Dissident Frogman magnificently fisks outpourings of several ‘human shields’ about their belated emotional blossoming…
A longish posting but well worth the read, it reminds me of why I support the US and the UK in taking on Saddam and makes the suffering and deaths of American and British soldiers more meaningful, if not less painful.
And what really upsets me is that, consequently and as always, it’s the silent, the weak, the downtrodden, those who stand next to the common graves, waiting for the bullet, those who die slowly, feet first in plastic shredders, screaming in inconceivable pain, those who are forced to watch their wives raped or their children tortured, or those who are “just” condemned to a life in misery and deprivation of their most basic rights who are sacrificed while the anti-war movement is dancing to Samba music in the streets, enjoying a grand day out with elaborated costumes and signs in the comfort of a democratic state that guarantees their right to criticize it without reserve.
Unfortunately, I also have to agree with Dissident Frogman in his last bitter paragprah as there is indeed an unlimited supply of simpletons for many more rounds in Iraq and elsewhere:
The freedom of the Iraqis is closing now, despite the “anti-war” efforts, and Daniel’s emotional blossoming won’t change a thing.
I’m way more concerned with the fact that when this is over and when the coalition of the willing starts to deal with other declared threats, using force or not, I’m pretty sure there will be an Iranian student or a North Korean citizen with nothing but grass to feed on, that will end up hearing “Bush bad, war bad” with an expression of incredulity, just before the “I’m not with the CIA – I just can’t help you” tagline comes out.
And that really upsets me.
So we’re at war until we reach Utopia? The quote says “using force or not”, but all I see is that being empty words, bait and switch, lowballing estimated cost, etc. “Or not” will drop off concerning one country after another, but the War Party will never be honest enough to admit they plan to go to war with every “evil” regime on the planet. They’d lose support if they admitted Iraq was just the camel’s nose under the tent (pun intended), the same way they had to lie about medicare not costing much when it was first proposed, the income tax never going above 10% or so when it was first passed, etc.
Why am I sure that all these cases will be handled by force? What happens when its North Korea’s turn, and Bush limits himself to diplomacy? Either he will be pushed into war by a press and population that’s been trained to panic and think “evil threat, BOMB THEM NOW!!!”, or he will face uncomfortable questions about why bloodshed earlier if these problems can be dealt with w/o a war this time.
OK, War Party, I want a full estimate. Please list every evil country w/ WMDs and exactly how they should be dealt with. No “one problem at a time” ducking the question – I want the full butcher’s bill itemized before we commit to it.
It may be right from a moral perspective to fight Saddam, or to help others around the globe in their struggles for liberty. But this is a decision that, in America, at least, properly belongs to each individual citizen. As individuals, we should be free to send money or other resources to freedom fighters as we choose, or even to go overseas and join their cause, a la the foreign-legion, or as did the American volunteers during the Spanish Civil War. As long as we don’t swear allegiance to a foreign government over the US, or the forces we are supporting or joining are not taking up arms against the US, then what we do with our resources, time, and efforts should be our own concern.
Where it is wrong to fight Saddam, or any other totalitarian regime in the world, is where command resources (military, taxes, government property) are used to do anything beyond the constitutional mandate to defend the US. It is wrong to make the unwilling participate in or pay for the killing of others, except perhaps in their own self-defense. In recognition of this, the Bush administration offered national defense rationalizations for this war, but as far as I have seen, those rationalizations have not held up under even moderately close examination.
In the US, the government exists to secure the rights of the people, not to determine how the people will spend their time or use their resources (as has been historically the case in monarchies, dictatorships, socialist regimes, etc.). There is simply no proper authority to wage first-strike wars to “promote democracy” anywhere in the world. The only similar authority is a very indirect one, by design: Congress can declare war for any reason, but everyone expects any war declaration to come after proper debate and a full vote. Most of Congress (all the House and 1/3 of the Senate) is subject to re-election every two years. Thus, even if Congress were to go collectively insane and declare war on a whim, we would have to bear with any such boneheaded decision for a maximum of two years, at which point we could toss the rascals out and elect a more sensible and responsive set of Representatives.
