By any means? Congress' irresponsible silence over Iraq war

George W. Bush's demand that Congress grant him war powers against Iraq and Saddam Hussein by using "all means that he determines to be appropriate" recalls Malcolm X's equally bellicose use of the phrase four decades ago, with this one difference: Malcolm was justified in his demand for freedom and equality for blacks. Bush is not justified in his design for a pre-emptive war on Iraq, a war hardly to be fought for freedom or equality.

Should a war be unleashed on Iraq, there won't be too many illusions about the outcome, even if it is favorable. Iraq is not the sort of place where freedom and equality are fought for, because the place is socially and politically too barren to nurture either. "Liberating" Iraq may be the standard operating rhetoric of an administration using all means necessary to its expedient ends. But nothing more elevating than "regime change," to use another standard operating euphemism, is likely to reward an offensive.

The question -- the worry -- should be focused on the Bush administration's rationale behind the resolution it has submitted to Congress. Specifically, Bush's disturbing and open-ended request for "all means appropriate," which opens the way to two possibilities: Considering this administration's rejection of a no-first-use policy, would the United States use weapons of mass destruction in its campaign to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction? And if Iraq is the target, then why expand the resolution to include the restoration of "international peace and security in the region"?

It may all be a matter of cleaning up the wording. Given the administration's tendency to lob bombastic words first and assess the damage later (think "axis of evil" or "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists"), the war resolution fits into a pattern of guerilla rhetoric: Let loose the fighting words, draw in the opposition onto the administration's turf, then compromise on the administration's terms.