This was beginning to sound too familiar. A president is calling for a new war based on his inherent authority while members of Congress warn that it is war or death for America. However, former NSA director (and my neighbor) Michael Hayden added a new element: explaining that air power is like “casual sex” and that we need greater commitment than the military equivalent to a one night stand. Of course, this one night stand is expected to last months and cost billions. President Obama has already asked for $500 million to just arm Syrian rebels despite the fact that we are now facing our own weaponry in the hands of ISIS (captured from our past supply of rebels and the Iraqi military). Sort of like Warren Zevon’s song to send “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” except we are leaving the lawyers behind on this one.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told the American people that the choice is simple in going to war:
“[T]hey’re intending to come here. So, I will not let this president suggest to the American people we can outsource our security and this is not about our safety. There is no way in hell you can form an army on the ground to go into Syria, to destroy ISIL without a substantial American component. And to destroy ISIL, you have to kill or capture their leaders, take the territory they hold back, cut off their financing and destroy their capability to regenerate. . . . This is a war we’re fighting, it is not a counterterrorism operation! This is not Somalia; this is not Yemen; this is a turning point in the war on terror. Our strategy will fail yet again. This president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home.”
Graham was heavily ridiculed for his drumbeat to war in Iraq over the non-exist WMDs and previously called for war against Iran.
Graham however at least portrayed the war in relatively platonic terms. Former NSA Director Michael Hayden who was tied to both the unlawful torture and surveillance programs under the Bush Administration compared the U.S. air strikes as nothing more than enjoyable but meaningless “casual sex”:
“The reliance on air power has all of the attraction of casual sex: It seems to offer gratification but with little commitment. We need to be wary of a strategy that puts emphasis on air power and air power alone.”
No first base for Hayden on this date. Of course, given our continuing and perpetual military engagements, we are under Hayden’s terms something of a promiscuous power. Hayden clearly wants more of a commitment and long-term relationship. Something like . . . well . . . Iraq.
In the meantime, dating on Hayden’s term is not cheap. We are about to commit an initial half a billion dollars to just arming Syrian rebels — the same area where ISIS emerged with U.S. weapons to become the current menace. This is a collateral cost and does not include our direct military costs.
However, Obama insists that he does not need anyone’s approval to launch such a war as previously discussed. In a bizarre twist however the Administration is arguing that the President can always rely on Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which authorized attacks against Al Qaeda and those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups. The problem is that that authorization occurred 13 years ago and the Islamic State happens to be the moral enemy of Al Qaeda at this point. Thus, Obama is claiming that he is fighting Al Qaeda by waging war on its enemy (while of course claiming that he needs for such authorization).
Perhaps Hayden is right. War, like dating, is just too confusing, too expensive, and just a bit dangerous.
Dust Bunny Queen,
As a queen I know you have access to as many links as you command on your computer!
I told you what we should do. Check into the Marshall Plan.
Eric, if you want th people on your side you need to stop crapping on them. Iraqis don’t want ISIS in control of their nation. If we, as the occupying power there, made a functioning society, people would be on our side.
Of course, this does not suit the overlords who make far more money with war than waging peace.
Eric
“John: “Have you ever heard of the Enola Gay?”
Preceded by 3+ years of extensive ground and sea conflict”
President Truman used the atomic bomb at his first opportunity. President Truman was intelligent and pragmatic – he knew that peace was good and the a-bomb was a peacemaker. Truman made peace as soon as he could. Had he been President and the a-bomb ready, President Truman could have made peace on December 8, 1941. The dropping of the a-bomb by the Enola Gay was only preceded by “3+ years of extensive ground and sea conflict…” because it didn’t exist.
“Hiroshima: Was It Necessary?” – Doug Long
“[7/22/45: Truman was informed that the first atomic bomb for use on Japan “…will be ready for final operation first good break in August. Complicated preparations for use are proceeding so fast we should know not later than July 25 if any change in plans.” (U.S. Dept. of State, “Foreign Relations of the U.S., The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) 1945, vol. 2″, pg. 1372); the date Truman was informed comes from the Henry Lewis Stimson Papers, 7/22/45 Diary entry, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.]”
Btw…. You need better neighbors….
Fear mongering and cowardly US Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, (along with his senatorial ilk) is a national disgrace.
