The US Constitution Under Threat
By Wayne Madsen
15 February 2003
It is now time for the US military to act against a dangerous regime that is in material breach of one of the
most important and inspiring legal instruments in the world -the US Constitution. And it is not the regimes of
Sadam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, or Fidel Castro who threaten the Constitution.
George Bush, Dick Cheney, and every Cabinet member swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution
against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But what happens when the domestic threat is from the very
people who swore to defend the Constitution?
The US military, including a large number of Reserves and National Guard are being deployed to the desert
sands of Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and other countries. Their absence from the United States permits the Bush
regime to seize more and more constitutional rights of the American people without the possibility of
substantial resistance. Today, the only people who are currently defenseless in the world are the American
people -they are vulnerable to the machinations of their own illegal regime.
That leaves only law enforcement as our only real defense. And while most police -Federal, state, and local-
seem to be in lockstep with Bush's march towards totalitarianism in the United States, there are now even
rumblings from these ranks. Said one local law enforcement officer in the Washington, DC, area: "our
military reserve personnel are being sent to the Middle East and our ability as first responders is weakened."
And this from one Federal law enforcement official, "I can tell you that Bush is heartless."
Hollywood has long pondered, through movies like Seven Days in May, what might happen to America if an
extra-constitutional situation were to arise. While most of these cinematic presentations focused on
power-hungry generals seizing control from democratically elected presidents, no one in Hollywood ever
really considered the possibility of generals imbued with democratic values ousting a President who was bent
on seizing unconstitutional powers. However, this is exactly the nightmarish scenario that is beginning to arise
in Washington.
After steamrolling through the US Congress the USA PATRIOT Act at a time when the legislative branch was
under an obvious home-grown anthrax attack, the Bush regime is now preparing to drop the other jack boot
-the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 or as it has been dubbed- the USA Patriot Act II. This law
would effectively abrogate many of the protections granted by the Bill of Rights and virtually gut the Privacy
and Freedom of Information Acts. It is yet another step towards the creation of Bush's maniacal American
Empire -one that foresees a final decisive battle between the forces of unbridle corporatism and
fundamentalist Judeo-Christianity on one side and Islam, European liberal humanism, social democracy, and
pacifism on the other.
Like Roman Caesars Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, and Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and
Benito Mussolini before him, Bush's fanaticism threatens to plunge the world into endless war and bring to an
ignoble close America's 227-year democratic run.
It is perhaps telling that as the Bush regime further curtails the public's right to know, patriots within the US
law enforcement establishment chose to leak the "Confidential-Not for Distribution" draft of the "USA Patriot
II" Act. Just as Pentagon officials are leaking information on Donald Rumsfeld's inhuman plans to cremate the
remains of US troops killed by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons, there are increasing signs that the US
government bureaucracy is becoming increasingly restless with the Bush clique. The General Accounting
Office, the congressional watchdog agency, fresh from being trounced in its efforts to obtain Dick Cheney's
notes on his secretive Energy Task Force, is now conducting an audit of Federal agency compliance with the
Privacy and Freedom of Information Acts. This is in response not to Congress, which could not care less
about either law, but from government bureaucrats who are apparently blowing the whistle on abuses. It may
not result in much of anything, but indicates that there may be a simmering reaction to Bush from one of the
most static layers in government - the career civil service.
The career military has just about had it with Rumsfeld's constant paranoia about leaks and his
aggressiveness in conducting the type of sweeping investigations of his officer corps and non-commissioned
officer ranks that are reminiscent of Richard Nixon's Plumbers Unit.
Anyone who closely examines Patriot II will realize that the document represents the same sort of power
grab by Hitler after the Reichstag Fire of 1933. Using the pretext that the Reichstag was burned down by
Communists (when, in fact, it was engineered by Nazis), Hitler pushed through the "Decree by the Reich
President for the Defense of People and State." The Reichstag Fire Decree, intended only as a "temporary"
measure, permitted Hitler and his regime to jail political opponents at will, bypass the judicial system, and
eventually force millions of people into concentration camps.
