During President Obama’s first term, I represented members of Congress in challenging Obama’s unilateral intervention into the Libyan civil war without authorization of Congress. Our case was dismissed on standing grounds and, once again, an undeclared act of war went by without any opportunity of judicial review. Now, Obama is reportedly debating whether to intervene in yet another civil war — undeterred by the now superfluous constitutional limits on his war-making authority. Israel has also publicly stated that it is considering a preemptive strike on Syria and reserves the right to make such an attack if it feels threatened by events in that civil war. [Update: I discussed this issue as part of my column on the imperial presidency this morning on C-Span]
President Barack Obama said he has been struggling with the decision whether to enter into another war as the 22-month civil war in Syria drags on. Here is what he considers to be the operative question:
“In a situation like Syria, I have to ask: can we make a difference in that situation?”
That is a bit different from the question that the Framers wanted him to ask: “Do I have authority from Congress to engage in a war?” That question is now just a quaint concern for a president who has acquired unprecedented unchecked powers. Once again, the Democrats are silent because it is Obama not Bush who is speaking of war. It is the type of hypocrisy that is not just laughable. It is lethal.
You will notice however that, during all of this public discussion of whether Obama will intervene in yet another war, there is not a peep of protest from Congress that it is supposed to have the final say on whether we go to war. Democrats again, even on war powers, are conspicuously silent — preferring to support Obama as a person than the Constitution on principle.
Of course, now that war is a unilateral power, we will not have an opportunity to debate our participation in yet another war. There will be no debate over the continued loss of American lives in foreign wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. There will be no debate over our continued spending billions on wars that we desperately need to support basic social programs at home. This is precisely why the Framers wanted to force public votes. While polls show the American people have long opposed our continued expenditure of lives and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama and Congress have continued our involvement. Indeed, our slow withdrawal is due not to our leaders seeking to draw down but increasingly hostile relationships with our “allies” who want us out of their respective countries. The disconnect with the American public is alarming. We have taken a balanced and well-reasoned system and turned it on its head. The result is precisely what the Framers anticipated: continued foreign wars carried out on a unilateral basis.
Source: Yahoo
A major theme or topic which we must address is this Exceptionalism which many Americans firmly believe in. The notion that we know better, that we should police the world, that we are better than the rest of the world, is a terrible situation. It is a fact that there are hundreds of geographic areas of the world which aspire to being nation states with all the attributes of the rule of law. There are many defeective geographical areas. I say geographical areas or territories because many such places do not qualify as civiilzed nation states operating under a rule of law together with the ability to effectuate a rule of law.
I refer to Pirate Territories in my comments. I am sure that many of you role your eyes and mutter that some dog is talking nonsense. I ask you to take a hard look at Yemen. Here is a place where a small sailboat or a large ocean going cargo ship is in peril of being boarded and killed or kidnapped and property stolen or ransomed. Ships are pirated and taken to ports and then ransomed off from dry land. Idiots from insurance companies and cargo firms pay ransoms. The Yemen example is the most extreme.
But go to Libya. It might have been more intact and less unruly under a dictator. Arab spring comes and gets rid of the dictator. But when a mob attacks our Embassy and there is no civil authority or Libyan troops to protect a foreign embassy then one must accept that Libya is closer to Yemen than it is to Greece. In Algeria, the terrorists were not just political terrorists. They wanted to ransom off those captives. Some countries and members of the press were critical when Algeria went in and refused to talk to the schmucks and finally wiped them out. Is it better to pay ransom? Is it sensible to talk with these pirates or terrorists?
Couple this with the fact that the United Nations is rather impotent. Many of the member states are as lame as Yemen or Mali. The UN cannot get together an international force to clean pirates off the oceans or off the streets of ports in Yemen. The French have taken up some slack here and invaded Mali. Are they being Exceptionalist? I think not.
The world needs a large international military force to wipe out pirates whether they are on land or sea and to go after terrorists whether they call themselves al qaeda or the pirates of Timbuktu. We dont have such a force now. It is not going to emerge from the UN. NATO is lame. The USA should not be the worlds’ police.
The next quasi pirate territory which is on the screen is Iran. They are building an atomic weapon. Many of you folks probably think that this will just come to pass and no one needs to stop them. This is shades of Joseph Kennedy when he was Ambassador to Great Britain and held Chamberland’s umbrella. Today’s Hitler is multi faceted and is multi tasking.
