Tag: War Powers

One Step Closer?

For most of this year the Dems have been trying to make it a policy that the president cannot go to war without permission from the Congress and yesterday they may have come one step closer to making it so….

Lawmakers in the House just sent another warning shot over President Trump’s Iran policy. On Thursday, they passed a Democratic-backed war powers resolution aimed at curbing his ability to continue the conflict, with four Republicans crossing the aisle in a 214–208 vote. GOP Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Tom Barrett of Michigan sided with Democrats on the resolution to require congressional approval for the war, the Washington Post reports. The same four Republicans voted for a similar resolution last month, before the conflict reignited with daily US strikes on Iran.

The resolution’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said the war has “no clear mission, no strategy, no end goal.” The measure doesn’t go to Trump’s desk and is widely viewed as symbolic, and any binding curb on his authority would almost certainly face a veto. Still, with the Senate weighing its own war powers measure Thursday morning, the move underscores mounting bipartisan unease over a grinding conflict that has recently intensified, including the deaths of four US troops in the region over the weekend, Politico reports.

During debate on the resolution, Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, read out the names of the 18 US service members killed since the war began, the AP reports. “To belittle this mission is to belittle and demean the very service these members gave their life for,” he said. “Their sacrifice was not meaningless. This operation is bringing reckoning for the hundreds of times Iran has attacked and killed people of the United States of America.” The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, said presidents are supposed to obtain congressional approval for wars. The service members, he said, died in “an illegal unauthorized war that the American people don’t want.”

This is not a done deal but at least we are closer to making Donny ask permission before bombing more countries…..which is a good idea for he is considering another country to be bombed…..

President Trump is considering opening a new military front in another nation, with advisers weighing military strikes in Mali against an al-Qaeda-linked group known as JNIM, reports the Washington Post. The idea is reportedly championed inside the National Security Council by foreign policy hawks such as Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s counterterrorism director, but faces resistance from other senior officials, according to current and former unnamed officials who spoke to the Post. The militant group’s stronghold is in Mali, but it has launched regional attacks throughout West Africa.

The US is pressing African and NATO partners to support Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger in the Sahel region. All are ruled by juntas that have ousted democratic leaders and turned to Russia for security help, and the US faults Moscow for being a weak partner. Critics warn US strikes could entangle Washington with Russian forces, empower Islamic State rivals, or push JNIM to target Americans and deepen ties to al-Qaeda. Others argue force is needed to keep jihadist groups from cementing a stronger foothold in the region. If approved, Mali would become the eighth country where Trump has ordered strikes in his second term, after Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and Venezuela, per the New Republic.

Time for the Congress to put on the brakes on Donny’s blood lust and he is not alone….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A War Blank Check

WE Americans have been constantly lied to so that this country can intervene around the world….accomplish regime change almost yearly……

Official Washington and those associated with it have misrepresented the facts numerous times in the service of military actions that might not otherwise have taken place. In the Middle East, these interventions have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Arab civilians, brought chaos to Iraq and Libya, and led to the expulsion of a million Christians from communities where they have lived since biblical times.

The most famous of these episodes, of course, was the U.S. government’s assurance to the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which formed the basis for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The government also insisted Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda, bolstering the call to war. Of course neither was true.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-pretty-little-lies-behind-americas-interventions/

Lies that we citizens allow to go on so that we can keep some sort of mental defense our stupidity.

And now war will be easier….and our troops will die more easily thanx to a couple of cowards in the Congress.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) was originally to be used by the president in a limited way….that has long been overstepped……and now the Congress has a new form of the AUMF before it….and this new attempt will do nothing to help the separation of powers……

The potential for the United States to stumble into a new war—or wars—has rarely been greater. Since before he took office, Donald Trump has been rattling his saber, and he is now backed up by a national security advisor who is openly spoiling for a fight. Instability and violence around the world are presenting them with ample opportunities. Last week marked the second time President Trump ordered bombings of Syria without congressional authorization.

Congress is now poised to bring a lit match to this combustible mix. A bill introduced yesterday by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., would give the president a virtual blank check to expand the current war against various terrorist groups to new enemies and new locations of the president’s choosing.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/04/corker-kaine-bill-aumf-forever-war/147516/

This should unacceptable to the American people but as usual they have their heads in the asses and our troops will be thrown at every event that the president feels it necessary…..Congress is relinquishing their power to the president…..

Cowards everyone!

Time For A Revisit 1973

My regulars know that I cannot let the fact that we are still fighting wars started before my granddaughter was born and she is 15 now…..and I do harp on the conflicts a bit much but since few people see the necessity to keep these wars in the minds of our people I feel that I must do so.  And yes I am anti-war and hope that if people see what is happening to our country and our military they too will see the need to end all this intervention for the sake of intervention.

Let’s start with 1973.

The year before the resignation of Nixon……so what could be so important that we should revisit that year?

The War Powers Act……..Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973, it did so to reestablish procedures for Congress and the president to share responsibility for the introduction of armed forces into foreign conflicts. By explicitly limiting the executive’s prerogative to initiate or escalate military actions, the act affirmed that such power rests with Congress. The founders assigned Congress this most important authority to ensure solemn debate and prevent the kinds of foreign policy disasters that plagued European monarchies.

I have bitched in the past about the fact that the Congress needs to step up ans exercise their power by re-defining the AUMF…….the Congress has been wimping out for decades and that we are fighting a conflict on most continents maybe now would be a good time to revisit the War Powers Resolution of 1973……..

The ongoing hostilities in Yemen are just the sort of conflict the founders meant to avoid. The Saudi monarchy’s war has become a foreign policy debacle for the United States, and hell-on-earth for the Yemenis. Indeed, the cholera crisis now facing the country is the worst in recorded history.

Yemen’s deteriorating circumstances offer Congress an opportunity to reclaim its constitutional mandate and help resolve a humanitarian catastrophe by demanding deliberation viz. material and logistical support for Saudi’s war of attrition.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/02/26/time_to_revisit_the_war_powers_act_of_1973_113109.html

The US Congress is staffed with cowards….they are afraid to do anything at all for it may piss off someone and it might cost them votes or worse…….. donations.

War after war is the future as long as the Congress refuses to act…….costing this country massive amounts of cash and the lives of our citizens……

When will enough be enough for the American people?