On why I don't have many friends...

I grew up in a family that prized debate. As the son of two San Francisco lawyers, my memories of our evening meals is littered with small and large debates about aspects of cases my parents or their colleagues were working on. In retrospect, I believe they were trying to get a feel for how a jury might react to particular presentations of the law, searching for what might be most compelling. But I had no idea at the time, I just loved to argue. And I was pretty good at it. My dad gave me few gifts as I was growing up, but he gave me a framed Bullshit Artist plaque. To this day I'm not really sure if it was meant as a compliment, but I do know that it wasn't a random gift :)

Anyway, my impression of good advocacy, gleaned from my formative years in these evening discussions, was the value of understanding things from as many perspectives as possible. It makes sense - how can you undermine a position without truly understanding the values it represents? And I learned the art of being a "devil's advocate"; always working on articulating an argument for a number of different positions. I don't know if I was really very good at it, but my own natural empathy gave me confidence in voicing positions that weren't necessarily my own. As I grew up and out of that environment, this facility stayed with me and grown, and it has made me a bit of a strange bird.

I am more empathetic with the arguments of pro-lifers than pro-choicers. From the perspective of principal, pro-choicers are on very shaky moral ground. A "woman's right to choose" is a euphemism that disguises more than it reveals. From personal experience, I can tell you that the choice to abort a baby is one that is never forgotten. Despite those feelings, I would never, ever vote to outlaw abortion. The historical facts are undeniable - woman will make the choice to abort their babies whether it is legal or not and the consequences for making it illegal was to drive it underground and make it dangerous. I believe that, despite the moral and ethical implications, outlawing abortion endangers people unacceptably. On top of that, pro-lifers use abortion abuse their position, which is really about chastity and abstinence. The leaders of these groups are not interested in protecting life, or they would be more interested in make contraception more readily available. They are interested in keeping unmarried people from engaging in pre-marital sex because they believe society is better served by this observance. But in a civil society, that is not their choice. We are a nation of laws and you can't legislate morality. People have to be free to make those choices. In the end, I believe the position of pro-lifers leads to as many abortions as pro-choicers. And, in fact, the antagonism of the two camps makes impossible a reasoned effort to reduce the need for abortions. Nobody wants to give an inch and it makes me sick.

By heredity and nature, I am a liberal. In my definition, that means that I believe that things can be, by our own ingenuity, made better than they are now. I do not believe that our institutions are infallible and sacrosanct, but I think they are better than the alternatives.

Anyway, back to the reason why I don't have many friends; I'm starting to believe that it is because my positions, contorted as they are, don't place me firmly enough in any particular "camp". I don't know if it makes people inaccessible to me or me to them or some combination of both. But in looking at the comments from others to my blog, going on two years now, it's difficult to argue that my thesis is not accurate.

So, do me a favor. If you read this, throw me a comment. Even a "read it" would be exceedingly gratifying.

The power to declare... Surge!

It's worth reviewing the War Powers Resolution as we approach a showdown over the "Surge".

War Powers Resolution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The War Powers Act of 1973 (Public Law 93-148) limits the power of the President of the United States to wage war without the approval of Congress. The War Powers Act of 1973 is also referred to as the War Powers Resolution (Sec. 1).Contents
1 Provisions
2 History
3 Basis of Legality
4 See also
5 References
6 External links


Provisions

The purpose of the War Powers Resolution is to ensure that Congress and the President share in making decisions that may get the U.S. involved in hostilities. Portions of the War Powers Resolution require the President to consult with Congress prior to the start of any hostilities as well as regularly until U.S. armed forces are no longer engaged in hostilities (Sec. 3); and to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities if Congress has not declared war or passed a resolution authorizing the use of force within 60 days (Sec. 5(b)). Following an official request by the President to Congress, the time limit can be extended by an additional 30 days (presumably when "unavoidable military necessity" requires additional action for a safe withdrawal).

History

Under the Constitution, war powers are divided. Congress has the power to declare war and raise and support the armed forces (Article I, Section 8), while the president is Commander in Chief (Article II, Section 2). It is generally agreed that the Commander in Chief role gives the president power to repel attacks against the United States and makes him responsible for leading the armed forces. During the Korean and Vietnam wars, the United States found itself involved for many years in situations of intense conflict without a declaration of war. Many Members of Congress became concerned with the erosion of congressional authority to decide when the United States should become involved in a war or the use of armed forces that might lead to war. The Senate and the House of Representatives achieved the 2/3 majority required to pass this joint resolution over President Nixon's veto on November 7, 1973. Presidents have submitted 118 reports to Congress as a result of the War Powers Resolution, although only one (the Mayaguez situation) cited Section 4(a)(1) or specifically stated that forces had been introduced into hostilities or imminent danger.

