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Stream of violations to Constitution continues

In the 1960s, an Associated Press reporter wrote that an American officer justified destruction of a Vietnam village and its civilians by saying, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

Five years ago, I wrote an Op-Ed piece calling for Nancy Pelosi to resign as House speaker. A year earlier, even before she was handed the gavel, she rejected impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The piece said, “An impeachment inquiry, even if it failed to lead to the ouster of the two real culprits, would have settled several issues that are going to haunt us now for months, if not years.” It added that impeachment would “re-establish the supremacy of the Constitution and the belief the American system of justice works for everyone.”

Washington insiders knew that once extra power was grabbed, no future president was likely to give it up voluntarily.

The issue then was denial of constitutional rights to Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Today, it is seizure of phone records of AP reporters and just about all Americans.

All this is the result of overreaction to Sept. 11, 2001, which sparked a stream of violations of the Constitution. And now, because no impeachment inquiry was held in 2007, President Barack Obama assumes the tools to continue those violations.

That and the Republican Party’s constant seditious behavior in Congress against the best interests of the country suggest we as a nation have come to believe we have to destroy America to save it.

Howard Fields

Lahaina

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