[Peace-discuss] An American Hero: Senator Robert Byrd

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

Published on Wednesday, July 21, 2004 by the Baltimore Sun
Sen. Byrd's Indictment
by Jules Witcover
 

Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, routinely 
dismissed by his colleagues as if he were some embarrassing 
old uncle hidden in the attic, has broken loose again.

The 86-year-old part-time country fiddler has written a 
scorching appraisal of President Bush and his pre-emptive 
invasion of Iraq titled Losing America: Confronting a 
Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. It confirms the old tiger 
as Congress' staunchest and most outspoken defender of the 
Constitution.

Mr. Byrd's book embellishes the familiar scolding he 
administered to the president in the run-up to the war. Then 
he would wave the little volume of the Constitution in his 
breast pocket as he spoke and reminded the Senate of Article 
I, Section 8, empowering Congress (and nobody else) 
to "declare war."

At the outset of his new book, Mr. Byrd quotes the 2000 
candidate Bush: "Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, 
just as we refuse the crown of empire. Let us not dominate 
others with our power -- or betray them with our 
indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that 
reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. 
The humility of real greatness. This is the strong heart of 
America. And this will be the spirit of my administration."

Then Mr. Byrd observes: "It is hard to believe that the man 
who said those words is the same man who now sits in the 
White House."

As the Senate's constitutional expert, Mr. Byrd nags at other 
members of Congress for rolling over for Mr. Bush's 
resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Beyond that, 
he chastises them for swallowing whole the president's 
doctrine of pre-emption, which has escaped any serious 
congressional review to date.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Byrd writes, "stark 
and sweeping, the new 'Bush Doctrine' turned the heat up in 
an already nervous world, taking us straight to the 'doctrine 
of pre-emption,' and that was swampy soil indeed."

And in setting the nation on the course of what he called "a 
monumental struggle of good vs. evil," Mr. Byrd 
writes, "Bush's draconian 'them' vs. 'us,' 'good' and 'evil,' 
serves little purpose other than to divide and inflame. This 
is not the stuff of statecraft."

As for Mr. Bush's characterization of Iraq, Iran and North 
Korea as an "axis of evil," Mr. Byrd asks: "Did this 
administration know nothing of history? Could it not gauge 
the power of that word?" In casting the United States 
as "world supercop," the senator observes, "I do not recall 
anyone putting that question before the American people."

Mr. Byrd adds: "This doctrine of pre-emption claimed by Bush 
should have incited a major debate in the Congress and across 
the country. Radical, having no basis in existing law, this 
new foreign policy was dangerous in the extreme. ... This 
green and arrogant president had made a U-turn on our 
tradition of working with allies and exhausting diplomatic 
efforts. ... Our metamorphosis on the world stage from 
powerful, peaceful giant to swaggering Wild West bully, with 
little regard for cooperative agreements, sensitivities or 
diplomacy in general, means a different kind of world in 
years to come."

Mr. Bush's war resolution, he writes, "amounted to a complete 
evisceration of the congressional prerogative to declare war, 
and an outrageous abdication of responsibility to hand such 
unfettered discretion to this callow and reckless president. 
Never, in my view, had America been led by such a dangerous 
head of state."

As a result, Mr. Byrd says, "the power of Congress to declare 
war ... now lies in a tepid or dormant state."

His own Senate, Mr. Byrd says, "having handed Bush carte 
blanche by passing the Iraq war resolution ... wanted no more 
to do with the matter. It had washed its hands and taken an 
aspirin."

Mr. Byrd was one of only 23 senators who voted against the 
resolution.

Before writing this book, the senior West Virginian made more 
than 60 speeches on the Senate floor protesting Mr. Bush's 
war and was regarded by many of his colleagues as a 
bothersome crank. His book may well be similarly received, 
though he more than any of them can now say: I told you so.

Jules Witcover writes from The Sun's Washington bureau.

Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun 
__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ppatton/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
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