Congress invoked the War Powers Resolution in the Multinational Force in Lebanon Resolution (P.L. 98-119), which authorized the Marines to remain in Lebanon for 18 months. In addition, P.L. 102-1, authorizing the use of U.S. armed forces concerning the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, stated that it constituted specific statutory authorization within the meaning of the War Powers Resolution.

On November 9, 1993, the House used a section of the War Powers Resolution to state that U.S. forces should be withdrawn from Somalia by March 31, 1994; Congress had already taken this action in appropriations legislation. More recently, war powers have been at issue in former Yugoslavia/Bosnia/Kosovo, Iraq, Haiti, and in responding to terrorist attacks against the U.S. after September 11, 2001. After combat operations against Iraqi forces ended on February 28, 1991, the use of force to obtain Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions remained a War Powers issue, until the enactment of P.L. 107-243, in October 2002, which explicitly authorized the President to use force against Iraq, an authority he exercised in March 2003, and continues to exercise for military operations in Iraq.

Basis of Legality

There remain underlying questions about its constitutionality (though not a formal declaration of war) consistent with the provisions of the resolution. The reports to Congress required of the President have been drafted to state that they are "consistent with" the War Powers Resolution rather than "pursuant to" so as to take into account the Presidential position that the Resolution is unconstitutional.

One argument for the unconstitutionality of the War Powers Resolution — Philip Bobbitt's in "War Powers: An Essay on John Hart Ely's War and Responsibility: Constitutional Lessons of Vietnam and Its Aftermath," Michigan Law Quarterly 92, no. 6 (May 1994): 1364–1400 — runs as follows: "The power to make war is not an enumerated power" and the notion that to "declare" war is to "commence" war is a "contemporary textual preconception"; the Framers of the Constitution believed that statutory authorization was the route by which the United States would be committed to war, and that 'declaration' was meant for only total wars, as shown by the history of the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800); in general, constitutional powers are not so much separated as "linked and sequenced"; Congress's control over the armed forces is "structured" by appropriation, while the president commands; thus the act of declaring war should not be fetishized. (Bobbitt, the nephew of Lyndon Johnson, also argues that "A democracy cannot… tolerate secret policies" because they undermine the legitimacy of governmental action.)

A second constitutionality argument concerns a possible breach of the 'separation of powers' doctrine. The legislature may be impeding the executive in carrying-out the Oath of Office. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability; preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." (US Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8) This type of constitutional controversy is similar to one that occurred under President Andrew Johnson with the Tenure of Office Act (1867). In that instance, the Legislative branch attempted to control the removal of Executive branch officers.

On December 20th, 2005, ABC News reported that vice-president Dick Cheney had described the War Powers Resolution as an "infringement on the authority of the president." [1] (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1424802&page=1)

See also
War Powers Clause (of the Constitution)

References

Richard F. Grimmett "War Powers Resolution: Presidential Compliance" Congressional Research Service Report. Updated February 14, 2006

External links
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/warpower.htm
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding the War Powers Resolution (http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/search.tkl?q=war+powers+resolution&search_crit=title&search=Search&date1=Anytime&date2=Anytime&type=form)
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/warpow.html
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32267.htm

Category: United States federal defense and national security legislation
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As long as we're comparing them... a small refresher on the end game in Vietnam

history lesson
How Vietnam Really Ended
Events abroad—not domestic anti-war activism—brought the war to an end.
By Gideon Rose
Posted Monday, Jan. 22, 2007, at 11:14 AM ET


With the Iraq war going badly and a hostile Congress looking for the exit, comparisons to Vietnam are all the rage. Accounts of that war's endgame have generally been spun politically or distorted by hindsight, however.

Congressional anti-war activism, for example, was neither a heroic reining in of a runaway government (as the left claims) nor a perfidious stab in the back (as the right charges). It was simply the predictable epilogue to a drama that had largely played itself out years before. And while domestic politics established the broad guidelines within which different administrations operated, White House officials had substantial leeway to set policy as they wished. The real constraints, then as now, lay not in what was saleable at home but in what was achievable abroad.

From the start, the United States was fighting not to lose in Vietnam, rather than to win. In the 1960s, U.S. leaders believed that the fall of South Vietnam to communism would have terrible consequences, so they decided to prevent such an outcome by whatever means necessary. At first, this meant providing U.S. aid and advisers; then it meant facilitating the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem; then, bombing North Vietnam; and, finally, sending U.S. ground troops to fight Communist forces directly. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the toughest question—whether to accept the true costs of victory or defeat—was avoided. By gradually increasing the scale of the American effort, it was hoped, the Communists could be persuaded to cease and desist.