Like the Reichstag Fire Decree, there is nothing temporary with either Patriot I or II. With a virtual rubber
stamp legislature, Bush can simply extend the so-called "sunset" provisions of the first act and any that may
appear in the second.
It is also important to point out that much of what is contained in Patriot II is not aimed at effectively
defending the United States against terrorists, but at curtailing the freedoms of the American people. In fact,
Bush has all but ignored al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, choosing instead to pathologically focus on Saddam
Hussein.
Attorney General John Ashcroft would be armed with increased powers to curtail the public's access to
government information, including information on environmental hazards and other public safety information
shared by corporations with the Federal government. And, while the FBI would be able to routinely and
without sufficient court order browse the financial records of American citizens, Cabinet and sub-cabinet
officers, members of Congress, and Supreme Court Justices could hide from the Internal Revenue Service
any fringe benefits deemed to be in the category of "protective security."
In a direct violation of the Tenth Amendment, which states, "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the
people," Ashcroft and the FBI will also be able to terminate state laws prohibiting local police from gathering
information about people and organizations. These laws were enacted in reaction to past abuses by so-called
police "Red Squads" that later were reorganized to keep track of civil rights and anti-war groups.
Further violating the letter and spirit of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the Pentagon would be permitted to
conduct DNA dragnets and collect the DNA of "certain classes of aliens including those engaged in activity that
endangers national security." Certainly, if DNA technology were available to Hitler, such a decree would have
enabled the Gestapo to collect the DNA of Jews, the Roma people, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Africans -all of
whom were declared aliens and not Germans under Hitler's racial purification laws.
Elements of racial purification are also contained in Patriot II. The Bush regime would be empowered to take
away the citizenship of Americans involved with a "foreign terrorist organization." The Secretary of State is
currently authorized the designate, as his whim, what constitutes a "foreign terrorist" organization. It is not
just Arab or Muslim-Americans who could lose their citizenship in this respect. In their zeal to
ethnically-cleanse America, the Bush regime could eventually withdraw citizenship from Latinos involved with
the Colombian FARC or Mexican Zapatistas, Tamil-Americans, Basque-Americans, Irish-Americans, or any
American ethnic group that begins to actively oppose, in concert with revolutionary or secessionist
movements, America's grand imperial designs in their native lands.
The US government would also be empowered to conduct surveillance of groups active in the United States
that are deemed "terrorist" by foreign governments. This would effectively end America's role as a safe
haven for pro-democracy organizations fighting repressive regimes that join Bush's coalition for world
domination. By not adequately defining what constitutes "material support" for designated terrorist
organizations, the Bush regime is coming ominously close to declaring thought crimes to be a national
security offense. A web site, which merely expresses support for some group or cause opposed by the Bush
cabal, could be shut down and its operators jailed if someone decides it is a threat.
Supported by a sycophantic media, the Bush regime is trying to convince the world that its first war of many
is just. But even conservatives like Robert Novak are questioning Bush's Imperial Romanesque plans. In a
February 10 column, Novak writes that Bush "projects an American imperium that evokes apprehension
among some conservative supporters of President Bush."
Similarly, members of the US intelligence community are pointing to an October 7, 2002 letter from the CIA
to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The CIA took issue with the notion that Saddam would engage in a first
use of weapons of mass destruction or give them to terrorists like al-Qaeda. The CIA has also dismissed links
between Saddam and Al Qaeda, a stance supported by the agency's British counterpart, MI-6.
