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Conyers Draws the Line

by: hannah

Tue May 13, 2008 at 07:41:39 AM EDT


It's been my considered opinion that much of the saber rattling against Iran has been prompted by the reasonable fear that the missiles China has sent to protect Iran will be aimed at the U.S. Air Force bases in Iraq, where our troops, and all the military equipment and arms we've shipped in, are like so many sitting ducks.

Indeed, the presence of USAF bases is the only fact that's consistently indisputable in the supposed "conflict" with Iran.  There's no evidence of nuclear weapons being built and the most recent claim that Iran is supplying conventional arms to the resistance forces has again been proven wrong in that, upon close inspection, the most recent cache turned out not to be from Iran at all and the press demonstration had to be called off.

If we don't want to assume the US military is making up false reports, we could just conclude that Iraqis refer to their compatriots, whose religious affiliation aligns them with Iran, as Iranians--not unlike JFK referring to himself as being from Berlin.

hannah :: Conyers Draws the Line
Anyway, just to be on the safe side, Representative John Conyers has decided to spell it out for the Bush Administration that aggressive action against Iran is not to be taken without Congressional authorization.  That he finds it necessary to threaten impeachment is probably prompted by the fact that the Bush Administration re-allocated money that was appropriated for activities in Afghanistan to begin preparations for the invasion of Iraq.  

Even though Defense Secretary Gates has made it clear to his subordinates in the Air Force that they are not to "find" money for a hundred fighters that haven't been authorized, that's not a guarantee that the White House won't pull a similar stunt.

Herewith Conyers' letter, courtesy David Swanson at AfterDowningstreet.org

   

May 8, 2008
   The Honorable George W. Bush
   President of the United States
   1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
   Washington, D.C. 20500

   Dear Mr. President:

   We are writing to register our strong opposition to possible unilateral, preemptive military action against other nations by the Executive Branch without Congressional authorization. As you know, Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power "to declare war," to lay and collect taxes to "provide for the common defense" and general welfare of the United States, to "raise and support armies," to "provide and maintain a navy," to "make rules for the regulation for the land and naval forces," to "provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions," to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia," and to "make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution ... all ... powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States." Congress is also given exclusive power over the purse. The Constitution says, "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law."

   By contrast, the sole war powers granted to the Executive Branch through the President can be found in Article II, Section, which states, "The President shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into actual Service of the United States." Nothing in the history of the "Commander-in-Chief" clause suggests that the authors of the provision intended it to grant the Executive Branch the authority to engage U.S. forces in military action whenever and wherever it sees fit without any prior authorization from Congress.

   In our view, the founders of our country intended this power to allow the President to repel sudden attacks and immediate threats, not to unilaterally launch, without congressional approval, preemptive military actions against foreign countries. As former Republican Representative Mickey Edwards recently wrote, "[t]he decision to go to war ... is the single most difficult choice any public official can be called upon to make. That is precisely why the nation's Founders, aware of the deadly wars of Europe, deliberately withheld from the executive branch the power to engage in war unless such action was expressly approved by the people themselves, through their representatives in Congress."

   Members of Congress, including the signatories of this letter, have previously expressed concern about this issue. On April 25, 2006, sixty-two Members of Congress joined in a bipartisan letter that called on you to seek congressional approval before making any preemptive military strikes against Iran. Fifty-seven Members of Congress have co-sponsored H. Con. Res. 33, which expresses the sense of Congress that the President should not initiate military action against Iran without first obtaining authorization from Congress.

   Our concerns in this area have been heightened by more recent events. The resignation in mid-March of Admiral William J. "Fox" Fallon from the head of U.S. Central Command, which was reportedly linked to a magazine article that portrayed him as the only person who might stop your Administration from waging preemptive war against Iran, has renewed widespread concerns that your Administration is unilaterally planning for military action against that country. This is despite the fact that the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003, a stark reversal of previous Administration assessments.

   As we and others have continued to review troubling legal memoranda and other materials from your Administration asserting the power of the President to take unilateral action, moreover, our concerns have increased still further. For example, although federal law is clear that proceeding under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance" can be conducted within the U.S. for foreign intelligence purposes, 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(f), the Justice Department has asserted that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping in violation of FISA is "supported by the President's well-recognized inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs". As one legal expert has explained, your Administration's "preventive paradigm" has asserted "unchecked unilateral power" by the Executive Branch and violated "universal prohibitions on torture, disappearance, and the like."