Once the patience of the American public wore thin, such an approach was no longer feasible. The Tet Offensive soured much of the establishment on the war and inclined them toward disengagement. Johnson himself, unwilling either to withdraw or to escalate, chose instead to renounce his re-election attempt, cap the war effort, and hunker down. He never accepted defeat, but the limits he set on American operations became political facts that restricted the choices available to his successor.

Coming into office in January 1969, Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, understood that part of their mandate was to end the war in some way, and they wanted to do so for their own geopolitical reasons, as well. Still, they had no intention of "losing" the war outright or of abandoning South Vietnam under pressure from the enemy. So, they tried at first to achieve an old goal—an agreement formalizing simultaneous American and North Vietnamese military disengagement—with various new means, buying breathing space at home with token troop withdrawals. But the effort failed, and the war dragged on.

By late 1969, the Nixon team settled on a new approach combining gradual withdrawal, temporary protection of the regime of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, and intense diplomacy to enshrine these elements in a negotiated settlement. In the spring of 1969, there were almost 550,000 American troops in Vietnam. By the spring of 1970, there were over 400,000; by the fall of 1971, 180,000; by the spring of 1972, 65,000. The troop withdrawals undermined the Thieu regime's long-term security, but Washington took other measures (such as the Phoenix Program and assaults against Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos) to help protect it over the short term.

The administration did something similar at the negotiating table, formally protecting the Saigon government while ultimately agreeing to conditions that lowered its chances of survival. In September 1970, for example, Kissinger agreed that Northern troops could remain in the South after a settlement. Such a "cease-fire in place" would allow the Communist forces to renew their offensives with ease once the Americans had left; any agreement based on it would make an eventual Communist victory extremely likely. The North Vietnamese were unmoved, however, and persisted in demanding the one concession American leaders refused to make: a direct and immediate betrayal of Thieu and his government.

In the spring of 1972, the North Vietnamese launched a massive attack against the South (the "Easter Offensive") that gained ground at first but was eventually halted by South Vietnamese resistance, American tactical air support, and American strategic bombing. The Nixon administration's courting of the North's key patrons began to pay off, meanwhile, as Russia and China now sought to dampen the flames rather than fan them.

So, negotiations began to move forward, and by mid-October Kissinger and his North Vietnamese counterpart worked out a draft agreement that called for the removal of the remaining U.S. troops and the return of U.S. prisoners of war while deferring ultimate decisions about the South's political future. Kissinger knew it was the best deal available, but he also knew that it stacked the odds against the long-term survival of the Saigon regime. To bypass South Vietnamese objections, therefore, he decided to keep his negotiations secret until the last minute and then force Saigon to accept the final product.

But Thieu balked when presented with the fait accompli, pleading in tears for the Americans to hold out for better conditions. Nixon refused to force Thieu into line, so Kissinger had to tell the North Vietnamese that the signing of the agreement would be postponed. They retaliated by publicly revealing the deal (and the American commitment to it). This was the point at which Kissinger, desperate to keep the momentum moving forward, declared at a press conference that "peace is at hand."

The American presidential election came and went, but the negotiating deadlock remained. Tantalized and frustrated by the settlement at their fingertips, Nixon and his advisers decided on a final stratagem to end the war. To allay Thieu's fears, they ordered a massive quick infusion of aid to the South and promised to continue support after the agreement was signed; meanwhile, to get the North Vietnamese back to the table, they ordered devastating airstrikes.

The "Christmas bombing" succeeded in compelling Hanoi's assent while helping to cover up Washington's insistence that Saigon accept an agreement similar to the one negotiated in October. Thus pulling along a reluctant ally and enemy, the United States signed the Paris Accords on Jan. 27, 1973, formally extricating itself from the Vietnam War.

Nixon's private guarantee to Thieu in November had been clear: "You have my absolute assurance that if Hanoi fails to abide by the terms of this agreement it is my intention to take swift and severe retaliatory action." He repeated the pledge in January. Later on, he and Kissinger argued that they had always intended to carry out these promises and fully expected they would be able to do so—but they could not because Congress barred the way.

"Soon after the agreement was signed," Kissinger wrote in his memoirs, "Watergate undermined Nixon's authority and the dam holding back Congressional antiwar resolutions burst." He claimed, "The war and the peace ... won at such cost were lost within a matter of months once Congress refused to fulfill our obligations."

