We previously discussed the curious step of President Obama seeking approval for a new war while insisting that he does not need such authorization to attack Syria. Now, Secretary of State John Kerry has referred to a one week period for Syria to comply with U.S. demands or presumably face an attack. It so happens that the Senate is set to vote this week, but opposition in this country is extremely high to yet another military intervention by the Administration. Moreover, unsuccessful in his earlier pitch for a free war, Kerry is now trying to sell the world on an “unbelievably small” military campaign. The U.S. seems to be saying that President Obama just needs the world to let him attack briefly to show that he cannot be dismissed or mocked in his earlier red line announcement. However, Kerry suggested a new red line in turning over control of the weapons and Russia has now announced that it will ask Syria to put chemical weapons under international control. That would undermine further the U.S. rationale for war if Russia says that it is moving to comply with Kerry’s demand. However, State Department handlers are trying to again walk back from the Secretary’s public statements.
Kerry was speaking on Monday alongside his British counterpart, William Hague, when he set a new red line for war. He said “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week – turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it) but he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done.”
As has become a common scene with Kerry, a team of State Department officials quickly rushed in to clean up after his latest slip. The Department insisted that the reference to a week was merely “rhetorical,” though the Administration continues to insist that Obama could simply ignore a negative vote in Congress.
I previously represented members of Congress in challenging Obama’s intervention in the Libyan civil war without a declaration from Congress. In the case, President Obama insisted that he alone determines what is a war and therefore when he needs a declaration. Since the court would not recognize standing to challenge the war, it left Obama free to engage in war operations in any country of his choosing.
While Kerry conveyed a week deadline and did not indicate any restriction on unilateral U.S. action, the State Department asked people to ignore his precise words and just take the statement as an attempt to show that Assad has “a history of playing fast and loose with the facts.” Of course, as opposed to those how play fast and loose with words.
I particularly liked the comment for Hague when asked about the decision of Parliament not to allow Britain to enter another American-led war. Hague responded that “[t]hese are the two greatest homes of democracy and we work in slightly different ways and we each have to respect how each other’s democracies work.” Yes, the difference appears that the British government respects the need for a legislative consent for war while the United States now has an unabashed Imperial Presidency.
Source: Guardian
randy rooster accepts rapidly rotating rationales by the U.S. government as fact. Not smart. A home-schooled planaria worm wouldn’t fall for such slippery-slope sloganeering.
randy rooster “argues” by begging the question at issue: namely, should the United States government wage war on another country when the people of the United States overwhelmingly make it known that they wish no such thing? The U.S. government continues to argue the relative merits of “limited” military tactics and the self-serving abhorrence of some weapons rather than others, while failing to acknowledge that the people of the United States simply do not want another war in the Middle East, no matter who did what to whom, with whatever weapon, when, where, and why. The American people have heard so many lies by so many administrations over so many decades that Americans have stopped listening to lies. Americans just don’t think we can change anything for the better by killing more Syrians ourselves. That doesn’t mean that we don’t value human life. It means that we do. “Killing for life” just doesn’t sell as the national slogan anymore.
randy rooster does not understand this fundamental principle of democracy: namely, that government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” would do what the people want, not what the people don’t want. A government of, by, and for the Corporate Oligarchy, on the other hand, wouldn’t give a shit what the people want. We will soon find out which of these forms of government runs things in the United States.
randy rooster continues to flog flawed figures of speech such as “turning a blind eye” when, in fact, they United States government has no other kind of eye and presumably must turn them in one direction or another — as long as it doesn’t turn them inward where the real problems lie.
randy rooster continues to babble on about Vietnam straightening out Cambodia after the U.S. had destroyed that unfortunate peasant country. This example, he argues by analogy, leads randy rooster to conclude that the U.S. should participate (further than it already has) in the destruction of Syria so that one of Syria’s neighbors can straighten out the hellish chaos created by the U.S. once the U.S. turns away (in defeat and indifference), training its bloody blind eyes on Iran next.
randy rooster has a more than a few dialectical screws loose.
John Kerry and William Hague are unbelievably small fractions of human beings.
Earlier today on MSNBC an administration person posed a question, roughly, ‘why would rebels gas themselves to gain tactical advantage’ implying that only Assad would have launched a CW attack.
That spokesperson is not stupid. But he must assume we are.
We do not know that the rebels launched a CW attack on their own neighborhoods. But it they did, it would be for the strategic advantage of having the US take out Assad, not some hypothetical tactical advantage.
At approximately 16:33 CST 090913 Gen Clark was on MSMBC explaining that an attack (presumably launching cruse missiles toward a foreign country) comes under the war powers act but is not an act of war.
Of course what they are trying to say is that they do not intend to get involved in more than limited attacks that last only a few days or weeks – not a general war.
