I just completed a two-city debate with former Bush official John Yoo on executive power with a focus on undeclared wars. It appears Yoo won the debate . . . at least with President Obama. Indeed, Yoo appears to have had Obama at “hello” to quote Jerry Maguire. Without any declaration of war, Obama has launched attacks against targets in Syria — an act of war by any measure and a violation of international law.
We have been discussing the growing concerns over President Barack Obama’s series of unilateral actions in ordering agencies not to enforce law, effectively rewriting laws, and moving hundreds of millions of dollars from appropriated purposes to areas of his choosing. One of the greatest concerns has been his unchecked authority asserted in the national security area.
The most serious acts of unilateral presidential action falls within war powers — powers that the Framers expressly and carefully limited to prevent precisely this type of attack. Of course, the Administration does not use the word “war.” 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.
The White House insisted that this was “military action” but that “[g]iven that these operations are ongoing, we are not in a position to provide additional details at this time. The decision to conduct theses strikes was made earlier today by the U.S. Central Command commander under authorization granted him by the commander in chief.”
The Administration is now calling this a “sustained campaign” with no estimate on how long it will take. So we are again attacking another nation without a declaration or even a debate in Congress. Members are allowed to avoid their constitutional duties of clearly declaring a war while the President has been allowed, again, to jettison any limitations on his ability to wage war.
It is one thing to take out our own captured Humvees (with missiles costing $250,000 a shot) in Iraq with the permission of the country and hitting cities and targets in Syria against the express position of the government. That is clearly an act of war to prosecute a military campaign against the territory of a sovereign nation.
We are continuing an assault on basic principles of international war and returning the word to a state of nature. When another country elects to take our individuals or targets in the United States, what precisely will we claim as authority. We have assumed the role of Roper from “A Man For All Seasons“:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
Source: ABC News
Paul,
I guess you don’t understand the idea that the cost of the war should be borne by ALL Americans. Firing a bureaucrat will just cause you great joy. I suggest a 10% surtax will get you and all Americans to consider war VERY seriously.
docmadison – a 50% paycut by all government employees, including the President would make them take it very seriously.
I am offended at the remarks of Nick and Paul regarding “Gays” in the military.
Aridog – the high country is the place to be in any firefight. Should things go south, I am heading to South Mountain where there are plenty of places to hide out and I am hoping other ‘savvy people’ will head. Kesselring held off the Allies in the mountains forever.
A corollary to my last comment is simply that you can’t win a war you have no intention of holding the ground afterwards….unless you just defeat everyone in sight and get the heck out of town. They will regroup and come at you again, rinse and repeat.
Apply to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, et al…and now Syria, where we can at least go support the strong man in power instead of maybe, if come or so, sponsoring the weak men we really do not know at all. The difference between most of these groups is like that between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. No more 12+ year wars with absurd rules of engagement and no end plan in sight.
Aridog – Alexander the Great was smart enough not to get into a war in Afghanistan. However, we never learned from the Russians.
We should send our gay pilots to kill ISIS.
Nick – I am sure there are already some gay pilots dropping ordinance. And on the ‘waxing’ is that like in I had my chest waxed?
A pilot dropping bombs for the UAE is a woman! Do you get the 72 virgins if you’re waxed by a woman??
Paul….you cannot win a war that you do not control the ground at the end. We won the battles, even Gen Giap admits that.
Jill, http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/24/world/meast/us-airstrikes/index.htmlPentagon:
New airstrikes target refineries used by ISIS in Syria
@happypappies
Yeah, see what I mean about timing. All those people having to run like heck to get away from these rascals. We should have already been bombing them. These ISIS people need bombing! Ducking and covering keeps them out of other assorted meanness. Hmmm. That makes me think of an Irish Poem!
Bombe’s Are Just Desserts???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
All those radical Sons of Islam
Love to kill infidels with a bomb.
But I doubt that, if when,
The bomb’s falling on them,
They will still carry on with aplomb.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@Squeeky -well it’s about time we bombed them! Seriously? Would you care to expound on that a bit.