It is true that Congress restricted U.S. operations and cut aid to the South, and these moves did indeed facilitate the eventual Northern victory. But these events were entirely predictable; the settlement the Nixon administration negotiated left the South vulnerable to future attacks. To the American public, the most important fact about the Paris Accords was that American troops and prisoners came home; it was precisely because a guarantee of renewed U.S. military intervention would have been so controversial that Nixon had to make his promises to Thieu in secret.

After January 1973, as before, Vietnamese belligerents on both sides kept up military pressure and prepared for a final showdown. But the American public tried to blot the war out of its consciousness—and largely succeeded. A consensus formed that the United States should not re-engage and should reduce its remaining involvement still further. Reflecting this, in June 1973, Congress ordered all U.S. military operations in Indochina to cease by the end of the summer, and in November it passed the War Powers Act.

Congress also cut U.S. aid to Saigon, from about $2.3 billion in 1973 to about $1 billion in 1974 and still less after that. Together with the 1973 oil crisis, which crippled what remained of the South Vietnamese economy, this made it difficult for Saigon to use the expensive high-tech war machine it had been given. So, even if Watergate never occurred, it would have been difficult for the Nixon administration to counter Northern attacks in any substantial way. That said, the developing Watergate scandals did eliminate whatever freedom of action the administration had left.

In late 1974, the North Vietnamese leadership calculated that American re-entry to help the South was unlikely, and they launched a campaign to win the war once and for all. Their initial victories in the spring of 1975 came easily. At this point, Kissinger, now Gerald Ford's secretary of state, recommended a final desperate burst of U.S. help, but the new president acquiesced to public and congressional objections.

On April 23, Ford told a cheering crowd of students that national pride could not "be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned." Thieu outlasted Nixon by eight months; on May Day 1975, Communist soldiers hoisted their flag above the erstwhile capital of South Vietnam, now Ho Chi Minh City.

It has been said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. On the Vietnam timeline, in Iraq today the Bush administration is roughly where the Nixon administration was in 1969-70: Washington has been unable to find or create a strong and dependable local ally, the American public has lost faith, and working-level officials are desperately casting about for ways to pull off a retreat instead of a rout. One key difference, however, is that Bush himself seems to be stuck where Johnson was back in 1968—unwilling to accept that his war is in fact lost or that the game is not worth the candle. He has two years left on his personal clock. With another electoral season fast approaching, his Congressional counterparts and would-be successors have less.
Gideon Rose is managing editor of Foreign Affairs; he is writing a book about the ends of American wars.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2158016/

Copyright 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Taboo political subjects...

It is nearly impossible to find stories connecting these kinds of dots in MSM. Our political system has been completely undermined by cold, hard cash. Is there really any doubt?

The Iraq War and Crony Democracy
By Henry Pelifian
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Wednesday 24 January 2007

Has our form of government evolved into crony democracy? What is crony democracy, and how does it relate to the Iraq War? What is crony capitalism? Let us start with crony capitalism, for it begins there.

Crony capitalism is the practice of government supporting specific companies or industries for favorable treatment in legislation, government grants, legal permits and beneficial tax laws. The concepts of open competition and free markets do not apply, because government actively intervenes to assist privileged corporations. In crony capitalism, there is a close relationship between government and corporations, and their actions towards each other are mutually financially beneficial. National laws and regulations are enacted that provide special permission for particular companies for acquisitions, mergers, real estate transactions and tax benefits. The quid pro quo for Republican and Democratic politicians are campaign donations, future jobs for themselves or relatives, and are disguised or hidden perks in exchange for favorable legislation for privileged organizations. Crony democracy occurs when crony capitalism merges with democracy, with major players becoming interchangeable with the lobbying promoting it.

President Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex's undue and adverse influence on the country was prescient and prophetic. Contracts for military hardware were the hallmark of the military-industrial complex in his era. Now it has extended and grown to taking over logistic and myriad other functions of the US military and government overseas, often creating a revolving chair of government and corporate employees securing government contracts domestically and internationally by using high-level contacts while in government for private gain. It appears that the concept of public service has become a major instrument for accessing and obtaining wealth. There is little prohibition of our elected and appointed former government officials to work for private companies, using their influence to assist in securing high-value government contracts.

A prime example of crony capitalism, extensively outlined in Robert Bryce's book "Cronies" is the company Brown and Root, with its subsidiary Halliburton garnering billions of dollars worth of government contracts in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney is Halliburton's former chief executive officer. Cheney traded his government contacts when he was hired by Halliburton for domestic and foreign contracts with people with whom he formerly had conducted official business. There was no conflict of interest charge against Vice President Cheney when his former firm Halliburton secured billions of dollars of US government contracts in Iraq.

