maybe if I thought the war was justified or well run I'd feel a little better about Bush's extra wartime powers...
Civil war, WWI, WWII >>>>> Iraq war, I should hope. I haven't heard anyone saying Bush has used his wartime privs to the degree of Lincoln, FDR, or Wilson. It's also pretty obnoxious to me he apparently didn't care about the crippling debt war would have on our country when combined with his tax plan. But of course, those "borrow and spend" conservatives are so much better than "tax and spend" liberals!
maybe if I thought the war was justified or well run I'd feel a little better about Bush's extra wartime powers...
The war was justified regarding Afghanistan by the 9-11 attacks, and regarding Iraq by Saddam Hussein's violation of the truce terms, including armed attacks on US forces. What more "justification" do you need?
Whether or not the war was "well run" is open to debate. I think that the 2001-02 Afghanistan and 2003 Iraq campaigns were very well run, as was the finall 2007-08 campaign that resulted in victory in Iraq. I have less praise for our handling of Iraq in 2004-06, which directly caused the overall War on Terror to bog down for years.
As near as I can tell, there were a) no proof of WMD in Iraq (I know, I know, some folks say they were moved to Syria - as of right now all I know the reason we attacked Iraq was never proven) and b) by the accounts I heard there was next to no effort to train people in the local language, in cultural relations, etc. Then there's Gitmo - a terrible idea. I do not believe the ends justify the means, and I don't care if it "wasn't really torture". Yes I do think the prisoners ought ought to be treated with kid gloves and set up in a luxury hotel - we are trying to get the populace to work with us and that means a PR war. Bush seems pretty crummy with PR. And now we have a bigger debt than ever. How was this a good idea???
To the second point -- while I wish that we would return to formal Declarations of War again (because this is arguably necessary to activate the Presidential emergency powers), I will point out that we did not make a formal Declaration of War in 1861 (our argument was that the Confederacy wasn't an independent Power, but a rebel conspiracy) and that we in fact commenced warlike operations against the Japanese before FDR's declaration (both in the sense of covert aid to China, and in the sense that the military at Pearl Harbor fired back at their attackers. A Declaration of War is not necessary if the enemy attacks first (as they did on 9-11) and it is in any case really, really dumb to become so obsessed by the letter of the law that one forgets its spirit
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Unfortunately, the left has been using the same "living document" interpretation of the Constitution for the past 40 years, especially with the Supreme Court in the 60's, with much of the "rights" being interpreted "for the spirit of the law" (see Roe v. Wade).
Actually, the treating as equivalent of other authorizations as de facto Declarations of War has been done throughout the history of the American Republic. All the Indian Wars, and all our wars in Latin America, Africa, the Mideast and Asia were fought without Declarations of War save for the Mexican War, Spanish-American War, and World War II. Did you know that?
So there's extensive precedent for what we've done since World War II. I just think that we should have gotten formal declarations of war for Korea, Vietnam, and both Gulf Wars, because it would have strengthened the legal position of the executive branch in all those cases.
When you are complaining that we have fought wars without formal declarations of war since 1945, consider that if we had obtained such
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" if we had obtained such declarations, people like Jane Fonda and Michael Moore would have probably wound up doing hard time for "aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime.""
Now you're just teasing us ... my elder daughter's best friend's parents are the sort that (as I keep telling her) "should be very glad the Sedition laws are generally ignored"!
Oh, and George W. Bush is not my "idol." If you somehow failed to grasp the point despite that I said it explicitly a few entries back, I judge him to have been only a "good" President -- not a "great" one.
It's a matter of point of view. To me, this isn't a war, despite the scale, any more than I consider what we do to fight fire ants or organized crime "war". The word may be used in a casual sense, but as the Daleks said about the Cybermen, "This is not war! This is pest control!"
Actually treating it as war legitimizes the Terrorists, gives the impression that they are coequal with actual countries. And they aren't; they're just a bunch of nasty little thugs which have no importance nor legitimacy, and whose GOALS are being fulfilled by our according them any,
We're talking about people whose stated goal is to subdue the world under Islamic rule. This is a political idealogy which encompasses every aspect of human life. It is diametrically opposed to any concept of freedom that we are used to in the U.S. and other free societies.
They desire to accomplish this goal whether through violent means or non violent means. They have shown the seriousness of their goals by their actions throughout history, all around the world. It is not just talk.
These are the people you are comparing to fire ants or organized crime?
Where is this world of yours? It sounds better than Disneyland to me.
It's unbelievable to me that adults think this way.
The Terrorists include states such as Iran and Syria. Your "treat them like criminals, not military enemies" argument ignores the existence of the Terrorist States.
Largely because of the Cold War. The powers were re-separating under Clinton (in part because he was such a dwarf in terms of earning respect), but then came 9-11.
