What Should Conservatives Do?

The actor Jack Nicholson, speaking at a Tinseltown pro-Clinton rally on the day the bombs dropped on Baghdad, was asked about the "Wag the Dog" scenario: was the attack a planned diversion away from the impeachment process? Nicholson opined that he could not believe the American people could have elected a President who was "that evil." This is either a naivete so childlike that it threatens to become prenatal, or else another Academy Award-winning performance by this shining star of the Hollywood Left.

If there were any doubts left about the President's moral depravity, his unleashing of the U.S. war machine against virtually defenseless Iraq ought to dispel them for good. After lying to the American people for months, and then committing premeditated perjury in a court of law, the President now expects us to believe that it was just a coincidence that he launched a missile attack on the eve of his impeachment.

This brings to mind a favorite phrase from the sixties, when another desperate chief executive was using our boys as pawns in a game to save his own political skin. All you boomers out there no doubt remember the famous "credibility gap" that seemed to widen as the Vietnam war dragged on. Some thirty years later, the Gap is back -- nothing this President says or does has any credibility. In his fight to get and keep power, Bill Clinton has been absolutely ruthless. In covering up the scandal that has rocked his administration, the President pulled every trick in the book -- and now he has resorted the oldest one in the book: unleashing the dogs of war. As a distraction from domestic troubles and a means to stifle dissent on the home front, there is nothing like a "patriotic" war -- as practiced by Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and virtually every President in modern times.

The Washington Times editorialized that this sneak attack is, in itself, grounds for impeachment, and we agree. After years of stonewalling, intimidating witnesses, and smearing their opponents, the Clinton administration has turned to war to divert the nation from the chief executive's disgrace. Ken Starr is still investigating the claims of Kathleen Willey, the woman who was sexually attacked by Clinton in his office, who has told investigators that the President's thugs may be responsible for a pattern of intimidation, including the slaying of her cat and the "gift' of a cat's skull left on her front porch. Let him now start investigating the mass murder of untold numbers of Iraqis as part of a similar pattern of intimidation designed to stave off impeachment.

Among the intimidated are all-too-many House Republicans, led by the "pragmatist" blowhard, newly-elevated Speaker Robert Livingstone (R-La.),who speedily (and happily) capitulated to the demand by the President's partisans that the House vote on impeachment be delayed. Naturally, the sell-out Newt Gingrich took this opportunity to rise from the political grave and issue a ghostly endorsement of Clinton's ploy. It was left to Senator Trent Lott to stand up to the war hysteria, and flatly refuse to support military action. Majority Leader Dick Armey also voiced his doubts.

Representative Gerald Solomon (R-NY), the chairman of the House Rules Committee, declared that he was "outraged" at this naked attempt to derail the impeachment process, and skewered the Clintonian rationale for war.

Clinton and his gang are claiming that UN arms inspection chief Richard Butler's report signaled that Iraq had violated its agreement to cooperate with the UN, and that this had to trigger an immediate U.S. response. But, as Solomon notes, "the report that came out on December 15th, today, was an expected report. It is a report that contains exactly what all of us thought was going to be in it. There is nothing new. There is nothing in that report that would create a spontaneous attack like the president is planning today. It is obvious that he is doing it for political reasons, and I and others are outraged."

The Washington Times has revealed that: "the White House notified the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday that President Clinton would order air strikes this week, 48 hours before he saw a United Nations report declaring Iraq in noncompliance with weapons inspectors, it was learned from authoritative sources last night.

Several Pentagon officials have questioned Mr. Clinton's timing to order strikes on the eve of the House impeachment debate. Pentagon sources said National Security Council aides told the Joint Chiefs to quickly update a bombing plan that was shelved in mid-November and were told that a strike would beordered in a matter of days." Solomon revealed the astonishing fact that this supposedly long-anticipated action came as a complete surprise to everyone on the Hill: the chairmen of the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Foreign Affairs Committee were both kept in the dark until the very last moment. Clinton's Pearl Harbor caught the GOP off guard, just as his every deft political manuever has kept them off balance since 1994.

As Solomon detailed his indictment of the President's treachery, a stunned CNN newsman asked: "Are you saying, sir -- and correct me if you disagree with this characterization -- is that the reason for the bombing is to affect the impeachment procedure? Solomon's reply: "In my opinion, that is the only reason. And I am outraged." This astonished the ever-credulous Bernard Shaw, who interjected: "Congressman, did I hear you correctly? Are you, in effect, accusing the president of the United States, the commander in chief of American forces, of playing with the lives of American forces for political expediency? Is that what you are say saying?"

Solomon answered: "Bernie," answered Solomon with a heavy sigh, "whether he knows it or not, that is exactly what he is doing."

Make no mistake: he knows it! Not only that, but he also knows what Republicans are just beginning to discover: that crusades abroad have their domestic political uses. Here is what Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, Illinois, has to say on the subject: "The incentive is to start bombing and continue until January 6th, when the new Congress convenes and the resolution of the House Judiciary Committee dies. The new Congress would have to start impeachment proceedings all over again."

With five less Republicans in the House, and time to mobilize their constituency, the Democrats would have a fighting chance to permanently stave off impeachment.

What should conservatives do?

First, oppose Gulf War II: if this lesson in the domestic uses of foreign wars doesn't convince Republicans to give up the loopy internationalism and warmongering of the Cold War era, then nothing will. There are many reasons why the Founders warned against foreign wars and entangling alliances -- and the prospect of a power-mad President who would stop at nothing to prop up his regime was only one of them.

The economic sanctions that have crippled Iraq have killed over one million people,mostly innocent Iraqi women and children.Iraq was never a military threat to begin with: reduced to this state, it is even less so. With Clinton in the White House, the threat is not to our "national security," but to our moral security. Will the American people stand by while he adds mass murder to the growing list of his crimes?

Call or write your representatives in Congress: tell them you oppose sacrificing Iraqi lives on the altar of Bill Clinton’s ruthless ambition.

Make your voice heard, write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.

Refuse to support Clinton’s immoral and cynical ploy—and let the Republican leadership know that you won’t stand for their sell-out.

Keep informed. Log on to http://www.antiwar.com, the only website that is keeping track of "Operation Sly Fox" with up-to-the-minute news reports and incisive analysis from a conservative-libertarian point of view.

Republicans need new leadership: we need a leadership that understands that the main enemy is in Washington, D.C., not overseas. The Cold War is over, and we won’t be bamboozled anymore.