   Late last year, Senator Joseph Biden stated unequivocally that "the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach" the president.

   We agree with Senator Biden, and it is our view that if you do not obtain the constitutionally required congressional authorization before launching preemptive military strikes against Iran or any other nation, impeachment proceedings should be pursued. Because of these concerns, we request the opportunity to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss these matters. As we have recently marked the fifth year since the invasion of Iraq, and the grim milestone of 4,000 U.S. deaths in Iraq, your Administration should not unilaterally involve this country in yet another military conflict that promises high costs to American blood and treasure.

   Sincerely,
   The Honorable John Conyers
   Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee

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Conyers Draws the Line | 3 comments
False reports? (0.00 / 0)
I would like to suggest another theory for how all this incorrect information comes to be established in the generalized "citizen brain," after the inevitable repetition that characterizes the media these days. It seems to me that continuing to assert that the opposition is lying, foolish or poorly informed, though perhaps true doesn't help in establishing the truth. Two conditions seem to aid in the determination of "truth" these days. There is an enormous amount of prediction information available. In fact, whatever you would like to have as the truth, chances are that there is some reported "fact" or "study" supporting your opinion. As a citizen, I often find it impossible to do sufficient fact checking to select out the reasonably likely let alone the true. Even fact check sites exist on both sides. No matter what happens in the stock market, there is always someone who has predicted exactly this result. With regard to mutual fund managers, this results in an enormous influx of money into the fund that was correct last year with the result that the next year the results aren't repeated. It is more serious with the military. All that stuff about WMD in Iraq was based upon reports from "curve ball" or whoever and the results were what we have now - disaster.
   The second problematic part is the inclination to take two opposing opinions, divide by two and accept that as the truth. Easy to understand particularly given the above but none the less facilitates continued error, particularly in an atmosphere where the extreme left - Communism (not the Soviet Union facade on tyranny but the collective ownership kind) is no longer representative anywhere to balance the corporatism we now have. Thus when the current right is averaged with the current left (actually the center), you get half right (or what I think of as half wrong).

Good points all, (0.00 / 0)
but I would argue, in addition, that there's really not a whole lot of difference between communal ownership by the entity that is charged with the use of force (the state) and corporate ownership by entities to whom the use of force has been subcontracted by the state.  The concern about the military becoming too large a segment of our industrial enterprise has morphed into our industrial enterprise being dependent on the use of military force to "level the playing field."  In the old days, it was called "gunboat diplomacy."

[ Parent ]
Careening out of control (0.00 / 0)
All of these theoretical analyses fail in some regards to match up with conditions on the ground as they say and it is likely that if you run fast enough you will be able to see your own back. Many now say that libertarianism is just the closing link between the far left's desire for independence and the far right's desire for little government. I think a better reason to maintain these theoretical divisions has to do with who gets the benefits. Though it has only happened for a small length of time in utopian societies and never achieves the goals of spreading the benefits of society to all the citizens, communism is quite different from fascism (corporatism) in actual as well as desired results. When the decision making comes into the hands of the few (corporatists) instead of into the hands of the many (cooperative) the results should be quite different. The cooperative and the corporate schemes may come to the same grief - oligarchy of one kind or another, but the paths are quite different. I don't in fact understand why cooperative efforts always seem to fail but having been part of a number, I am convinced. Some other balance seems to be required in which the few with the energy and inclination, organize and control the many who don't wish to exert themselves or at least not for long. But the choke collar needs to be kept on the few and jerked every so often because it seems to be the nature of those desiring to control others to lose their benevolence over time (or they never had it) and proceed through greed or other non-cooperative motivation to all sorts of inequality. These undulating waves are well defined in history and also the jerking of the chain. I hope we are now about to enter onto a prolonged jerking as those privileged at all levels have lost the balance that in some periods kept them from interfering with the rest of our ability to just get along. Most people just want to have a family, go on vacation, sit in the sun, think up things, avoid all the contentiousness. I think that desire has been satisfied for too long and it may be impossible to put those genis back in those bottles. I hate politics. I long for the time when I can go back to sleep and know that those in power will run things to better places not into the ground. I feel a good deal of guilt for my previous sleep which allowed the Cheneys, Halliburtons, Putins, Bushs etc. to run us to the brink of world collapse. It was such fun though. I don't think I'll live long enough to see that equilibrium reestablished. I hope you do.

[ Parent ]
Conyers Draws the Line | 3 comments
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