One of the worst developments of American history was the fact that the South was constitutionally right but morally very, very wrong in the Civil War. The result was that Federal power was openly used to achieve what amounted to an unconstitutional but highly desirable end: the abolition of the organized practice of kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, rape, assault, murder, and theft which was "slavery."
I'm not sorry that the North won: the South winning would have been a disaster for this nation and this Earth. But if only the Founders could have slain slavery at the start, so that this didn't have to happen ...
Exactly. I would never say that the South was morally correct, however it does stand as fact that the North enforced slavery upon individuals until such time that slavery was no longer economically efficient. As well, even Washington held slaves...even in the White House. Such was the times. Slavery is part of Americas past...albeit not an attractive portion.
Happily the Founders did forsee change, and left the Constitution open for it, allowing for the abolition of slavery (and hopefully the future equalization of all American people, no matter color, religion, gender, sex, or sexuality). They may not have been able or willing to allow for it then, but they were wise enough to know someone down the line would. It's really too bad that such wise minds are a rare thing anymore, especially in politics.
... however it does stand as fact that the North enforced slavery upon individuals until such time that slavery was no longer economically efficient.
The reason we abolished slavery was moral: America was influenced by the same currents of religiously-based liberal morality (yes, I know that sounds strange, but that's what actually happened in the 18th and 19th centuries) which led Britain to ban slavery a bit earlier. It is true, though, that a society practicing bourgeois virtues and honoring successful merchants was necessary to enable the transition: the elite of Classical Greco-Roman Antiquity notably failed the identical test, even though they were well aware that slaves were as human as themselves
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Civil war, WWI, WWII >>>>> Iraq war, I should hope. I haven't heard anyone saying Bush has used his wartime privs to the degree of Lincoln, FDR, or Wilson.
It's also pretty obnoxious to me he apparently didn't care about the crippling debt war would have on our country when combined with his tax plan. But of course, those "borrow and spend" conservatives are so much better than "tax and spend" liberals!
*hates both parties pretty equally now*
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The war was justified regarding Afghanistan by the 9-11 attacks, and regarding Iraq by Saddam Hussein's violation of the truce terms, including armed attacks on US forces. What more "justification" do you need?
Whether or not the war was "well run" is open to debate. I think that the 2001-02 Afghanistan and 2003 Iraq campaigns were very well run, as was the finall 2007-08 campaign that resulted in victory in Iraq. I have less praise for our handling of Iraq in 2004-06, which directly caused the overall War on Terror to bog down for years.
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And now we have a bigger debt than ever. How was this a good idea???
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*goes back to lurking*
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Actually, the treating as equivalent of other authorizations as de facto Declarations of War has been done throughout the history of the American Republic. All the Indian Wars, and all our wars in Latin America, Africa, the Mideast and Asia were fought without Declarations of War save for the Mexican War, Spanish-American War, and World War II. Did you know that?
So there's extensive precedent for what we've done since World War II. I just think that we should have gotten formal declarations of war for Korea, Vietnam, and both Gulf Wars, because it would have strengthened the legal position of the executive branch in all those cases.
When you are complaining that we have fought wars without formal declarations of war since 1945, consider that if we had obtained such ( ... )
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Now you're just teasing us ... my elder daughter's best friend's parents are the sort that (as I keep telling her) "should be very glad the Sedition laws are generally ignored"!
( ... )
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Actually treating it as war legitimizes the Terrorists, gives the impression that they are coequal with actual countries. And they aren't; they're just a bunch of nasty little thugs which have no importance nor legitimacy, and whose GOALS are being fulfilled by our according them any,
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They desire to accomplish this goal whether through violent means or non violent means. They have shown the seriousness of their goals by their actions throughout history, all around the world. It is not just talk.
These are the people you are comparing to fire ants or organized crime?
Where is this world of yours? It sounds better than Disneyland to me.
It's unbelievable to me that adults think this way.
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I'm not sorry that the North won: the South winning would have been a disaster for this nation and this Earth. But if only the Founders could have slain slavery at the start, so that this didn't have to happen ...
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Happily the Founders did forsee change, and left the Constitution open for it, allowing for the abolition of slavery (and hopefully the future equalization of all American people, no matter color, religion, gender, sex, or sexuality). They may not have been able or willing to allow for it then, but they were wise enough to know someone down the line would. It's really too bad that such wise minds are a rare thing anymore, especially in politics.
Reply
The reason we abolished slavery was moral: America was influenced by the same currents of religiously-based liberal morality (yes, I know that sounds strange, but that's what actually happened in the 18th and 19th centuries) which led Britain to ban slavery a bit earlier. It is true, though, that a society practicing bourgeois virtues and honoring successful merchants was necessary to enable the transition: the elite of Classical Greco-Roman Antiquity notably failed the identical test, even though they were well aware that slaves were as human as themselves ( ... )
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