News at Home

Why They Call the War Power the "Stop Look and Listen" Clause--And Why We Need to Stop, Look and Listen Now

by Edwin B. Firmage

"Congress shall declare war and grant letters of Marque and Reprisal." --U.S. ConstitutionPEACE The fundamental assumption of the war clause is that peace is desirable and war is abhorrent. Peace is the norm and war is an aberration from that condition. Therefore, the war clause sets up protections for the maintenance of peace as far as law and governmental structure can help. Thes

Is George Bush Like Gary Cooper in "High Noon"?

by Robert Brent Toplin

In speeches about the urgency of attacking Iraq, President Bush has described the challenges America faces in the manner of an old-fashioned Western. His scenarios resemble the plot of one of the greatest of the genre, "High Noon." Bush may be drawing lessons from the wrong Hollywood flick, though, for American experiences in the Middle East are beginning to resemble the script of a Spaghetti Western. In the 1952 saga "High Noon," a villain and his henchmen th

Is the Alleged Sniper's Muslim Religion Worth Noting?

by Daniel Pipes

It came as no surprise to learn that the lead suspect as the Washington, D.C.,-area sniper is John Allen Muhammad, an African-American who converted to Islam about 17 years ago. Nor that seven years ago he provided security for Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March." Even less does it amaze that he reportedly sympathized with the 9/11 attacks carried out by militant Islamic elements. All this was near-predictable because it fits into a well-established tradition of A

Why Jimmy Deserved the Nobel Peace Prize

by Itai Sneh

On Oct. 11, the Norwegians awarded the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize to former President Jimmy Carter. By giving him this honor at this time, the Nobel Committee seized the opportunity to express its concern over the long-term global consequences of the aggressive, unilateral policy that the United States has initiated toward Iraq. Both the timing and the citation accompanying the prize hinted at more than Carter's undisputed courage in promoting peace and human rights. A one-term

Column: How Can We Go After Iraq and Not North Korea?

by P.M. Carpenter

"Q: How Many Ws Can Stand on the Head of a Pin?" If Fidel Castro has been reading the news about North Korea and is half the dictator he's made out to be, he would announce posthaste not that he's just thinking about arming his little regime with nuclear firepower, or that he's in the process of arming his little regime with nuclear firepower, but that he has, in fact, already armed himself with the radioactive buggers. At least then the White House would get of

Pax Americana?

by Ira Chernus

For the Bush administration, the road of public policy leads to Rome. That's nothing new in U.S. history. Americans of the 19th century often pointed to the Roman republic as the model for our own rights and freedoms. But President Bush would have us emulate the Roman empire, creating world order by giving orders around the world. The fall of the twin towers in New York gave a tremendous boost to the advocates of empire within the administration. They sealed their victory in th

Column: Does President Bush Really Want an Independent Investigation of 9-11?

by P.M. Carpenter

Oh my. At the eleventh hour Iraqi diplomats threw a wrench into United Nations negotiations over the wording of inspection terms while insisting they're in "100 percent accordance" with that global body's determination to find out what in hell is going on in Baghdad. Every Earthling of passable intelligence knew this would happen, of course, and it just goes to show you, said a U.S. spokesman, "once again the Iraqis want to delay and deceive." Tr

Presidency: Brent Scowcroft on Jimmy Carter

This past week Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize. Last May HNN published an excerpt about President Carter from A World Transformed (1998), the memoir written jointly by President George Herbert Walker Bush and General Brent Scowcroft, his national security advisor. General Scowcroft is credited in the book as the author of the excerpt, which concerns events leading up to the passage of UN resolution 678 on November 29, 1990. The resolution gave Iraq an ultimatum: get out of Ku

Column: Pseudo-Americanism

by P.M. Carpenter

In their seemingly hysterical rush to militarily confront an enemy who poses no imminent threat to U.S. national security, ultraconservatives once again are demonstrating that the real war in which they see themselves engaged is a domestic-not foreign-one. The old bugaboo of liberalism, born in the 1930s and nurtured publicly until the mid-1970s, may only draw a shallow breath every now and then, but the Right wants it dead, dead … definitely dead. Nothing less wi

Would a War with Iraq Doom Us to a Double-Dip Recession?

by Robert Brent Toplin

Since the end of 2001, President George W. Bush has been rattling his saber in the direction of Saddam Hussein, threatening war with Iraq. During this period, oil prices have surged by 46 percent, and the U.S. economy, which had been showing signs of recovery near the end of 2001, has become limp. The connection is significant. In the current economic environment, talk about war is not cheap. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has observed an interesting &

