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?"
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."
To Lincoln, criticizing him or his administration amounted to "warring upon the military." And according to Waller, these words "apply to some lawmakers today."
Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio was forcefully taken from his Dayton, Ohio home in the middle of the night by 67 armed federal soldiers, thrown into a military prison without due process, convicted by a military tribunal, and deported.
While a newspaper editor in Ohio and, later, as a congressman, Vallandigham ridiculed the Whig and Republican Party political agenda of protectionism, corporate welfare for the railroad corporations, and inflationary finance through fiat money.
He and thousands of other Midwesterners were known as "Peace Democrats" who favored working toward a peaceful resolution of the sectional differences that existed. Vallandigham even became known as the "apostle of peace" throughout the Midwest.
Vallandigham was appalled and outraged at Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and his arrest of thousands of Northern political opponents; the trial of civilians by military tribunals even though the civil courts were operating; arbitrary arrests without warrants or charges; military edicts that prohibited criticism of the Lincoln administration; the arrest of all of the editors of opposition newspapers in Ohio; and the mobbing and demolition of opposition newspapers by Republican Party activists or federal soldiers.
Vallandigham’s "act of treason" was to make a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives in which he condemned the Lincoln administration’s "persistent infractions of the Constitution" and its "high-minded usurpations of power."
Such speech was said (by Lincoln) to discourage young Ohio boys from enrolling in the military and, through a Clintonian twist of logic, was therefore treasonous. The Republican Party made a big scene of handing the aged Vallandigham over to Confederate authorities in Tennessee in order to spread the myth that all political dissenters were spies or traitors.
The message was clear: criticize the administration and this could happen to you.
Don’t be surprised to see articles in the near future urging President Bush to be more "Lincolnesque" in his treatment of the war opponents in Congress.
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