, Turkey, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014. More than 200,000 people fleeing the Islamic militants’ advance on Kobani, Syria, arrived in Turkey during last four days to find safety.(AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/09/23/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-reach-150-000
Eric….you gave a very thoughtful and cogent response to my comments. Most of it I agree with. Asymmetrical terrorist warfare is different, but we have had experience with it…Vietnam to be specific….given the hisotyr of it 1946 through 1972. We stumbled at the strategic level in Washington, but the soldiers in the filed, the grunts, did not falter tactically….they did all they could with the restrictions laid upon them…ie., those “borders” you cite, of one kind or another. In essence, with v-e-r-y few exceptions, the troops on the ground never lost a battle, not even DakTo and Hill 875. We lost that war in Washington DC and in Paris, France. Read the memoirs (often revised) of PAVN General Vo Nguyen Giap for a neat summary.
In asymmetrical war there are no borders, only enemies to be found and killed off, in totem….e.g., every last one of them, man, woman and child. Americans, thankfully, generally do not have a stomach for such things often, but we need to have it when necessary. I am dead serious…if we do not have the stomach for total war, then do not talk about troops on the ground ever again anywhere. We have JDAM accuracy for bombs now of +/- 30 meters…e.g. 93 feet in diameter…eg., aim for dwelling Y full of bad guys and you stand an even chance of hitting dwelling X and Z full of innocents. You will always have collateral damages and to deny it is the ultimate of punk thinking. Just admit that those collateral losses are potential future enemy assets. Once dead it is done.
In the meantime, those of us who still are active in one way or another, even retired, such as I am in my 90%+ Muslim Arab community, need to be good examples and we need to reach out to those who might not accept it initially. I am in the middle of such a rebuilding of relationships with a family from Yemen as we speak. An 8 year old girl who knows me and our dogs well, and loves to play with them, asked me to call her father and explain to him how I respect their beliefs and make sanitary facilities available to every kid who comes in the yard and touches the dog(s)….soapy handy-wipes, clean towels, and hot/cold running water, plus gloves for those who want them. It took a while for me to convince him that my object wasn’t to provide general toiletry to the kids, whose families provided it themselves, but to assure that when they left my yard, our place, they had observed ordinary practices, such as washing their hands after playing. What they did between my place and elsewhere is something I can’t control. I have a lot of experience in “going native” in various locales dating back 40+ years. I am no less “American” but I am one who tries to be welcoming, over there or right back here.
Where I disagree may be immaterial…except that I consider “total war” to be the only kind of warfare to apply to risking our soldiers and their blood. I don’t care about borders per se, only about who is occupying what and where…with the goal of killing them all, every last man, woman and child. That’s harsh, but resources are resource and when we play semantics with what a resource is we lose. Nothing is more peaceful than a battlefield after one side is defeated and dead or gone.
At this point in time, I am for forthrightly declaring we are going to support Assad and the Syrian Army, in any way necessary short of troops, in order to defeat ISIS/ISIL/AQ and all the others et al., and let his soldiers execute the total war with coalition air cover. Assad is the enemy we know…we will need him to kill of the enemies we do not know…but only think we do. WWII would have been quite different were it not for the massive on rush of the Red Army.
Aridog – there are many of us who think we won the Vietnam War but lost the peace. We suck at peace talks.
https://twitter.com/sullydish/status/514852147352322048
Clarifying and giving Jill credit:
Jill said, “Why “liberals” think this is fabulous state of affairs is a study in human depravity and the power of propaganda.”
It is indeed, Jill.
Hypocrisy abounds in the land of the not-as-free-as-many-seem-to-believe.
Why “liberals” think this is fabulous state of affairs is a study in human depravity and the power of propaganda.
It is indeed, Jill.
Hypocrisy abounds in the land of the not-as-free-as-many-seem-to-believe.
Harold Koh, minion to Secretary of State Clinton and Obama, said that when it was time, it would become clear that Obama’s laws lined up like special types of molecules in water. He said that people couldn’t see it now (2010) but they would.
