A Model for Congress

The unpopular Mr. Bush may take some satisfaction in the fact that he is more popular among Americans than Dick Cheney and the current U.S. Congress.

Bush is unpopular because of his war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and his teasing proxy war progressing on schedule in Iran and Syria. Bush is unpopular because we correctly associate him with tyrannous government.

While our country is misled, bankrupted and friendless, we also note that the state and the executive presidency has never been more healthy and robust.

The current Congress is hated not for what we knew it would do – we certainly expected increased spending, and continued stupidity, corruption and politicking. But this Congress was expressly sent to end the war in Iraq and to rein in the Bush-Cheney-Condi-Rumsfeld neocons.

After the elections, Rumsfeld instantly disappeared. But Bush and Cheney did that. Congress, holding the pursestrings of war and nervously checking its collective zipper, has done nothing.

There is a similar assembly of bought-and-paid-for peoples’ representatives that is actually worth admiring. Amazingly, our good example comes from Afghanistan!

The artificially fabricated and weak parliament of Afghanistan, that broken country led by U.S. puppet Hamid Karzai, has shown more brass and more character than our own "constitutionally sanctioned" supreme soviet. It’s not often that law-biding citizens get to hear good news from Afghanistan, but we had some last week.

Apparently, the Afghani parliament is trying to impeach their foreign minister. Karzai appointed his friend, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, to this post a few years ago. Minister Spanta is accused of not working for the good of Afghans abroad – basically of not doing his job of putting Afghans first.

One Afghan member of parliament who voted to impeach said this,

The foreign minister's job is to look out for Afghans who live abroad. He did not do that. He didn't even know how many Afghans were in Iranian prisons," Qarimatullah says. "Nor did he know about an international agreement allowing the deportation. All of this led us to impeach him.

Not knowing what is happening to a country’s citizens abroad, or not caring, is worthy of public reprimand, replacement or impeachment.

This new, troubled, tribalized parliament in Kabul has done what our well-dressed, civilized, internetted, and wealthy Congress cannot find the moral strength to do – and that is to sanction, impeach and defund those in the government who do not look out after the interests of American citizens.

The Lou Dobbs crowd adores autarky, and imagines a better America through domestic self-sufficiency and mercantilism abroad – and while I disagree – this group has done a fine job in getting Congress’ attention publicly focused on American workers and American trade. Dobbs and company is on message "Look out for the average American at home!" and Congress hears and obeys.

Why is it the anti-immigration and pro-life message works on Congress, while advocates for preserving the life and limbs of home grown American soldiers are termed "protesters" and "un-American"? Is the war business so profitable, and the moral vacancy so great that we would save an unborn baby, seat-belt him safely for 18 years, only to send him forward to die for, as Greenspan believes, a war for oil?

Those that remain – the mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, siblings and children of Americans killed and maimed in Iraq have no mainstream establishment agency to speak up for them, no majority political leader to act on their behalf.

We will elect Ron Paul – and by redrawing the executive branch in its native constitutional image, we will do much for our soldiers, all Americans abroad, and those at home. Intuitively, both the establishment and the soldiers already know this. Soldiers support Ron Paul, and the establishment cowers.

The Afghan parliament – incompetent as it may be – has taken a stand that the people associated with an executive presidency are accountable for their decisions and actions. That parliament believes that the elected executive must always put the country’s interest first and foremost. When the executive fails to put the country first, the Afghan parliament acts swiftly and boldly.

How long will we have to wait before our Congress does the same?

September 19, 2007

LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for MilitaryWeek.com, hosted the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power. To receive automatic announcements of new articles, click here.

Copyright © 2007 Karen Kwiatkowski

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