America Held Hostage

Dick Kazan Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:34 am

"The President is holding us hostage," exclaimed a close friend of mine, with anger and frustration in his voice. "There is no-one to control him. He could invade Iran or some other country. He could use nuclear weapons. He could trigger a larger war in the Middle East or even throughout the world."

I listened intensely and I shared in his grave concerns. This is a President who has told us in no uncertain terms, "I'm the decider."

And despite the desire of the American people to end the Iraq war, he has expanded it. Under his leadership, America now runs secret prisons holding indefinitely, people never charged with a crime and torturing them at will. He views the Geneva Convention which defines the rights of enemy combatants as largely not applicable in his "war on terror."

Our President speaks of our soldiers as "heroes" yet when they are killed in Iraq, instead of celebrating their lives, he sneaks their bodies home, away from the glare of the media.

And for the seriously injured soldiers, as we saw during the recent Walter Reed medical center scandal, instead of giving them the best of care, he offers them sub-standard care and their families are largely abandoned, left to fend for themselves.

Meanwhile in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since he invaded the country in 2003. Mothers, fathers and children continue to die with no end in sight. Two million Iraqis have fled this Hell and thousands more are fleeing as I write this article.

Much of Iraq is in ruins and its people live as best they can in an unending nightmare, as our President is determined "to finish the job," that job being largely defined in his own mind.

In the U.S. in the name of "National Security," the President ignores the Bill of Rights and conducts warrantless spying on American citizens. And now the F.B.I. director has acknowledged the Bureau has wrongfully used the Patriot Act to get information about people and about businesses.

And in the Justice Department, eight U.S. attorneys were fired because they weren't sufficiently loyal to the Administration, as part of a plan to force the resignations of potentially any of the 93 U.S. attorneys not honoring the President's wishes. For as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, he (and they), "serve at the pleasure of the President," as if the President is a king.

In terms of national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the President has shown a remarkable indifference to the suffering of its victims. At best, he has posed for photo-ops in disaster areas and at worst, during Katrina he continued his vacation rather than call for help and get directly involved. As he took little action, people died and massive numbers of others suffered.

Financially, this President has irresponsibly spent vast sums of money our government doesn't have and has provided tax breaks to those who least need them. As a result, our deficit spending has exploded and may in the future endanger such vital programs as Social Security and Medicare.

And as hard to believe as this may be, our nation has no national energy policy. Our Economy remains dependent on fossil fuels, much of which come from unstable parts of the world, instability we have helped to cause. Rather than meet the challenge by developing new technologies to provide stable and renewable sources of energy and help resolve environmental issues, the U.S. is silent and vulnerable to any significant shutoff of oil flow.

But here is the good news. America is still a democracy and we the people have the key to our shackles. The founders of our nation established a check and balance system so that if one part of our government seizes too much power, as our President has done, Congress and the Courts can stop him.

Congress has the power for example, to end the war in Iraq by withdrawing the authority it gave the President to conduct it. Congress can also cut the funding and direct the President to send the U.S. troops home safely to their families. They can also impeach and remove the President.

What Congress lacks is backbone. But we can help them to find the courage to do their job as our representatives. Through our emails and our letters to them, through our comments to the media, by bringing pressure to bear on our religious leaders to speak-out and by getting out on the streets we can show them we mean business. And on their part, no "symbolic non-binding votes" will be acceptable.

Here's more good news. Also thanks to our nation's founders, every single member of the House of Representatives, which is the lower house of Congress must run for re-election every two years. As voters, we can turn them out and if they see we are strongly opposed to the Iraq war and to the President, long before the elections, they'll honor our wishes. For among most Representatives, the desire to hold office with its power, prestige and income transcends their fear of taking action.

And more good news. We can challenge the President in the Courts. Despite his attempt of putting people loyal to him on the Supreme Court, he failed and we have a court system at the highest level that remains loyal to the Constitution.

Throughout history, tyrants have arisen and with time and with the will of the people, they always fell. America is a great country and the actions of this President are a wake-up call for us to pay attention to our political system and to elect people who will honor our Constitution and who will represent our compassionate and visionary values to the world.

Dick