As evidence of just how far out of step the Bush administration is with the rest of the world, consider the
statements of America's traditional allies. Responding to Rumsfeld's Hermann-Goering-like bellicosity, Belgian
Foreign Minister Louis Michel said, "[w]hen one has to take a slap in the face such as the insulting remarks
[...] by Mr. Rumsfeld, who comes to teach a thing or two to 'old Europe', the Europe of democratic values,
humanist Europe, the Europe of the Age of Enlightenment, personally I find that this hurts." The press aide to
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien called Bush a moron. The former German Justice Minister likened
Bush to Hitler. Bush insulted his former friend, Mexico's President Vicente Fox, by walking away from a press
conference before the translator had finished translating to English Fox's answer to a question. Bush was
miffed that Mexico was not supporting Bush in the UN Security Council. He ratchets up North Korea's Kim
Jong Il and risks a potential nuclear war by telling a reporter that he "hates" Kim because he starves his own
people. Bush refers to Russian President Vladimir Putin as "Pooty Poot" and then expects Russia's support for
his Iraq and North Korea adventures -support he unsurprisingly fails to get. Bush calls the Pakistanis "Pakis"
and Greeks "Grecians." He doesn't know the difference between two incoming NATO members -Slovenia and
Slovakia.
Bush proudly stands on a trash heap of treaties he has rejected either in word or by spirit -Kyoto, Madrid and
Oslo, International Criminal Court, Anti-Ballistic Missile, Nuclear Test-Ban, the Biological and Toxin Warfare
Convention (BTWC), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW),
Ottawa Convention on Land Mines, and, more recently, the UN Charter and NATO.
Bush's cult-like right-wing supporters -including his radio talk show drones- begin calling for sanctions against
France and Germany. They begin referring to the French as "frogs" and the Germans as "krauts." If Japan or
Congo were to come out against Bush's Iraqi policy, we could likely expect to hear the racist terms "nips" and
"darkies." Such are the times when a group of red necks seize the halls of power in Washington, DC.
Thanks to Bush's rants, we already have 100,000 North Korean artillery shells trained on 37,000 US troops
and millions of South Koreans. But when the pseudo-moderate Colin Powell calls France and Germany the
"Paris-Berlin Axis," he continues the insults of Rumsfeld, who publicly placed Germany in a pro-Iraqi axis with
Cuba and Libya. And obviously the Bush war hawks forget one very important thing: by threatening Paris,
Berlin, and Brussels, the Bush clique may be the first US administration to force France to think about
retargeting its nuclear "force de frappe" strike force, which is complete with sea-to-ground and
ground-to-ground intercontinental nuclear missiles. And with Putin now in closer consultation with France,
Russia may feel that it is past time to again focus its nuclear arsenal on a possible conflict with the United
States.
Which brings us back to the original concept of Bush's extra-constitutional maneuverings. With an
administration that will soon have at its disposal the control over non-auditable computer voting machines
across the land, Bushes-in-waiting that will undoubtedly seek higher national office on an endless
quasi-monarchical merry-go-round, a compliant Congress run by repulsive demagogues like Tom DeLay,
Mitch McConnell, George Allen, Curt Weldon, and Rick Santorum, and virtual dictatorial powers enshrined in
the Patriot I and II Acts, there is no relief in sight for America's rapidly fading democracy.
A former British Lieutenant Colonel named George Washington once turned the weapons of his army of
rebels against his former masters, thus helping to launch the United States as a free and independent nation.
One of Washington's indicted co-conspirators and successors as President, Thomas Jefferson, gave us a
blueprint on how to handle the Bush regime: "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their Powers
from the Consent of the Governed, that Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these
Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government [...] it is their
Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
And just in case the fascists in control of our government contend that the Founding Fathers were part of
another era, let us remember some more recent quotes: "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the
people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their
constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln.
"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that
moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." -Barry Goldwater.
"For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to
determine their own destiny." -Ronald Reagan.
From our Founders to our more recent leaders we have been given the answer to how best deal with the
gravest constitutional dilemma that has ever befallen the United States of America. Our modern militia,
whose forbearers defended us from the British, pro-slavery secessionists, the Germans, and the Soviet
Union, must now defend us once again against all enemies, not foreign but domestic.
© The News Insider 2003
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