[Salon] A Tribute to the Last Congressional Lion: Congressmen Walter B. Jones -

A Tribute to the Last Congressional Lion: Congressmen Walter B. Jones By Bruce Fein* I knew the late Congressman Walter B. Jones (R-NC). He passed in February 2019 while serving his twelfth term in Congress. He was a friend of mine. We labored for years to arrest our extraconstitutional warfare state fueled by the bloated multi-trillion-dollar military-industrial-security complex against which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned. Walter was the last congressional lion, fearless and selfless in doing the right thing. Juvenile, slanderous push back from leadership and defense contractors did not daunt him. Indeed, Walter was a profile in courage surpassing the glittering roster celebrated in President John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize Winning Profiles in Courage (with the fingerprints of Theodore Sorenson). A tribute to Walter is timely. Like Cassandra, the Congressman foresaw the calamities of Congress extra-constitutionally surrendering the war power to the Presidency with its irresistible temptations to fabricate excuses to abandon peace to exercise unchecked executive authority. Among other things, he unswervingly opposed the executive branch’s indiscriminate, warrantless surveillance of the “not-yet-guilty,” and the President playing prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to kill any person on the planet based on secret, unsubstantiated speculation that the target might become a national security threat. And as elaborated anon, Walter pioneered a House Resolution in 2018 (H.Res.922), that would have declared presidential wars (which mushroomed beginning with Korea in 1950) impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors under Article 2, section 4 of the Constitution. Walter blossomed after the administration of President George W. Bush, featuring megaphone Vice President Dick Cheney, flagrantly lied to him about Iraq’s alleged WMD and nexus to 9/11 to dupe him into voting for the 2002 AUMF unconstitutionally delegating to the President the authority to initiate war against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The stupendous lies were Walter’s “Paul on the road to Damascus” moment. The curtain was raised on the stupendous deceit and constitutional lawlessness of the executive branch calculated to transform the nation into a permanent warfare-surveillance state earmarked by the crucifixion of liberty and justice on a national security cross. Walter saw in plain view Ceasars masquerading as presidents in the White House. Silence or submission was not an option for Walter. He stood virtually alone like Horatius at the Bridge after 2005 in opposition to pointless, illegal, unconstitutional presidential wars. He signed his own political death warrant. On June 16, 2005, Walter co-sponsored a resolution with Congressmen Neil Abercrombie (D-Hi), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), and Ron Paul (R-TX) urging withdrawal of United States troops in Iraq beginning by October 2006. More than eighteen (18) years later and expenditures exceeding $1 trillion, United States troops remain in Iraq defending a nation that has become a satellite of archenemy Iran, stupid diplomacy at its worst. Walter placed pictures on the wall outside his Raburn offices of photos of soldiers from his district who had died to satisfy the insatiable lust for war of the executive branch to aggrandize power. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demanded the photos be removed. Walter stood firm on his First Amendment right to valorize those who had given that last full measure of devotion to their country at the bidding of the President with funding from Congress. The Speaker blinked In 2007, Walter teamed with Congressman William Delahunt (D-MA) to introduce the Constitutional War Powers Resolution. It aimed to “prohibit the president from ordering military action without congressional approval, except when the United States or U.S. troops were attacked or when U.S. citizens needed to be evacuated.” On January 12, 2007, Walter also introduced H.J. Res. 14, “Concerning the use of military force by the United States.” It stipulated that absent a national emergency created by an actual attack or demonstrable imminent attack by Iran upon the United States or its armed forces, the President must both consult with Congress and obtain specific statutory authorization before initiating use of military force against Iran. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi removed the resolution from a military spending bill for the war in Iraq on March 13, 2007 On March 23, 2007, Walter was one of two Republicans to vote for legislation to require President Bush to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by September 1, 2008. The President, however, wields the veto power over legislation. Walter discerned that impeachment, trial, and removal from office involves the legislative branch alone with no interference from the White House or the United States Supreme Court. It is the only politically viable safeguard against ruinous presidential wars. Moreover, presidential wars unconstitutionally usurp the supreme prerogative of Congress to decide whether to abandon peace for war. It might be expected that institutional pride would provoke Congress to shut down presidential wars by impeaching and removing offenders, of which there have been many in modern times. (President Harry Truman in Korea; President John F. Kennedy in Laos; President Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam; President Richard Nixon in Vietnam and Cambodia; President Geroge H.W. Bush in Kuwait; President Bill Clinton in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia; President George W, Bush in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia; President Barack Obama in Libya, Syria, and Yemen; President Donald Trump’s continuing presidential wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen; and President Joe Biden in Ukraine, Gaza, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen). Walter introduced H. Res. 922 on June 6, 2018. The resolution first assembled overwhelming and definitive proof that the Constitution’s authors intended to entrust to Congress alone the power to cross the Rubican from a state of peace to war. President George Washington, for instance, who presided over the constitutional convention, explained, “The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore, no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated on the subject and authorized such a measure.” No dissent was heard. The resolution next defined as impeachable offenses the initiation of war against state or non-state actors by presidents without prior congressional declarations of war, leaving the President with authority to respond in self-defense to sudden attacks against the United States that had already broken the peace. War was also defined to include co-belligerency, i.e., the systematic supply of military assistance to a belligerent that exposes the United States to attack under international law. Walter recognized that returning the war power to Congress by impeaching and removing presidential offenders was not an academic exercise. Indeed, it was the path to peace except for wars in self-defense. In 235 years, Congress has declared war in only five (5) conflicts: the War of 1812; the Mexican American War; the Spanish American War; World War I, and World War II. In each case, Congress found that a foreign aggressor had broken the peace. Congress thus declared that the nation was at war and that the President, as commander in chief, should respond accordingly. Congressional resistance to initiating war is institutional, as James Madison, farther of the Constitution, anticipated. During wartime, unchecked power crowns the President and Congress shrinks like Alice in Alice in Wonderland. Mr. Madison elaborated: “War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace." In 2013, even Senate super hawks Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), balked at President Barak Obama’s request for a declaration of war against Syria over President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. Walter encountered political headwinds for his courage. He was denied chairmanships of subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee. He was denied funds for international travel. He incurred the wrath of the multi-trillion-dollar military-industrial-security complex, which tirelessly sought primary challengers against him without result. Walter and I explored impeaching House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan for frustrating his responsibility for voting on war and peace in lieu of handing the ball to the President and scampering away like a watchdog that retreats to its kennel when danger appears. Walter was the last best hope in Congress to arrest the epidemic of ruinous, extraconstitutional, presidential wars that is leading the collapse of the American. Empire Since his passing five (5) years ago, extraconstitutional presidential wars have accelerated with Congress cheerleading its self-diminishment to a White House poodle. When Walter passed, he joined Mr. Madison as a bright ornament in heaven in the cause of peace—the deliverance of our species. *Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and is author of American Empire Before The Fall and Congressional Surrender and Presidential Overreach