by Stephen Neitzke
The Code -- Media mouthpieces must not bring legal fact to the Bush political fantasy. The legal realm must be kept invisible. All emphasis is to be placed on everything being politics-as-usual. Each American killed in Iraq is not a milestone of depravity for the benefit of the superrich, it is only politics as usual.
Federal statute 18 USC 241 -- criminal conspiracy against citizen rights -- is a Pandora's Box for those in power and their corporate backers. Players in the game rely on the use of conspiracies to violate citizen rights so that they can make obscene profits. As done throughout history, they use those profits to entrench their social, economic, and political power. Witness the war-profiteering factor in the Iraq War.
Money-power players also depend on citizen-rights-violating, criminal conspiracies to collapse government's checks and balances into unconstitutional collusions between agencies and branches. They work together, sometimes in the forefront, and sometimes behind the scenes -- to avoid criminal prosecution of any of the cronies. Witness Bush still roaming free -- despite his many obvious criminalities -- to continue his nation-imploding of the US.
Among those many criminalities is his ordering the invasion of Iraq. And this is not about the many national and international criminalities that he has committed since the invasion. This is just about the invasion.
Nowhere in the Constitution is any branch except Congress given the power to declare war. The declaration of war is a legislative-branch function, not an executive-branch function. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution mandates that Congress "shall have the power to declare war."
Congress violated the "separation of powers" under the Constitution when they gave the war powers decision for Iraq to Bush. It was done in HJR 114, "Authorization For The Use Of Military Force Against Iraq", 2nd session, 107th Congress.
What Congress did here was not a declaration of war. They bascially said to the president, "You decide when we should go to war, and let us know shortly afterwards."
Nowhere in the Constitution is any branch of government given the power and the option of giving away a power and function specifically assigned to that branch in the Constitution. To do so is (1) unimaginable in the context of constitutional law, and (2) a violation of our Constitution's "separation of powers".
In the prima facie case we're building here, every Member and Senator in Congress -- all 373 of them -- who voted to give Bush his very own war-delcaring powers for Iraq -- is guilty of violating his/her oath to uphold the Constitution. On top of this, they are also guilty of violating 18 USC 241 -- conspiracy against the citizen-rights of US soldiers to be sent to war only on the expressed order of Congress.
HJR-114 is not a one-dimensional Congressional crime. When Bush signed it into law -- "contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States, and, to the best of his ability, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constituton of the United States, and in violation of his constitutonal duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed" (quoted from all three of Nixon's articles of impeachment, July 1974) -- it became Public Law 107-243. It became, under 18 USC 241, a conspiracy of Congress and the president.
That is, Congress and this president used an unconstitutional federal statute to violate and override the supreme law of the land, conspiring to commit felony murder of US soldiers in violation of 18 USC 241.
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It makes no difference whatsoever that the legislative history of Public Law 107-243 declares that it is based on Public Law 93-148, the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
The 1973 law does the same unconstitutionality. It is a Congressional attempt to give away Congress's war powers function to the president, who, at the time, was another of fascist corporatism's favorite sons, Richard Nixon.
As with Public Law 107-243, Public Law 93-148 is an unconstitutional federal statute law used to violate and override the supreme law of the land. It lays claim to the Constitutional power of Congress to make all laws, "necessary and proper", for all the powers of government. But necessary and proper laws -- all federal statutes -- must be constitutional. No unconstitutional law, such as giving away specifically assigned war powers in violation of "separation of powers", is "necessary and proper".
Congress' "separation of powers" violation with HJR-114 and Bush signing it into law were both significant, high crimes. But Bush committed an additional violation of the Constitution, an additional high crime, when he used the legislative function in ordering the invasion.
Bush's invasion orders (Special Ops forces into the back-country months before the March 2003 "decapitation" strike) violated the Constitution's promise of our soldiers' citizen rights, as well as 18 USC 241. Under the law, Bush can be criminally prosecuted today for his violation of 18 USC 241, regardless of his being a sitting president. Of course, as demonstrated by inter-agency and inter-branch collusions, Bush lives above the law.
Under 18 USC 241, as soon as one US soldier was killed in action in Iraq, Bush was prosecutable for conspiracy to commit felony murder. If convicted, 18 USC 241 says that he and his co-conspirators can be sentenced to life imprisonment -- or to death.
US military officers take their loyalty oath to the Constitution -- not to the president, or even to Congress. Every officer who participated in giving the invasion orders is guilty of oath violation and of 18 USC 241 violation -- regardless of rank.
The 373 Congressional representatives, the Bush-Cheney administration insiders and outsiders, and all involved military brass who gave the orders to invade Iraq should be given a fair trial, and if convicted, sentenced to life imprisonment or to death.
That's the law. Dura lex, sed lex -- the law is harsh, but it is the law. Nobody is excused from felony murder because he/she holds a high station in life. Delivering the co-conspiratiors into the legal realm is, in my opinion, one of the very best ways in which we can honor our war dead.
The use of unconstitutional stature law to violate and override constitutions is older than our country. In our 200-plus year history, the violation of our Constitution by government officials and judges is one of our single largest political problems. Witness Bush's usurpation of the presidency, January 2001. Witness the "USA Patriot Act". Witness the Supremes with "eminent domain" and "medical marijuana".
It's way past time for the national constitutional renewal that will bring these criminals to justice and establish the people as the final authority in this country.
It may take time, but the constitutional renewal is do-able.
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Stephen Neitzke [send him email] is the founder of the Direct Democracy League. He is the author of "The State of the Republic, 1776-2004" as well as a number of other works, which can be found at www.ddleague-usa.net and on his blog at http://ddrevival.blogspot.com/
© Stephen Neitzke
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