Did Senator Tom Cotton Just Commit Treason…Again?

[Jack Rabbit]

19. No, this is not treason

It would delight me to say that Cotton is guilty of treason, but I disagree with Mr. Cousins.

That's certainly isn't because I approve of Senator Cotton's maneuvers. They are harmful to the cause of stability in the Middle East and peace on earth, but they don't constitute an "insurrection against the authority of the United States."

To say that Senator Cotton is engaged in an insurrection against the authority of the United States would be to concede that the relationship between the United States and various nations in the Middle East, including Israel, is one of an empire to conquered territory. There are people at DU, including your most humble hare, who would argue that that is, in fact, the case, but neither President Obama nor Senator Cotton would ever say such a thing, at least not in public. Even the usurper who preceded President Obama in the White House explicitly denied it in an Oval Office interview with NBC's Matt Lauer after the invasion of Iraq when he said, with no hint or irony, "We don't do imperialism."

Consequently, the US government cannot charge Senator Cotton with insurrection against the authority of the United States if that authority is imperial when the officers and policy makers in that government claim that the US is not an imperial power. Whether it is, in fact, an imperial power is beside the point.

Also, Mr. Cousins asserts that by sending a letter to Iran's leaders last Spring, Senator Cotton and all who signed it were in rebellion against the authority of President Obama. While the Senate Republicans way of going about it was extremely clumsy and underhanded, the Senate is part of a co-equal branch of government and has every right to express an opinion and legislatively influence foreign policy. It would have been better, of course, if they had taken up the matter by sending a letter to the President rather than to Iranian leaders and had asked the President to address to Congress about the problem rather than the Prime Minister of Israel. But treason? Not quite.