It is remarkable that the same nation (US) that faced down the Soviet Union which was armed with thousands of deliverable nuclear warheads that could actually destroy the US (and the world) just 30 years ago has devolved into such a pathetic and cowardly group of fear mongers living a delusional existence within a bubble of rampant militarism.
If Lindsey Graham and the rest of the US congress are so keen on waging elective war based upon lies perhaps they should volunteer themselves and lead the way from the front rather than mouthing tired platitudes in the rear from the safety of their security cocoons.
Fear mongering cowards one and all.
Dust Bunny Queen: “What is that way?”
Jill is advocating this way:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/17/stop-the-isis-war-before-it-gets-worse.html
Jill’s preference basically boils down to advocating for soft power as a replacement for hard power in a non-permissive environment.
The problem is, in the real world at that level of challenge, soft power only becomes effective in subsequent peace-building that’s conducted within a firmly enforced condition of dominance on the foundation of security and stability achieved by successful hard power.
At that level of challenge, soft power is at best questionably effective when employed as a complement along with hard power before security, stability, and dominance are acquired. Soft power is simply ineffective as a replacement for hard power.
Jill,
In addition to reviewing USAID and State’s mission with Iraq since 2003, I also recommend that you review the official policy that defined the peace operations with Iraq led by the US military.
The 2003-2011 US-led occupation was mandated to “take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq”. For example, see UNSCR 1511 (2003):
Also see UNSCRs 1546 (2004), 1637 (2005), 1723 (2006), 1790 (2007), and the 17NOV08 agreement between the US and Iraq.
As stated in US Army FM (field manual) 1:
In other words, as T.R. Fehrenbach observed in This Kind of War:
Effective, progressive peace-building of any sort requires security and stability as the foundation for everything else. Layered on top of that, building the peace on our terms – your terms – requires we hold sufficient dominance to define the peace.
Respect the enemy, Jill. The enemy is competitive. Any peace, including the enemy’s peace, requires security and stability. The peace you want requires defeating the enemy and setting our dominance.
“There is a different way and we should take it.”
What is that way? Cite (with links) some examples of who took it and how it worked out in the long run.
“We were funding ISIS only a few months back. ”
Obama was funding…….not we.
Jill,
See http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/history .
Eric, Bushco did not attempt to rebuild Iraq. Obama never left Iraq. Mercenaries by the thousands have been in the Green Zone (which is larger than Vatican City) hiding their wages/actions under the Dept. of State.
We have never tried to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq and Obama has no intention of doing this. Yet it is the only sane thing we can do and we do owe the people of Iraq rebuilding.
Instead we have nurtured a sectarian war. We have protected the oil fields, keeping them safe for multinational corporations. This is what we have wasted our money and the lives of so many people on. That is shameful.
The call for more war, more lives lost and ruined is a disaster for this nation. We were funding ISIS only a few months back. Now they are our “enemy”. People need to get smart about what the elites are really doing. They don’t care about human lives, they don’t care about protecting US citizens. They care about making money. They are making literally trillions of dollars on these wars. It is time the American public decided whether that is where we want our money to go.
If we, as a people, are so stupid, frightened and blood thirsty that all we can ever imagine is war and more war, then I feel we have come to a very shameful place as a people. It makes us little better than the “other” whom we have been taught to hate.
There is a different way and we should take it.
John: “Have you ever heard of the Enola Gay?”
Preceded by 3+ years of extensive ground and sea conflict followed by almost 70 years of US boots on the ground in changing capacity.
” Sort of like Warren Zevon’s song to send “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” except we are leaving the lawyers behind on this one.”
Sorry Professor, but perhaps we would have fewer wars if we sent Lawyers to the front.
Paul – we do send lawyers to the front. A lot of combat operations have to get permission from lawyers before they can pull the trigger.
Help, post gone missing!
Barkin Dog.
“Who is Amanda Knox? Not some person from Knox College, I hope.
“.
