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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
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Published Letters: 304
Indeed, Glenn. The comfortable in D.C. certainly exhibit a remarkable ability, with easy and insulated indifference, to avert their gaze and to segregate their thoughts and words from the horrors and random brutality of the destruction and death they continue to help perpetrate in Iraq.
From a new article, noted by Kagro X at DailyKos, describing funding for the continued use of armed force in Iraq:
By ANDREW TAYLORThe Associated Press
President Bush sent lawmakers a $70 billion request Friday to fund U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring, which would give the next president breathing room to make his or her own war policy.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4773315
Interesting description of our system of government's war powers there from the First Amendment-protected press. Perhaps the Associated Press ought to check which nation it is purportedly covering for its readers, or, at any rate, for its stockholding vested interests:
The British model gave the king the absolute power to make war. The American framers repudiated that form of government because their study of history convinced them that executives go to war not for the national interest but to satisfy personal desires of glory, ambition, and fame. The resulting military adventures were disastrous to their countries, both in lives lost and treasures squandered. I have submitted to your subcommittee a number of my recent articles that elaborate on the lessons drawn from that history.[snip]
Military commitments are not in the hands of admirals and generals but are placed in civilian leaders, including members of Congress. Lawmakers can at any time limit and terminate military commitments. The framers vested the decisive and ultimate powers of war and spending in the legislative branch. American democracy places the sovereign power in the people and entrusts to them the temporary delegation of that power to elected Senators and Representatives.
[snip]
Instead of acting directly to defend legislative powers, it will be tempting for lawmakers to believe that judicial relief is available and to count on successful litigation. Only one branch was meant to protect congressional power: Congress.
[snip]
The framers put their faith not in an all-wise, all-knowing Executive but in a republican form of government where sovereign power remains with the people and their interests are [only...] protected by the structure of separated powers and the operation of checks and balances.
- Louis Fisher, Library of Congress, 4/10/08
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/fis041008.htm
The Article I congressional power to declare war is not limited to the formal power of issuing a declaration, nor to authorizing full-scale wars, but was intended to give Congress the power to decide whether the United States should initiate any offensive military hostilities, however big or little, or for whatever purposes. - Law Professor Jules Lobel, 4/10/08
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/lob041008.htm
The starting point must be the Constitution. In its earliest cases, the Supreme Court recognized a president's obligation to respect congressional restrictions when Congress has authorized "imperfect war" - a war fought for limited purposes. In an imperfect war, Justice Bushrod Washington said in Bas v. Tingy, 4 U.S. 37, 41 (1800), those "who are authorized to commit hostilities . . . can go no farther than to the extent of their commission." The following year, in Talbot v. Seeman, 5 U.S. 1, 27 (1801), Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that "[t]he whole powers of war being, by the Constitution of the United States, vested in Congress, the acts of that body can alone be resorted to as our guides in this enquiry." In the 2001 AUMF and in the 2002 Joint Resolution on Iraq, Congress in effect authorized limited or "imperfect" war. The President is therefore constitutionally required to respect the limits imposed in those two laws; Congress has implicitly prohibited any use of force not authorized therein, and the President's authority is at its "lowest ebb" - lower than it might have been had Congress been silent. This is the critical lesson imparted by Justice Jackson's famous concurring opinion in the Steel Seizure Case, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), which has since been adopted by the Supreme Court as the governing analytic framework.[snip]
Because serious ambiguities are present in both the 2002 Joint Resolution and the AUMF if they are construed as authorizing the use of force in Iraq [today], it cannot be said that either statute "specifically" does so.
This section also undercuts Ambassador Satterfield's claim that authority may be inferred from the fact that "Congress has repeatedly provided funding for the Iraq war, both in regular appropriations cycles and in supplemental appropriations." The [WPR] section explicitly provides that authority to introduce the armed forces into hostilities "shall not be inferred…from any provision of law…, including any provision contained in any appropriation Act," unless those two conditions are met. No appropriations act meets either condition.
Accordingly, the War Powers Resolution precludes inferring authority to [continue to] use force in Iraq from the 2002 Joint Resolution, from the AUMF, or from any appropriations legislation.
- International Law Professor Michael Glennon, 4/10/08
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/gle041008.htm
Read Professor Glennon's full statement to learn of just one straightforward approach to ending our amoral occupation of Iraq, which requires unilateral authority from only one branch of government; authority not from the Executive Branch, but from the Legislative Branch, which alone holds the power, and whose members have all taken an honor-bound oath - in accorance with their Constitutional duties - to 'make war policy' for our nation.
http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/sub_oversight.asp
A heads-up for people interested in hearing Congressional testimony from Philippe Sands, the British author of The Torture Team, and from National Lawyers' Guild President Marjorie Cohn. The House Judiciary Committee's Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee has the following agenda Tuesday morning:
Tuesday 05/06/2008 - 10:00 AM2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Hearing on: From the Department of Justice to Guantanamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules, Part I
Witness List:
~Philippe Sands, QC
Professor of Law, University College London
Barrister, Matrix Chambers
~Marjorie Cohn
Professor of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
President, National Lawyers Guild
~David B. Rivkin, Jr.
Partner, Baker & Hostetler, LLP
~David J. Luban
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
It appears that C-SPAN will not be airing this important hearing (although they may record it for later broadcast), but there will be a live streaming webcast available via the committee's website:
http://judiciary.house.gov/schedule.aspx
Immediately preceding that hearing is this official business, concerning two other witnesses who were asked, but declined, to attend Tuesday's session to testify to our representatives about actions taken in our name by appointees of our Executive Branch of government:
Tuesday 05/06/2008 - 9:30 AM2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Meeting to consider: To consider a resolution authorizing the Chairman of the Committee to issue subpoenas to David Addington and John C. Yoo
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