In any case, the President (pledged to support, protect, and defend the Constitution) accepted and ran with the open-ended war-making “authority” granted by Congress (pledged to support, protect, and defend the Constitution) which, in its form and substance, falls short of the formal Declaration of War that the Constitution requires (last used in WWII).
In short, the President has broken the law of the land, with the complicity — let’s even call it the “blessing” — of Congress.
There is a recent and troubling parallel here: Ed Rosenthal’s medical marijuana conviction in federal court. Rosenthal was a duly appointed officer of the City of Oakland. In an attempt to follow California’s Prop. 215, Rosenthal ran a med-pot “grow-op” (farm) with the complicity — let’s even call it the “blessing” — of the City government. But when Federal prosecutors took him to court, they determined that federal law was superior to state law, so that the City could not properly authorize Rosenthal’s actions, nor insulate him from prosecution. They went even further, disallowing any mention of California law or Rosenthal’s circumstance as local government agent, implementing state law. From the jury’s point of view, Rosental was just some guy breaking the federal drug laws. Under the given parameters, the jury properly found him guilty.
How does that parallel the Iraq war case? Simply, the Constitution, as supreme law of the US, trumps EVERYTHING. It invests the war power with Congress, requiring a formal declaration of war. It makes no provision for transferring the power from the Congress to the executive or the judiciary. It clearly says that any power not specifically granted to the Federal government belongs to the States or people, respectively. So, the Congress, in passing the open-ended resolution last October, was not authorized to tell Bush “go ahead whenever you feel like it,” any more than the City of Oakland was authorized to give Rosenthal a “go” for the “grow op.” Bush was wrong to rely upon the unconstitutional resolution as justifying the Iraq attack, just as Rosenthal was wrong to expect that the city could shield him from federal prosecution. Technically, both men broke the law in plain view. In consequence, Rosenthal faces years in federal prison for the offense of growing a few weeds. And Bush? You can’t do much worse than blatantly violating the Constitution, spending scores or hundreds of American lives and billions of dollars in the process. By rights, the President deserves to be impeached, with no mention allowed during the trial of the congressional resolution that provided the fig leaf for his actions, or the compassion for the Iraqi people that so many here on Samizdata urge us all to embrace. By rights, we also ought to sack the Congress in the next election for aiding and abetting the violation. Of course, neither event seems likely. Yet, cementing the precedent for violating the constitution so egregiously on “humanitarian” grounds means that there will be no recourse when, later, another President and Congress shred the Constitution for motivations that are anything but humanitarian. We’ve already had tastes of that kind of thing in the past thirty or forty years, to be sure. But if the Iraq attack is allowed to stand as precedent, you won’t have seen anything yet. This barn door must be closed now, before the coming tornado rips it clean away.
For the record, if anyone actually attacked the US, or was apprehended while taking actions in support of an attack on the US, I believe that the US constitution is all the law we would need to punish and/or retalliate. The UN can take a flying leap when it comes to any country’s national defense and self-preservation. But “Saddam is a bad guy and he is hurting his own people,” or “Saddam’s palace sits on top of our oil,” or “Saddam threatens our ally Israel (or Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait)” are just not proper justifications for us to make war. If the constitution were indeed being preserved, protected, and defended, our chances of ever going to war for such reasons would be infinitesimally small.
Scott:
“What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? … Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he’ll use the arsenal.”
–Bill Clinton, 1998, U.S. President and Non-War Party member
>>>–Bill Clinton, 1998, U.S. President and Non-War Party member<<< - posted by Tedd McHenry Tedd, don't fool yourself. Clinton went into Yugoslavia after Slobo as easily as he went into Waco after Koresh. He's as much a member of the War Party as anyone (if by war party is meant not a cheap synonym for GOP, but rather the collection of people, regardless of ostensible party affiliation, who, through actions overt and covert, support the war machine and benefit from it). Indeed, Clinton's NATO adventure in the Balkans paved the way for Bush II's Adventure in Iraq, just as the Waco incident paved the way for the PATRIOT Act and DEA terrorizing of medical marijuana farms. It's all of a piece, baby, and the piece is named "Because We Say So." Another writer has called this the "Boot On Your Neck Party," a name which seems more appropriate than "War Party" every day.
