- Posts: 3660
- Thank you received: 0
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
I think he'd have a conflict of interest.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Under the circumstances, doing nothing would not only be profoundly irresponsible, it would also violate our core belief in the imperative of respecting essential human rights. Yet, having studied our history, we also know that the potential for unintended consequences -- for a bad situation to be turned into something worse -- are real, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, or due to wishful thinking.
Books have been written about the challenges of humanitarian intervention, but here's a very quick-and-dirty summary of three of the most daunting.
1) Mission creep
You can go through the history of multilateral interventions -- from Korea through Somalia (but not in Rwanda so soon after getting humiliated in Mogadishu) -- and what you'll find in virtually every case is not a single Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force, but a series of them authorizing ever-greater military involvement in the conflict. This reality cannot be ignored.
2) Insufficient resources
In the case of military interventions, under-funding can lead to disastrous results, with the most obvious example being the horrific failure of UNAMIR leading up to and during the Rwanda genocide.
3) Politicization
That an intervention be widely perceived as legitimate is not just some abstract academic issue. It is an almost surreal inconsistency that the West is intervening against a despot in Libya even as its closest allies in the region intervene to support another in neighboring Bahrain.
While much of the media presents an unquestioning, sanitized version of the war -- cable news hosts more focused on interviewing retired generals about America’s fancy killing machines than the actual, bloody facts on the ground -- the truth is that wars, even liberal-minded “humanitarian” ones, entail destroying people and places. Though cloaked in altruism that would be more believable were we dealing with monasteries, not nation-states, the war in Libya is no different. And innocents pay the price.
If protecting civilians from evil dictators was the goal, though -- as opposed to, say, safeguarding natural resources and the investments of major oil companies -- there’s an easier, safer way than aerial bombardment for the U.S. and its allies to consider: simply stop arming and propping up evil dictators.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
That was then, this is now and they were only talking about someone who belonged to the opposition party, not members of their own party. Besides, if it was good enough for Truman, Reagan, and Clinton, why that settles the matter entirely, doesn't it? Who cares what was said before one occupies their current position, it wasn't that THE President didn't have the power under the Constitution, it was THAT President that didn't have the power under the Constitution. The Constitution is a fungible document after all, isn't it? It doesn't mean what it actually says, it means what any given set of people who happen to be in power says it means - right?outdoor338 wrote: Biden: I Will Make it My Business to Impeach President Who Goes to War Without Congressional Approval
'The President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.' -Senator Barack Obama, December 20, 2007
http://visiontoamerica.org/story/biden- ... roval.html
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
outdoor338 wrote: Biden: I Will Make it My Business to Impeach President Who Goes to War Without Congressional Approval
'The President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.' -Senator Barack Obama, December 20, 2007
http://visiontoamerica.org/story/biden- ... roval.html
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Bush says he will fire anyone who breaks law
President will fire anyone who committed crime in CIA leak
WASHINGTON — President Bush said Monday that he would fire anyone in his administration who had leaked the identity of a CIA officer — if the leak broke the law.
Time reporter Matthew Cooper has said Karl Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff and closest political adviser, was the first person to disclose to him that an administration critic's wife worked for the CIA. She was subsequently identified as Valerie Plame.
Report: Bush White House Aides Broke Law During 2006 Campaign
By Elspeth Reeve Jan 25, 2011
Federal law known as the Hatch Act prohibits staffers with salaries paid by taxpayers from engaging in partisan political activity on the public's dime. White House aides to George W. Bush broke these laws, Politicos's Josh Gerstein reports. Not only was the entire White House Office of Political Affairs staffed engaged in helping Republican candidates during the 2006 midterm elections, the Office of Special Counsel finds, but the OPA staffers actually thought the electioneering was part of their official duties.The aides tracked how much cash came in at fundraisers for national and local GOP events. Seven Cabinet secretaries claimed to be traveling on official business when they were actually taking trips for political work.
Fox legal analyst: Bush should have been indicted
Fox News' senior judicial analyst made some surprising remarks Saturday that may go against the grain at his conservative network.
In a interview with Ralph Nader on C-SPAN's Book TV to promote his book Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew Napolitano said that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should have been indicted for "torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant."
The judge believes that it is a fallacy to say that the US treats suspects as innocent until proven guilty. "The government acts as if a defendant is guilty merely on the basis of an accusation," said Napolitano.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.