If you start at Corfu and go East on the globe you will walk your fingers across many territories that are pirate and terrorist. If any of you have travelled through some of those territories you will agree with me that they are not up to speed when it comes to policing their own people or keeping their borders secure from the terrorists next door. You can smirk when I rail about the pirate territories. I am only joking when I refer to Indiana as a pirate territory. When Iran gets the nuclear bomb it might follow that one bomb will get loose to some al qaeda tribe and some city will get wiped off the face of the Earth. Iran will say it was not me and North Korea will say the same. Pakistan will be suspect and maybe China and maybe India. This reality is coming to a theatre near you.
My hope is that America gets off of its Exceptional high horse with the drone thing but at the same time some of the nation states of the world will step up to the plate and take on the terrorists and pirates. An international armed force should be going after the pirates in Algeria, Mali, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other territories on both land and sea. These religious tentheads are dangerous and it is just plain dumb to think of some place like Libya to be even safe enought to have an Embassy, much less be able to protect an Embassy there.
Nuff said.
O.S.-
Excellent clip. I like one thing President Obama is doing. He is destroying, day by day, the shabby “lesser of two evils” excuse to vote for one or the other of the two dying establishment political parties. In 2016 we may well be subjected to a contest between Clinton II (Hillary) vs. Bush III (Jeb or one of George H.W.’s grandchildren). There were better choices in 2012 and there will be better choices in 2016. If we ever want our civil liberties restored, we have to have the courage to walk away from the festering corpses of the Republican and Democratic parties. It won’t be fast and it won’t be easy- the game is rigged and the pigs at the trough won’t move over without a squeal.
It won’t be my generation that does the heavy work- we are too comfortable in our retirement. But all bets are off for any Dem. or Rep. in Congress or the White House who tries to cut Social Security or Medicare. We aren’t too old to haul our wrinkled asses to Washington, D.C. in large numbers to express our opinions!
The change will come when the 20, 30, 40, and 50 year olds realize that their lives are going to be much worse and much less free than their parents’ and grandparents’ lives. Then, if they still have American blood in their veins, they will collectively say, “Hell, No!”
alright, Blouise is with us
cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, eh
JT: I am watching the CSPAN show with the rest of the dogpac. Very good. It would be good for the blog to explore this American Exceptionalism– particularly our grand role in the Nuremburg trials along with the Soviets, Brits and French where we established international law. Law that if applied to American conduct now would put our soldiers, judges, presidents, and leglislatures in the Dock.
JT we need to learn more about the geriatric inmate program.
If you are awake at midnight plus 14 you can see the CSPAN interview with Jonathan turley right now. Go there or be square. This is good.
Well now … Nova Scotia did eventually side with Britain during the Revolutionary War and number of Nova Scotian privateers were outfitted to attack American shipping. And after the war, British troops did help evacuate approximately 30,000 American Tories to Nova Scotia where they received land grants from the Crown as compensation for their losses.
Soooo … come 2014 … maybe …
OS, my brother is married to a woman whos father & his family was placed in the internment camps. They lost a nice house and a great business in San Francisco. Came out of the camp penniless.
He did receive some sort of reparations from the government in the 1980’s. Obviously not enough. His parents were long dead by the time this happened.
God’s Will: Academi and Mercs at State
by Peter Van Buren
June 14, 2012
http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2012/06/14/gods-will-academi-and-mercs-at-state/
“I wrote recently about the return of Blackwater to the State Department, with the mercenary guns-for-hire company changing its name once again (now called Academi in a homage to bad spelling) and buying an existing contract to put it back into the State Department’s world.
It gets creepier, as government seems to get these days.
Slam Dunk on Inman
Academi now boasts two celebrities on its Board of Directors, former attorney general John Ashcroft and retired admiral Bobby Inman. Ashcroft of course is Mr. Homeland Security, the guy who set in motion the smorgasbord of unconstitutional wiretapping, spying and detentions without trial that followed 9/11. He is also the guy who was so offended by the marble statues at the Department of Justice that he had them draped to hide classical nude details.
From a State Department-Blackwater love fest perspective, Inman is a slam-dunk. Inside Foggy Bottom, Inman is permanently associated with the up-armoring of embassies abroad through the 1985 “Inman Report,” a call to arms that resulted in the moated, blast-proof, unapproachable fortress embassies America promotes its image through today. The Report was also the catalyst for the establishment of the part of the State Department which titularly oversees the deployment of mercenaries, everyone’s favorite Bureau of Diplomatic Security, DS. Inman’s word is gospel to DS, so his appearance on the Academi Board is no accident.
