will be internally divisive just as we are still divided over the Vietnam War. Many who trusted and supported the president will come to regret that trust and support. For them, faith and love will turn to anger and betrayal.
We Bottoms are easily seduced into enthusiasm for the leader's misguided adventures. There have been horrific examples in the not too distant past: just see the pre-war enthusiasm Germans had for Hitler, similarly the Italians for Mussolini, the Serbs for Milosevic. Skilful Leaders can do that for us, give us visions we want to believe in and be a part of, visions that appear to enoble us in contrast to others. We never go to war for evil purposes, only for the good, fairness, just causes.
Then, "when the leaders' grand visions turn to ashes - as they so often do - we kick the bums out, impeach them send them into exile, hang them, or shoot them." [From "The Universal Civics Course," pp. 74-76, in Seeing Systems.]
Leaders will always do what they do in pursuit of their grand visions. Complaining about them simply continues the cycle; the greater challenge lies in changing ourselves: to be more questioning, more skeptical, less easily seduced.
If the Iraq War reveals itself to be a colossal fraud, maybe we are the ones who should be impeached.
Greetings from the Northeast Kingdom of VT.
A delight to see your blog and your sharp insight into our current power system established by GWB Inc.
I was surprised to be surprised that in your view we are the bottoms. Naive me, I thought citizens in a democracy were the power. Our former Governor and current DNC Chair keeps telling me we have the power. But in the current state of our republic, we are treated as employees, not citizens. This must be what working at Enron or MCI before their collapses felt like.
Keep up the good spirit, the good work, and the good fight.
Posted by: Bill Bevans | July 05, 2005 at 01:24 PM