Very true. Obama has set himself up as judge, jury and executioner w/drones. Likewise, he will define war, make it and no one may stop him. Again, he is judge, jury and executioner.
Why “liberals” think this is fabulous state of affairs is a study in human depravity and the power of propaganda.
Jill I walk on the eastside of Madison, the most liberal area in a very liberal town. When Bush was President w/o exaggeration, 30-40% of the houses had signs decrying Bush and war. There are virtually none now. Hypocrisy to the highest level.
It’s so interesting to see all the Democrats who decried wars under bush suddenly be all for executive wars now that its one of their own doing the killin”. Yes sir ree–you guys are so much better than those red state folks who were so bloodthirsty under Bush!
Deep state American could not exist without the willingness of citizens to look at war as if it were some kind of sporting event. In this case, red team bad, blue team good! Are we ever going to question how this attitude is working for people in this nation and around the world?
Interesting also is that ISIS could be cut off from a lot of funding using air strikes of the oil fields. But consider the lilies of those fields. They sow not, yet they are protected at all costs because they sure do reap alot of profit.
Human life is cheap but oil is a commodity worthy of protection. Oh Well, this is Obama’s new America. A place where he alone determines the very meaning of the word, “war” and gets to wage it whenever he wishes. “Liberal” Democrats, I promise you, you will rue your unthinking, unfeeling support of a party dictator.
I call on you to wake up and stop this support.
Aridog,
The War on Terror is a different kind of war, though.
Your Civil War and WW2 examples point to a traditional state-v-state war with distinct stages where we compel submission of the (structural if not legitimate) sovereign by any means necessary, establish domination of the conquered state, secure and stabilize the space, then transition to building the peace.
The problem is the War on Terror has only occasionally involved a state-v-state war where we’ve attempted to apply a traditional sovereign model of war. In both cases, it was supplanted by a 4GW counter-terror/counter-insurgency guerilla war. In the 3rd case – Libya – we disastrously skipped the post-war altogether.
In any kind of war, the requirement for dominating and securing the space is establishing as the ‘strong horse’ and reducing the enemy to the ‘weak horse’. The challenge for the War on Terror is whether ‘total war’ is the only way we can respond to 4GW hybrid guerilla war.
Mismatched RoE is a secondary problem.
Traditionally, RoE is liberal in war and progressively conservative in the post-war as we compete for dominance, secure the space, then convert to more of a policing function within the community, and then pull back in pace with the rise of the local government.
The primary problem is borders.
An asymmetric disadvantage has been borders that confine us but not the enemy. In the Civil War and WW2, we were not constrained by borders. Ever since we pulled back to the DMZ in Korea, however, we have imposed border restrictions on ourselves that have not restricted the enemy. The enemy adapted in Vietnam to take advantage of the border difference. The non-sovereign, transnational, border-hopping terrorists have built on the asymmetric advantage. We need to adapt, too.
Security is the foundation for peace. Peace-building RoE is not the problem, but it only works once we’ve secured the space. We’ll only be able to secure space effectively when we solve our asymmetric border disadvantage.
Aridog, Great comments. What this mission is looking like is the LBJ micromanaging bombing raids, Hopefully Obama doesn’t micromanage while sitting on the toilet like LBJ.
Nick – we know that LBJ sucked as a bombing tactician, will Obama do any better?
I should add that it is grotesquely naive of us to think we can fight a war with certain victory in mind without realizing that it requires “total war” in the vein of Gen Sherman’s march to the sea and subsequent actions in WWII. You cannot make not hitting “civilians” your priority….civilians are a “resource.” Before you can defeat the will to resist you must destroy the means to resist. And that is among the ugliest truths in the world. When you ask a solider to patrol and command totally a piece of territory, all the while insisting he obey rules of engagement that enables ambush after ambush, you are shoveling sand against a tide.
In short, is “total war” something we can stomach? If not, stop all talk about ground troops.
Aridog – let’s just start by saying that Obama’s plan is not really a viable plan. If he wants to win he is going to have to put boots on the ground and a lot of them.