But to claim that such an attack is not exactly and precisely an act of war is… well incredible.
If the administration is not ready to talk directly and accurately about what they propose, why should we believe their analysis and justification.
We don’t know exactly what happened in the recent CW attacks. But in this case, we sometimes do have enough to tell when the administration is misleading, omitting or out right lying.
Good policies frequently speak for them selves in the sense that the policy itself is persuasive.
Policies that require lying frequently do not deserve our support what ever the subject, what ever the purpose.
I might buy into intervention under certain circumstances. But the more we hear the administration try to justify its course of action the more we are left with two questions.
Why would anyone trust the judgment of this administration?
Why would anyone believe this administration?
BFM So now that we KNOW Syria has chemical weapons as stated by Assad, and we know that the city that was hit was under control by the rebels for over a year, I guess that most people can figure out who did what to who. As I said, if it had been a couple of score of people who were killed by poison gas, I could grant that it might have been the rebels, but given the numbers it is very unlikely. Indeed Assad makes the claim that the rebels used gas on his troops with a few wounded, but NO evidence whatsoever. So your contention is that we grant a proven liar more credibility than Obama in this case. It is theoretically possible, but I find it quite unlikely. So why should we doubt Obama on the intel?
Indeed if Obama were hell bent for WAR, he would not have given in on this point to have the chemical weapons taken out. It is even more revealing since Obama had earlier asked for this point to forestall an attack which Syria and the Russians had turned down. Hell the Syrians even denied that they had any chemical weapons, much less used. So guess who is the liar here?
Hmmm. Well, I guess size does matter after all.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Reblogged this on veritasusa and commented:
All hail our great imperial leader!
randyjet 1, September 9, 2013 at 5:13 pm
Even better we turn a blind eye when they commit genocide against each other. They aren’t real humans anyway and if they kill each other off, so much the better. That is one reason the GOPers are against Obama’s military action. They would also be against his action anywhere no matter what, unless it is for their pet dictators.
The US was against the Vietnamese invading Cambodia to save those folk from Pol Pot and the US and the UN thought he was great since he killed over one million of his own people.
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Disingenuous.
The U.S. engendered and empowered Pol Pot as they weakened Cambodia with war crime bombing, land mines, chemical warfare, and boots-on-the-ground atrocities.
Are you part of The Spiritual Industrial Complex randyjet?
Blouise, Carlin had a great bit about “We sure love to bomb the shit out of brown people!”
Even better we turn a blind eye when they commit genocide against each other. They aren’t real humans anyway and if they kill each other off, so much the better. That is one reason the GOPers are against Obama’s military action. They would also be against his action anywhere no matter what, unless it is for their pet dictators.
The US was against the Vietnamese invading Cambodia to save those folk from Pol Pot and the US and the UN thought he was great since he killed over one million of his own people.
The “unbelievably small” comment was a Freudian slip.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/7-reasons-why-the-public-is-right-to-mistrust-obama-on-syria/279454/
The public lacks basic confidence in Washington’s foreign-policy judgment, and that skepticism is justified. Let us consider just some of the reasons that is so:
1. Team Obama acknowledged that the Iraq catastrophe is part of why Americans are wary of another war, and promised Syria isn’t going to be the same. It’s as if they don’t understand why Iraq makes people wary. What Iraq taught Americans — what Vietnam taught before that — is that Washington foreign-policy planners cannot accurately say beforehand just how long a war will last, how much it will cost, or how many Americans it might ultimately kill, even though many of them earnestly believe that their prognostication is accurate.
If Obama Administration officials had learned the right lessons from Iraq, they’d realize that what they ought to understand and explain is why intervention in Syria would be worthwhile for the U.S. even though its aftermath is inherently unpredictable. Instead they’re asking us to believe their assurances about how limited the conflict will be, even though many of them got Iraq wrong on that same metric. They talk about intervention in Syria as if they know just what will happen. That’s part of why they can’t be trusted: their delusions of control.
2. The Obama Administration won’t have made a full case for war until it explains how it expects Syria, Iran, Russia, and other countries to respond to an American strike, leveling with the American people about the possibility of retaliation and proving that they have a prudent plan prepared in case it happens.
3. The Obama Administration avows that there won’t be any American boots on the ground in Syria. But that’s a promise that its officials don’t necessarily intend to keep, as John Kerry unintentionally acknowledged when questioned on the matter.
4. The military thinks this is a bad idea.
5. President Obama has broken so many promises in the course of campaigning and governing that there’s no reason to trust his word when he makes pledges about anything. He long ago proved he’ll say what he thinks he needs to say to get what he wants. The wisdom of striking Syria should be judged independent of his assurances.