Small World
Keeping the circle of life theme going, Academi’s CEO Ted Wright used to be president of mega-contractor KBR, the firm Dick Cheney worked for and the firm that made billions running the backstage logistics portion of the Iraq and Afghan crusades. One of Academi’s VPs worked for Queen Noor of Jordan, and has ties to the Bush dynasty. It is indeed a small world.
More creepiness?
Academi, on its “pro shop” web site, sells God’s Will T-shirts, pictured above. Just the thing for the budding merc crusader to wear while gunning down Muslims for profit. Jeez, and people wonder why we’re not winning.
A Devil’s Bargain
In the days since 9/11, State has undergone a fundamental shift, one that has required the organization to make a Devils’ Bargain with mercenaries like Academi. Prior to 9/11, State’s policy was generally to evacuate embassies in countries at war, reinserting diplomats when things quieted down to the point that diplomacy was again possible. This strategy worked well for some 220 years of American history.
After 9/11, State felt compelled to out-macho the military, to prove its manliness in the testosterone-fueled Bush (and now Obama) years. This meant opening and/or keeping open embassies in the midst of shooting wars, originally just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now spread alongside America’s increasingly one-tune foreign policy of belligerence to places like South Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere in drone land. The US military, already stretched thin by endless war, has neither the forces nor the interest in guarding State’s pasty pseudo warriors, and so the Department of State is forced to turn to private armies, like Academi, mercenaries, to enable its macho posture abroad.
I saw groups like Blackwater in action in Iraq, often alongside our own military. The mercs were what our military would be like without the NCO corps to enforce discipline, a frat house with guns, lots of guns. While State makes wordplay out of claiming to supervise its mercs, overpaid, ‘roided ‘dudes with guns named Smitty, J-Dub, Spider and the like take little notice when requested to follow the laws of war in protecting diplomats so far out of their environments. It is a situation that isn’t just likely to go wrong, it is one that practically demands to devolve into crisis.
The solution is straightforward. State should understand and admit that it is neither equipped, trained nor needed for combat situations. State should take a step back from adventures that assure its role as negotiators, diplomats, public diplomacists and the like will be misunderstood at best, and refocus its resources away from spending billions on private armies. Until then, State is forced into bed with creepy organizations like Academi, and will suffer for it.”
http://www.academiproshop.com/Gods-Will-T-P1400.aspx
Pete,
As long as there is a prison-industrial complex, there is no motive whatsoever to reform drug laws or truly decrease crime. I have seen how the prison system is abused by the private sector. It should be illegal for a private company to perform the duties of the state. What is next; private prison owners operating death rows and the execution chamber?
And don’t even get me started on the US using mercenary armies such as Blackwater or Xe, or whatever they are calling themselves this month.
Assange on the build-up to a war with Iran:
OS
forty years ago nixon declared a “war on drugs”. today aprox. fifty percent of the prison pop. are there for drug related crimes.
wonder what the prison pop. will look like in 2040
Satan is the creator of jails. Medicine is a drug that is made to sound good to us. Good chiropractic practitioners on upcspine and upper cervical health centers is down played made to sound bad to people by the medical industry never no not ever teaching people about it never helping people to see the bad kind that uses cavitation. The medical industry is lying to people.
rafflaw, That is true. They say he is “stuck”. I can understand that.
Obama is seemingly stuck because he is resisting the promptings of the devil to go to war.
Swarthmore,
What else is new? He can’t win for losing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/consequences-of-us-inaction-in-syria-are-clear/2013/01/28/a03dad0e-6978-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3_story.html On the other hand, the Washington Post criticizes Obama for not taking action.
OS, indeed.
Some of the fishermen around us use harpoons, some electric, to catch tuna. But technically I don’t think those are considered WMD. I’ll have to check with the Israeli consulate though. Or maybe my Congressman would know; he’s all about weapons
. Oh well, I tried.
It’s not aboot “nice peaceable folks”. It’s not aboot “big brown eyes”. It’s aboot Weapons of Mass Destruction. And cars with square tires. And Scott- he’s a dick.
Here is some food for thought. Watch all the way through to the end…past the credits.
Excuse me Pete9999 and HenMan. I spend Summers in NS! And beside, they’re very nice peaceable folks. Leave them aloooone.