Column: Official History

by P.M. Carpenter

In two speeches on September 17 Mr. Bush announced his administration's determination to strengthen purportedly, the teaching of American history in elementary, secondary, and higher educational institutions. He did not hide the underlying reason for this call to educational arms, saying right up front that "our children ... are seeing Americans fight for our country," thus "they also must know why their country is worth fighting for." As

How Deregulation Begat Enron et al.

by Eric Rauchway

Everybody prefers glamorous fable to dusty fact but some Americans seem to prefer myth even to our own memories when we talk about regulating the financial markets. Watching the marshals haul off the outlaws, we nod as our plain-spoken cowboy president tells us that now a vigilant sheriff will make the frontier safe for innovative husbandmen toiling in the soil of a new economy. This indulgence in bad historical metaphor is downright un-American: we have too much money on the line

Can President Bush Send Troops to Iraq without Congress's Approval?

by Mark Holzer

On September 4, 2002, amidst a national guessing game over President Bush's intentions regarding Iraq and the role of Congress in his plans, the president sent a carefully worded letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert. After establishing that America and the civilized world are at a crossroads regarding Iraq, Mr. Bush wrote (the emphasis is mine):I am in the process of deciding how to proceed. This is an imp

Why the President Does Not Legally Need Congress's Permission to Go to War (But Is Wise to Seek It)

by Robert F. Turner

Eyebrows were raised over reports the White House Counsel's office had advised President Bush the Constitution did not require him to obtain approval from Congress before using force to bring about a regime change in Iraq.      But the president's lawyers were right. Perhaps more importantly, the president was also right when he decided to seek a formal resolution of approval.      Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution vests in the president both the power and the duty to

Column: The Painfully Loyal Opposition

by P.M. Carpenter

Congressional Democrats are doing everything they can to prove Ralph Nader correct. In 2000 they ridiculed his charges of two-party sameness, citing mounds of principled differences between the Party of FDR and the Party of Gingrich. They were incensed that he was roaming the countryside, duping progressives, and recklessly siphoning off a critical base. Democratic House and Senate candidates needed party loyalty then more than ever, they said, just in case the "bumbling" Tex

Column: Shut-Up, He Explained ... W's Idea of a National Conversation

by P.M. Carpenter

Having been pounded for weeks on all fronts, W's recent coming out on the Iraq Question has demonstrated once again that when it comes to honest analysis and honest debate, the administration takes a powder. Both are irritants to the royal ear; nasty vestiges of a quasi-democratic society which interfere with the transition-now properly underway-to a plutocratic and authoritarian one. Throughout August we, the people, called for a national debate over invading,

Taking on Another President: Judge Damon Keith

by Stanley I. Kutler

New York Times, Quote of the Day, August 27, 2002:"Democracies die behind closed doors."--Judge Damon J. Keith, in a ruling declaring that the Bush administration acted unlawfully in holding deportation hearings in secret. Judge Damon Keith has had his moment in the sun. Writing for a three-judge panel in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Keith forcefully rejected the Bush Administration's conduct of secret deportation hearings against those with

Shouldn't People Who Favor Gun Control Favor War in Iraq?

by Don B. Kates

The current debate over forcibly preventing Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons is notable because it finds "liberals" heedlessly abandoning crucial verities of 20th Century liberalism. As a criminologist I find instructive the parallels between this debate and the debate over gun control.THE IMPERATIVE TO DISARM VIOLENT CRIMINALS Contentious as the gun control debate sometimes is, certain propositions enjo

Declaring War: Do People Not Know How to Read the Constitution?

by Ruth Rosen

Once, I was a history professor. For a quarter of a century, I taught American history to thousands of undergraduates. Regardless of the subject matter, I was passionate about helping my students appreciate the unmatched brilliance of the U.S. Constitution. Some students, aware of my lifelong devotion to civil rights and feminist causes, wondered why I seemed so uncritical of a document that enshrined slavery and denied women citizenship. Still others, who knew nothing about me,

The History of Macho Presidents

by Alexander DeConde

Since antiquity, the use and abuse of monarchical, presidential, and other forms of executive power has troubled most societies. For this reason the founders of the American nation, through experience with the British crown and their reading of history, feared to entrust any one leader with unbridled power, particularly in matters of war and peace. They viewed the executive as the natural enemy of liberty and the potential leader of a military tyranny. In their new repu