Even as the countdown for President Clinton’s announced annihilation of Iraq reaches its final days, the Warmakers are crafting the coffin for subsequent victims of administrative war.
According to a February 4th, Wall Street Journal story, Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey has promised a vote before Easter on HR2431, the ill-named Freedom from Religious Persecution Act. Is there a connection between this Act and the President’s continuation of the Bush Administration’s target practice war on the Iraqi population? Indeed there is, for both are clearly acts of war against Middle Eastern, third world Arab countries, and HR2431 is an open ended Executive Branch license for endless future engagement.
“Washington Meets A Moral Matter That Does Count,” by Gerald Seis of the Wall Street Journal demonstrates the powerful, establishment press support for creation of the Office Of Religious Persecution Monitoring (HR2431). This legislation, designed to establish a new Presidential Office with cabinet-like power to monitor (and to destroy) religion world wide at will, is sponsored by Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Senator Arlan Spector (R-PA.). Referring to the unnamed promotional meeting, author Seis states “at a ‘summit’ meeting in Washington today, conservatives and liberals alike will gather to promote legislation designed to combat this kind of religious persecution. Religious conservatives – The Christian Coalition, The Family Research Council – will be represented. But so will leading liberal evangelicals.” The Journal story discusses the agenda without ever naming the sponsors of the meeting or disclosing where in Washington it was held.*
In its zeal to whitewash the bill, the Wall Street Journal story neglected to mention that the bill would set up an office of Religious Persecution Monitoring (ORPM) reporting directly to the President, and that the new Office would be granted the warmaking powers to create famine at will by embargo. Instead, the Warmaker promoters of HR2431, led by former cabinet level appointee, Bill Bennett, painted the bill in morally red, white and blue shades. It is noteworthy that Steve Forbes, recently announced Republican candidate for president in 2000, has also sworn his allegiance to the passage of HR2431.
Journal writer Seis contrasted the noble effort of the “summit” to the “lewd and seemingly immoral behavior” of President Clinton. The Journal appears to be bent on convincing readers that since Mr. Clinton opposes HR2431, it must be noble. In fact, the President is the prime beneficiary of the bill. The Journal writer ignored the fact that this same “lewd” president was so anxious to secure the passage of HR2431 that on November 5, 1997, he preempted passage of the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act, by declaring sanctions against Sudan under his own hastily called “state of emergency”, borrowing the sanctions from Section 12 of the bill he claims to oppose.
President Clinton invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act to impose “emergency sanctions” against Sudan on November 4. If HR2431 is now passed by Congress, it will legitimize the executive order that the president issued and allow future embargoes and blockades to be turned on and off like a spigot. We Hold These Truths considers the President’s unilateral sanction against Sudan evidence that Sudan is slated by the Warmakers for future military actions.*
Promoters of HR2431, including certain conservative Christian organizations, have repeatedly assured We Hold These Truths that HR2431, while admittedly creating a new Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring with the authority to bring the United Nations into its agenda, will keep the Office small with no affect on Americans. We have been told HR2431 will only monitor foreign countries and governments. However, the United Nations, upon whose charter The Act is based, apparently has missed its cue and arrived on the scene to monitor religions in America even before the bill is passed.
According to the Arizona Republic, February 5, 1998, Special United Nations Envoy Abdelfattah Amor has already interviewed most of the major Indian tribes and “heard testimony about religious persecution of Native Americans in Arizona.” Amor claimed he met with 150 witnesses at the behest of the Indian Treaty Council. Both Arizona Senators McCain and Kyl denied any knowledge of the United Nations monitoring visit. But Latino civil rights spokesman Salvador Reza was quoted as being delighted with the United Nations involvement and said, “the United States should recognize religious rights of native Americans who immigrate to this country.”
The promoters of HR2431 and their conservative Christian allies have also failed to point out that the new law gives the ORPM control over immigration whenever the Office judges that religious persecution is involved. It would appear to We Hold These Truths that the entire “Native American” population of Mexico could be judged a “persecuted religious group” under HR2431 and could be declared eligible for resettlement in the US with a touch of ORPM’s “magic wand.”
On the very eve of the war against Iraq, the American people should examine the shift of power being engineered to the Office of the President. He is implicitly denied such war making authority under the US Constitution, and only the Congress is granted that authority under Article I, Section 8. Sanctions and embargoes have always been recognized as acts of war. Emergency war acts are contra-constitutional by definition, being enacted for the express purpose of suspending individual rights.
CONCLUSIONS
Congress is being pressured to pass HR2431 by internationalist, Warmaker controlled, Non Government Organizations including Hudson Institute and Freedom House.* A host of TV Evangelists and mail-order missionaries have been induced to join in the demand to create a new, powerful Presidential office to monitor religion under the misguided front of protecting Christians worldwide.
Equally ominous, the warmaking authority reserved for the Congress is to be deeded to the Office of the President, who would then have the raw power to make economic war on any country without permission of Congress or without even invoking emergency powers acts as he did in November to punish the people of Sudan. Once created, the Office will, no doubt, be staffed by Warmakers with window dressing, front men furnished by the supportive, conservative, Christian organizations.
Christians should continue to register the gravest concern to Congress and demand a “NO” vote to an Office of Religious Persecution Monitoring (HR2431, S772).