Who is Amanda Knox? Who is Amanda Knox? She is a University student from Seattle who went to the town of Perugia in Italy to study Italian and ended up imprisoned for the murder of her housemate Meredith Kercher
She is in my opinion the recipient of one of the worst miscarriages of justice to happen in recent times, she is also the subject of one of the most vicious disputes on the internet between the guilters who think that she is an evil slutty witch who killed her housemate because of
a sex game gone wronga dispute about stolen money and the innocenters who believe just as fervently that she has been railroaded by a corrupt and incompetent police and judiciary. This happened in the town of Perugia in Italy. After 4 trials she has been found respectively, GUILTY, INNOCENT, NOT INNOCENT & GUILTY AGAIN.The case is an example of:-
1/ Police and judicial corruption;
2/ Police and judicial incompetence;
3/ The inability of the legal system to let go of a theory of the crime when contradictory evidence arrives;
4/ The tendency of all organs in a legal system closing ranks to preserve face when a mistake is made;
5/ The effectiveness of mostly untrue leaks to cooperative journalists to so blacken the reputation of a suspect as to make acquittal impossible.
Carlyle Moulton, I retrieved your comment at 9:18.
Carlyle – Amanda Knox is the reason I will not visit Italy.
J. Brian Harris, Ph.D., P.E.
… a war-based international economy.
A war-based international economy has, as its main product, war. War, as an economic product, is interesting as an aspect of a system dynamics economic model. The more a war-based international economy flourishes, the more wars are needed to invigorate said economy, and the more said economy destroys itself to save itself, and the more wars are needed to sustain the war-based international economy.
In the end, a war-based international economy seems, every time I have tried to system-dynamics model such an economy, to destroy itself by destroying everything else first.
In a profound sense, is addiction actually anything other than a process which, if not stopped first, destroys everything else until, finally, all that is left to destroy is itself, which, without alternative recourse, it always does?
…
===========================================
Well said.
I recently found out that the feudal system was just that a war-born economy (American Feudalism – 6).
The framers had observed that dynamic:
(James Madison). They sought to prevent feudalism in America but we eventually lost sight of it.
Let’s not forget this:
http://youtu.be/cGhcECnWRGM
Jill: “I have a strategy for Iraq. Rebuild it. 24/7 electricity. Clean, running water. Working sewers. Return of looted artifacts. Education. Housing. Farming. We are an occupying power in Iraq.”
That was the working plan until we left Iraq in 2011. If Obama had simply stayed the course from Bush in order to continue securing and building the peace with Iraq, like Eisenhower stayed the course from Truman, the current crisis (most likely) would have been prevented.
jonathanturley: “the Islamic State happens to be the moral enemy of Al Qaeda at this point.”
They’re not “moral enemy” as far as their position on their “far enemy” (especially but not limited to the leader of the free world) and endstate. Their dispute is over ISIS killing Sunnis and power struggle.
PL 107-40 states in its preamble, “Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States”.
That’s not part of the specific statutory authorization, but it does raise the question whether PL 107-40 was even necessary in the 1st place for a counter-terrorist action. The question is where counter-terrorism becomes War on Terror, where war requires an AUMF. If the line between counter-terrorism and War on Terror is the involvement of a sovereign enemy – eg, Taliban, Saddam – then ISIS doesn’t qualify as a sovereign, which may mean going after ISIS falls under the President’s inherent authority to conduct counter-terrorism, which doesn’t require AUMF.
Dust Bunny Queen: “It is Congress’ duty to declare war or to not declare war. The President can request it, lobby for it but he doesn’t have the Constitutional power to just declare war all by himself.”
Yes and no.
War is the province of the Executive, not the Legislature. A President can’t declare war, which Congress hasn’t done since WW2, but he can certainly involve us in a war.
The President can react with or even initiate a military action if he does so within the parameters of inherent Executive authority and/or prior policy, which may be already attached to a statutory authorization. The thing is, most (all?) longstanding US national security interests are linked to prior policies and statutory authorizations. Bush was already fully authorized to go to Iraq using the Operation Desert Fox precedent but chose to update the legal basis for the Iraq enforcement with PL 107-243. Bush didn’t technically need PL 107-40 in order to go to Afghanistan.
I believe Obama is citing to PL 107-40 for the ISIS response.
And why should we be listening to Lindsay Graham and Michael Hayden who proved so trustworthy in the run up to war in Iraq?
Al O’Heem,
Was that on the Group W bench?? 🙂 Great 1970’s film and album.