Clinton also bombed Iraq to get impeachment off the front page.
I’m still waiting for a full estimate of where we invade and how long we occupy. The Jackboot War Jockeys don’t seem to want to think their plan thru.
Who do we invade? How many soldiers occupy Iraq while we go after Syria? How many soldiers occupy Iraq and Syria while we go after Iran? What’s your plan if NK or Iran decides not to wait for an invasion and tries something (together or separately) while we’re busy elsewhere? What resources will you leave in reserve if China acts up while we occupy the Mid East and fight NK?
At what point would you give up supporting the war? If they decide to invade Iran? If they decide to free Venezuela, Cuba, and Columbia?
“Jackboot War Jockeys” may have been a bit rough – I understand the Samizdatists don’t totally support the domestic side of the War on Terror (like the Patriot Act).
I do think that if its OK to kill some innocent Iraqi civilians (yes, the military is making every reasonable effort to avoid killing civilians) for their own good, why can’t our governments arrest and detain a few possibly innocent US and/or UK civilians for our own good? Why can’t they spy on civilians for our own good?
Scott. you say the Congress has broken the ‘law of the land’ by authorizing the President to wage war. How is that the case? They authorized war. Are you saying they exceeded their authority?
For the rest of you folks, all of your objections can be summarized as follows:
“Unless you can predict in advance how things will go, you have no right or authority to proceed.”
This is wrong on many levels. On an economic basis, no business could ever proceed or succeed, unless they had their own personal seer, who could predict with certainty the outcome of any particular venture.
That has never been the case, and it never will.
The Bush team is proceeding on a view of the world radically different from the previous administration. They have to, because 9/11 has shown us that ignoring ‘little rag-tag groups’ overseas can have serious consequences here at home.
No we cannot predict what the consequences of war wil be — no one can. Postulating this as a precondition exposes your agenda out front — no war is ever justified.
However, the reasons for war are unambiguous: Saddam will no longer fund Palestinian suicide bombers; he will no longer fund Hizbollah; he will no longer be seeking nuclear weapons.
Do we know for a certainty what the side effects of removing Saddam will be? No, we do not. But we DO know what the immediate results will be.
I feel the decision to go to war is correct: my only reservation is that we have sent too small a force.
As for the future: bring it on. It has been improved for the reasons detailed above. The supposed “horrible consequences” cannot be any worse than the current “status quo”.
James made the comment about Congress having to declare war, not me.
Does the War Party have any desire to invade other countries after Iraq? Am I allowed to even ask? When they invade, don’t they plan for the number of soldiers it will take? Do we have no idea how many we will leave in Iraq to keep the place quiet?
You cannot support a war on the grounds of what will happen if we don’t fight it, then say there’s no way to predict the future when I ask the cost of the war. If you cannot predict the war, then you cannot predict the peace and your entire justification for the war falls apart.
Smilink apparently agrees with many federal officials, in believing that the resolution passed last October — now known as Public Law 107-243 — satisfies the constitutional requirement for declaring war. But there is a big difference, and Smilink should read the constitution, Article I, Section 8, to begin to appreciate that difference. Congress has a few separate powers mentioned there: to repel invasion and quell insurrection, to authorize the apprehension and punishment of pirates, and to declare war (war being commonly understood, in the 1700s as now, as a specific hostile relationship between two soverign countries). NONE of the warlike military operations undertaken by the US since WWII, including this one, were authorized by a declaration of war. A great many of those operations have been “authorized” by resolutions that stretch the meaning of congress’ other warlike powers to the breaking point, usually in connection with some kind of mutual defense treaty obligation.
