Letters to the Editor
The Washinton Post
Re: “FDR’s defeat of Lindbergh was lasting—but not permanent,” (Opinion by H.W. Brands, A23, September 18, 2024)
To the Editor:
Contrary to H.W. Brands, the United States struck a Faustian bargain of liberty for empire as early as the Spanish-American war. It featured the occupation of Cuba, the crushing of Filipino aspirations to self-determination, and the acquisition of Puerto Rico, followed by presidential military interventions in Panama, Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Congress became a poodle to President’s professing to assume the “White Man’s Burden” of empire from the British celebrated by Rudyard Kipling.
Even before the balloting in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt had illegally bypassed Congress in striking the bases-for-destroyers deal with Britian and deploying troops to Iceland and Greenland outside the Western Hemisphere. Empires require a Caesar brandishing limitless power. Congress is too slow and transparent. Further, Congress wants no role in foreign policy other than periodic partisan hectoring. I assisted the late Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) in introducing congressional resolutions making unconstitutional presidential wars impeachable offenses. But co-sponsors were as rare as unicorns. Until and unless our political culture renounces empire in favor of liberty as the summum bonum of the nation, urging Congress to exercise is constitutionally enshrined prerogatives over foreign policy is nothing more than a triumph of hope over experiences.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and author of Congressional Surrender and Presidential Overreach
300 New Jersey Ave., NW, Suite 900
Washington, D.C 20001
Phone: 703-963-4968
Email: bruce@feinpoints.com