The neocon cabal is beginning to make the case for imprisoning — or possibly executing — members of Congress who oppose the war in Iraq. An example of this development is a December 23 Insight magazine article by senior editor J. Michael Waller entitled “When Does Politics Become Treason?” (Insight is an appendage of the Washington Times, the voice of the Washington, D.C. neocon establishment. Just before our May 2002 Independent Institute debate on Lincoln, Straussian neocon high priest Harry Jaffa made it a point to tell me that he is the chairman of the academic advisory committee of the Washington Times, where his colleague MacKubin Thomas Owens had just published an intemperate and apoplectic hatchet job on my book, The Real Lincoln, only a few weeks after all but comparing Jaffa’s latest book on Lincoln to the Bible in the same book review section.)
Naturally, the totalitarian/neocon case for imprisoning or executing the Bush administration’s political opponents is based on precedents established by Abraham Lincoln. “Lincoln’s policy was to have treasonous federal lawmakers arrested and tried before military tribunals, and exiled or hanged if convicted,” Waller announces. He quotes Lincoln as saying that “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs who should be arrested, exiled or hanged.” Lincoln “spoke forcefully of the need to arrest, convict and, if necessary, execute congressmen who by word or deed undermined the war effort.”
Read Full Article: https://thewashingtonstandard.com/the-neocon-case-for-imprisoning-executing-congressional-war-opponents/