A real declaration of war says, at a minimum, that a state of war exists between the US and some nation, and that the President is authorized to use resources, military and otherwise, to bring the war to a successful conclusion. As an example, here is the text of the declaration of War against Japan, Dec 8, 1941:
“Whereas the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United states of America:
“Therefore be it
“Resolved, etc., That the state of war between the United states and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United states.”
That’s it. Short, clear, to the point. Public Law 107-243 (see the congressional law website), on the other hand, goes on for pages, talking about UN requirements, the “continuing threat” of Iraq, etc., but — and THIS IS CRUCIAL — never actually establishing a state of war between the US and Iraq.
The Afghanistan invasion could, after a stretch, be justified as pursuing and punishing pirates who had attacked US citizens and property in US controlled territory; the same could be said of the embassy bombings, the attack on the Cole, etc., and any congressional authorizations of retaliatory force in those cases. The 911 attacks certainly constituted an “invasion,” which congress is specifically authorized to repel and punish.
On the other hand, a full-blown WAR between the US and the recognized (albeit despicable) government of Iraq — especially a first-strike, “preventive” war — must be declared. I can’t see any alternative, and I challenge Smilink to draw (and reasonably defend) any other conclusion from reading the Constitution. There is no provision in the Constitution for Congress to authorize arbitrary military campaigns. For the most part, the Congress can only deal with pirates, war, defense against invasion, or suppression of rebellion. Public Law 107-243, which alleges to “authorize military force,” is simply unconstitutional, illegal under the HIGHEST LAW in the US. The officials in Washington who want the War, or who at least don’t want to rock the boat, can’t be bothered to defend the constitutionality of their actions. I’ve seen them dodge the question in open fora on network TV (e.g., Sen. John McCain in a recent ABC “Town Meeting” forum), as if it weren’t a legitimate or intelligent question to ask! Other officials, like Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who HAVE read the constitution, who can put two and two together, and who have some measure of intellectual and moral honesty, realize and freely admit that the congress hasn’t done its duty, and has abdicated a non-transferrable power to the President.
The way the war thing is supposed to work, under the constitution: the congress engages in a full debate (or, at least, as full a debate as seems reasonable, given the urgency of the circumstances), paying close attention to public opinion and sentiment, and keeping their constituents informed (to the extent that is possible) throughout. The question at hand isn’t whether to fight a particular battle or achieve a given strategic or policy objective, but whether or not a state of war reasonably exists between the US and some other nation. If it does, the entire Congress votes. If Congress declares war, the President is authorized (usually in the declaration explicitly, as well as implicitly via the President’s constitutional responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief) to command all resources necessary to win. Declaring war is not just authorizing military force. It’s dedicating the country to a cause, temporarily suspending normal life and business to struggle in that cause. Putting the country into a formal state of war is perhaps the most serious and life-altering thing that the Congress can do, and that is one of the reasons that the Constitution was deliberately written to make it difficult.
Smilink, didn’t they teach you this in Civics Class in the 8th grade or high school? I am no fan of government run, tax-funded public schools, but they were certainly good enough to teach me this kind of thing back in the 60s and 70s. What happened since then, I wonder? I apologize for going on about this topic, but it seems clear that Smilink (not to mention a dismaying number of others) did not receive the same education about our history and institutions as I did — and mine was considered MODEST by academic standards.
As a final note, don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because congress or the President did something in the past and got away with it, that it was the right or proper thing to do, and should be automatically accepted as a precedent or template for future action. Sometimes, officially establishing the unconstitutionality (hence, illegality) of some action takes years, or even decades. The longer it takes, the more the government can go off the rails set down for it by the constitution, and the harder to ultimately set things right. I think that anyone who claims to be a loyal citizen of the US has a moral obligation to recognize, point out, and demand the correction of any such derailments as early (and often) as possible. The government isn’t going to toe the constitutional line on its own, because it is filled with people who have their own axes to grind, and agenda to pursue, and who will connive and collude to slip the “chains of the constitution” at every opportunity. We’ve seen this, over and over, for centuries. The people have to step up as umpires and referees, at least to call “foul.” But first, they have to read and understand the rulebook.