6. Obama’s ill-advised “red line” comments, the wrongheaded way that the political press casts heads of state not getting what they want as “humiliation,” and the influential lobby pushing for war all give U.S. leaders incentives for intervention that have nothing to do with what’s best for the country.
7. Nothing about the way Team Obama has handled events in Syria so far inspires confidence that they know what they’re doing or are likely to take the right course.
All these reasons help to explain why American citizens are against entrusting the Obama Administration with the power to wage war in Syria, and why the House of Representatives so far appears to be against voting Obama that power.
Bob K,
I’m guilty of that as well…. But when you’re trying to make a case for dropping bombs…. You should be a little more convincing than…. Oh look 4th in line…. What’s that brown stuff drooling out of your mouth…. Isn’t there already enough pollution in Washington…..
Senator Bill Nelson just finished his speech on the Senate Floor. He was very smart and articulated why we must support Obama on the Syria nerve gas thing. We in Florida are proud of our Senator.
I am in Den Haag. The gossip here indicates that there is a deal cut today between Russia and Syria and that the Syrians will give their nerve gas to the Russians in short order. They will even let in UN inspectors. Den Haag is also known as The Hague. The dogpac has voted to support Obama.
All dogs are on board with President Obama. All of our prior rants are hereby revoked.
The dogpac is here at the marina watching Bill Nelson who is a Senator from Florida (our home state). The dogs all agree that Nelson is right and that we should bomb Syria as soon as necessary. Hopefully the Russians will broker a deal to have Syria give up all of their nerve gas. These tentheads need to have their uttBays whipped.
Lrobby I quite agree since it has been overused to encompass too many things so that it is degraded to the point virtually anything is considered to be genocide. Clinton used that term to wage war against Yugoslavia when there was no such thing going on. Then the US and NATO committed real genocide against the Serbs, especially in Kosovo.
The whole point of what Obama is doing is to prevent genocide being committed since the use of poison gas is the precursor of it and is a good means to do it. This still does not address the question why it is that genocide in Rwanda, Iraq, and Cambodia is not noteworthy or worth military action. I can only conclude that it is because of the racism of those who are opposed to Obama’s proposals. It is OK as long as Africans, Arabs, and Asians are the victims of genocide
The US and the UN denounced Vietnam for invading Cambodia to end the Pol Pot regime that committed genocide on such a scale as had not been seen since WWII. I supported Vietnam for doing that. They should have gotten a Nobel Peace Prize for that action. What is the position of the anit-war folks on what the Vietnamese did in Cambodia? Do or did you join with Reagan and the UN in imposing sanctions on Vietnam and denouncing them for invading? This Syrian situation is similar to what the Vietnamese did when they took action to end such a brutal regime, but at least Obama’s proposals are FAR more limited than Vietnams. All that he is proposing is to make it too costly for Assad to continuing using poison gas. That is entirely possible to do with little threat of greater war. Some have said that poison gas is hard to control when being used which is true. The reason we have a ban on such things is that they work VERY WELL. If they did not work, there would be NO need to ban them at all. The reason for banning them is that they cause horrific injuries which cannot be confined to the battlefield and its combatants.
Verbal diarrhea is randyjet/Erb’s only trick. “Genocide” is bound to come out, because he’s full of it.
I don’t care much what he writes. I just try not to step in it.
Throwing the term genocide around is wrong and diminishes the actual meaning of the word.
Here’s an interesting thought for consideration:
“(Historically, this is what declarations of war did. They were a set of reasoned, conditional demands that another state must meet to avoid the use of force. And by making these demands explicit, states, empires, and other communities fulfilled an obligation to each other: to use public reason to resolve conflicts before turning to violence.)
The refusal to declare war appears to have a strong racial basis. The United States has a long history of declaring war against white, European states such as Britain, Germany, and Spain, as well as Mexico (Santa Anna came from a Spanish family). These declarations usually are reasoned, conditional statements. Wars against non-white, non-European peoples, in contrast, rarely involve declarations of war (e.g., the Barbary States, Native Americans, the Philippines (1899), Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and many others). A quick analysis, in fact, likely would find that white and European are necessary conditions for U.S. declarations. The link between U.S. policies over time to denigrate non-white peoples, such as Native Americans, and the refusal to use public reason to address them may betray the legacy of race in foreign policy decision-making that has recently come to interest International Relations scholars. Refusing to address the Syrian people today, by assuming that the proper crowd to assess claims about war are in the Beltway rather than overseas, continues that legacy.” (John Sides, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University)
http://themonkeycage.org/2013/09/04/the-real-reason-we-need-declarations-of-war/
It is obvious racism on the part of the anti war radical pacifists since it is obvious to all that dead Africans, and Arabs en masse are perfectly acceptable to them. Genocide is only worthy of doing something about when it is white Europeans. Racists.