Posted on 03/28/2006 10:28:47 AM PST by Irontank
According to the wisdom of the day, the left is against the war in Iraq while the right supports the war. So why do The John Birch Society and its affiliated magazine THE NEW AMERICAN support the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq? Isn’t that the position of the hard left?
In actuality, there are fundamental differences between the left and us regarding the question of war.
Unlike the left, we do not believe any one man should ever be entrusted with the awesome power of deciding when to go to war. It makes no difference if the president is a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal. The Constitution assigns to Congress, not the president, the power “to declare war.” If America needs to go to war, Congress should declare it.
Democrat presidents were wrong when they claimed that the decision to go to war was theirs to make, and President Bush is wrong when he makes the same claim. Mr. Bush’s acknowledgement of last December that “as President, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq,” overlooks the fact that this decision was not his to make.
Unlike the left, we recognize that the president’s powers as commander-in-chief are limited, as well they should be. Under our system of government, we have a president entrusted with certain specified powers; we do not have an elected dictator or a king. As Alexander Hamilton explained in The Federalist Papers (No. 69), the president’s authority as commander-in-chief amounts “to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral … while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies — all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.”
Unlike the left, we do not want to send our troops to war to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions. Yet this is exactly what President Bush did in the case of Iraq, by his own repeated admissions. For instance, on November 8, 2002, the day the Security Council passed its Resolution 1441 insisting that Iraq eliminate its reputed weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Bush declared: “America will be making only one determination: is Iraq meeting the terms of the Security Council resolution or not?... If Iraq fails to fully comply, the United States and other nations will disarm Saddam Hussein.”
Even though the left supports intervening militarily on behalf of the UN, it opposed Bush’s intervention in Iraq because the Security Council did not pass a new resolution explicitly authorizing a military invasion to enforce Resolution 1441 and other Security Council resolutions. The irony is that the Bush administration, by launching an offensive war against Iraq, actually demonstrated it was more interested in putting teeth behind Security Council resolutions than the Security Council itself was.
Unlike the left, we believe in putting America first, which means minding our own business, avoiding foreign entanglements, and going to war only when necessary to defend our citizens and country. We should not be the world’s policeman. Nor should we spill another drop of American blood to wage the Bush administration’s “global democratic revolution.”
Using military force to right the wrongs in other countries and cultures dissimilar to our own is sure to backfire, even if the intent is sincere. As John Quincy Adams correctly observed: “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.”
Countries that mind their own business are less likely to be attacked than those that intervene in other countries’ affairs, particularly when those interventions come to be viewed as unwanted occupations.
Unlike the left, we believe that “to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace,” as George Washington succinctly put it. This means preparedness by our intelligence services as well as the military against terrorist attack or military attack by a foreign power. Countries that are prepared are much less likely to be attacked than countries that are not prepared.
Unlike the left, we believe that in war “there is no substitute for victory,” to quote General Douglas MacArthur. Why, therefore, do we want to bring the troops home now? Why not win and then get out? Well, if winning means eliminating Iraq’s reputed weapons of mass destruction, there is no victory to obtain because those weapons do not exist. If it means toppling the Saddam regime, that victory has already been achieved. But if it means propping up the new Iraqi regime until that regime can stand on its own, that “victory” would be no victory at all, since that new regime is fast becoming another Iran, an “axis of evil” nation.
** popping corn **
I'll grab the drinks.....
The author seems to believe there was some form required in a declaration of war which simply does not exist. Congress declared war as much as it needs to.
America sends troops to support UN resolutions WHEN it wants to. But you probably know that though pretending not to.
People too dumb to realize that the President has done what he did in order to make America safer don't have much of a clue wrt National Interests, Foreign Policy or much else I warrant.
Extreme right spectrum politics are often tainted by obsession with "purity", constitutional or otherwise. Also, isolationist and paranoid tendencies are common. John Birchers don't see that the U.S. should use the U.N. when it aligns with our national interests or that "nation building" may coincide with self-preservation. It's "either" "or" for those in the zero sum game. In fact, it seems that the political spectrum in not linear, but parabolic, with its far reaches hard to differentiate. Is there really a great difference between Hitler and Stalin? The nuance of fascism vs. totalitarian Communism is somewhat esoteric.
It's a quagmire. The Birchers and Cindy Sheehan agree.
Whatever. I would give a more thoughtful response if I thought it would make any difference. But, since the author doesn't pay any attention or care about history, or the future for that matter, here is a link to a web site with some basic information he might have forgotten:
http://www.reasons-for-war-with-iraq.info/
Well lets see...in 1998, David Wurmser, who would become Dick Cheney's Mideast Advisor, wrote a policy paper entitled "Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power Strategy for the Levant"...in it he argues that, contrary to the claims that Saddam was a menace threatening the US...the "next Hitler"...Iraq was a crumbling state...the collapse of Saddam's regime was inevitable...the paper argues that intervention by Israel and the US can remake Iraq and the mideast in a way that will benefit the Hashemites and prevent Iran and Syria from benefitting from Iraq's collapse
Of course, the best laid plans of egghead intellectuals...Iran has no doubt been strengthened on the basis of the most recent election in Iraq
Meanwhile...what happened that Saddam went from a crumbling petty tyrant in 1998 to the next Hitler by 2002? Here is a good rule to follow...don't believe much of what your government tells you...they're usually lying and up to no good
1) So far, we've made excellent progress in Afghanistan, and laid a good foundation in Iraq judging by the very higher voter turnout.
2) You may recall that the UN was screaming "NO!" at the top of its global-socialist lungs, when our military headed into Iraq. That's not my idea of being of UN puppet or enforcer.
3) Promoting stability in foreign countries is promoting stability here. Exploding populations of desperate people in foreign countries don't just stay there.
I'll have the roast duck with the mango salsa...
What quagmire? Loopy agrees with loopy.
LOL, and Saddam and Son's defense team agrees.
I don't have much of an appetite...
For a group that was able to focus on the existential threat to America from the ideology of Communism in the Cold War, they seem remarkably insouciant about our current worldwide struggle with the Islamist terror ideology.
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