Mr. Bryce states in his book that Dick Cheney departed Halliburton after five years with a retirement package worth $33.7 million dollars, shortly before being sworn in as vice president of the United States. Vice President Cheney also received deferred compensation from Halliburton totaling nearly $400,000 while in office.

In "Cronies," it is clear why Halliburton hired Mr. Cheney, for he "knew how to vacuum up federal money and federal contracts." Other facts from "Cronies": During Cheney's tenure at Halliburton, he nearly doubled the amount of federal contracts to $2.3 billion. Also, Cheney assisted the parent company, Brown & Root, in receiving a fifteenfold increase in federally backed loans and insurance from the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Mr. Cheney understood the importance of lobbying, for he doubled political donations while at Halliburton.

According to the Center for Public Integrity and mentioned in "Cronies," seventy companies and individuals who were substantial contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign have been awarded billions of dollars in contracts in Iraq.

Have we become a nation of lobbyists, for lobbyists, and by lobbyists? The crony democracy chain links politicians, government appointees, corporations, government contracts and lobbyists. The chain includes interchangeable employment with each successive administration from government officials to corporate CEO or Washington lobbyist. The goal is profit at government expense. What is the financial calculation of waste and abuse in such a system?

Should it be legal for former government employees to use their prior government experience to enrich themselves by securing lucrative government contracts? What is the public interest? The question is not only about Cheney. What of the many other former government and military employees who trade their government experience and influence for private gain? When is former government service, especially by high-ranking officials, an abuse of the public trust, when they use their influence for private gain?

Is elected office just another avenue to gain access to wealth and privilege? Should there be a long-term prohibition of elected officials and retired military personnel from working with firms the government has done business with?

We have now embarked upon a new age of crony democracy, where each of the two major political parties, Democratic and Republican, exclusively harness hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations and others to campaign for public office. Crony democracy requires cronies. Former Secretary of State James Baker III's law firm Baker Botts handles the legal affairs of Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil and an assortment of major companies for annual revenues of $362 million dollars, according to the book "Cronies." Former employees of Baker Botts have been appointed to such jobs as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Department of Justice lawyer heading up the anti-trust division with oversight over energy issues.

Is it plausible for Americans to ask, Were the corporations that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had close relationships with a factor in the decision-making process to attack Iraq, since many of these companies secured multimillion or multibillion-dollar government contracts as a result of the Iraq War? Were government contracts directly relating to the Iraq War signed with companies with Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld connections prior to the attack on Iraq, and is this a conflict of interest?

The answer is not in stars; it is in intense scrutiny of the ever-widening circle of the military-industrial complex and implementing legislation that is currently absent, by curtailing or curbing or eliminating this new age of crony capitalism and crony democracy that has descended upon the American people and their government.

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Henry Pelifian's background includes public and private sector experience and an MBA in International Management. He has served many years overseas, including two years (1966-1968 ); an honorable discharge from US Army service in Vietnam (1967-1968), and the US Peace Corps in Thailand (1975-1977). He has written several works of fiction based on his experiences overseas. His parents were born in Turkey and escaped the Armenian Genocide. His father entered the US in 1921, and his mother's family went to France.

The Great Terror and ruminations about a forgotten pardon

I don't know about you, but since I first heard the use of the phrase, "The War on Terror", I've had this weird deja vu about having heard it before.... it was so familiar, but not distant... A war against an emotional reaction has always seemed, well, a little silly, but in a darkly fantastical way. After all the years with this nagging feeling pulling on my subconscious, I finally happened across this piece by Stephen Lendman which brought it all flooding back. The French Revolution was never really a favorite period for me, but this is a solid piece of scholorship noting the amazing similarities between the NeoCon agenda and that of the post-Revolutionary Jacobins.

The second weirdness came up in the wake of Gerald Ford's wake. The era and events that unfolded around Ford's pardoning of Nixon was, for a lot of folks like myself, a history that is almost mythological. I was truly surprised after reading this piece from Slate. Who knew that Veep Agnew resigned just eight months before Nixon with the threat of prosecution on his heals. Ford's decision to protect America from "our long national nightmare" now seems quite quaint, as anyone that was exposed to the Lewinski scandle would attest to. I find myself leaning towards the idea that the Nixon pardon - for crimes not even defined at the time - established a bad precedent that has rippled through time, corrupting as it aged. Bush I's pardoning of key players in the Iran-Contra scandle rushes to the front of the line, particularly the pardon of Cap just 12 days before he was to go on trial for purjury, a case where H.W. could have found himself a material witness... Connecting the dots was supposed to be fun and informative, but it's really just informative.