Dems as responsible for Iraq as Bush?

Great Debates
81

Always the parsing literalist, eh, John?

Just as you say, the context is important. And the context was a President who was swearing up, down and sideways, to anybody who would listen, that he was intent on avoiding war, that any such direct injunction was unnecessary, and would weaken his negotiating position, which was, according the lying sack, the whole pont of the excercise. Remember: he was pretending that what he really wanted was the power to threaten. He was lying, of course, I knew that. You knew that as well, I recall how swiftly you rushed to my aid whenever I was belabored for my opinion.

And if “last resort” doesn’t mean “after all diplomatic approaches are exhausted”, well, then, what does it mean? Does “last” have another interpretation that I am unaware of? I always thought “last” means, well, you know, last. Is it different in California?

In the literal fact of the document itself, in a vacuum uncontaminated by context, you’re quite right. But in the context of the time, and in light of the lying sacks public assurances, it was passed on that presumption: that we did not have a lying sack installed as leader, that he could be trusted to his word.

The presumption of peaceful intent was the trump card here, the (now sadly laughable) notion that the President needed to be seen as having the people and the Congress behind him. That this was crucial to any hope of success, that any public display of mistrust would weaken his negotiating position and thereby *increase * the likelihood of war.

So, you are correct as far as you go, but you don’t go far enough. This document was hammered out on a forge of false premises, and to ignore that context is to mistake the literal for the factual.

82

I’m just reading it. You are the one parsing-- trying to find meaning that isn’t there.

Where did I say that?

And yet quite a few Congressmen and Senators tired hard to put stricter language in the bill. They weren’t fooled. I guess they were just smarter than the likes of Clinton, Kerry and Edwards.

All you’re saying is that Bush tricked Congress into passing a weak bill. That is an entirely different matter than saying the Bill means something that it doesn’t say. But keep in mind that there are still a great number of Senators (even if most of them are Republicans) who are quite happy with the way Bush entered the war, even if they might take him to task for how he executed the war. How about their intent? How about the context in which they voted? Do we only count the intent of those Senators who view the bill the way you do?

Then I guess you’re going to have to take this to the courts to decide. Until then, all we’re left with is the document itself. Do you think the SCOTUS would side with you or me on this matter? Would the SCOTUS declare that Bush violated the law by not spending more effort on diplomacy? It is to laugh.

83

Well, of course, John, as the newbiest of noobs knows, if you can define the terms of the argument you almost certainly will win the argument, its like plalying Republican poker, he gets seven cards, you get five, yours are all face up, and he gets to draw twice. Shirley your argument does not require such extraordinary care, or should we keep the shock paddles handy to revive it?

You would like to insist that we consider this resolution as a discrete entity, unburdened by context, you would narrow our focus down to the literal meaning of the words, where you are most comfortable.

But that does narrow, does it not? It requires that we refuse to consider the larger setting, the currents of public declaration that went into it, that we think of the AUMF as if sprung fully formed from the forehead of The Leader.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, except that it just ain’t so.

I ask you: if The Leader had refused to make any such public declarations of intent, would the resolution have passed? If he had not sworn on a stack of pancakes that he was seeking peace, and war was the “last resort”? (I’m assuming we agree on the meaning of “last”, absent assurances.)

To narrow the focus is to lessen, John, it makes smaller. If that is the only way you can win your point, your argument is a hot-house flower, it cannot survive outside of the careful arrangements you have created.

84

You completely lost me on this.

Not necessarily. But I wouldn’t consider Bush’s public statements in a press conference as relevant context. Certainly we’re not to expect that someone like Kerry gets his “context” by watching Bush on the news, are we? The “context” that is relevant, if any is, would be found in the detailed discussions between the WH and Congress. It is there that Senators such as Kerry or McCain had the chance to have a dialog with Bush (through his Congressional liaisons), and determine what the ultimate language of the bill would be. But we’ll never be privy to those details-- at least not for years to come, I suspect.

Furthermore, has there ever been a precedent that the SCOTUS used a president’s press conference statements as the basis for interpreting the operative basis for a piece of legislation?

But if you want public statements by Bush to give us “context”, how about the ones where he said we couldn’t wait for Iraq to become an imminent threat… that we had to strike before that happened… that we had take preemptive action against such regimes as SH’s. Diplomacy takes times-- lots of time. There is plenty of “context” to support the case that Bush was never willing to give diplomacy the kind of time it needed. It appears to me that the only “context” you are looking at is that which supports the viewpoint you are trying to assert.

Bush grossly exaggerated the threat posed to the US by SH. You saw that, I saw that, and the Senators who weren’t holding their fingers up to test the political winds saw that, too. Too many of them relied on the WH’s summary of the NIE, where Bush’s guys cherry-picked the damaging evidence, and neglected to point out the level of uncertainly the intelligence community actually had. Those Senators who took the time to read the full NIE saw that. Again, let me quote from that NYT article:

How’s that for “context”? Context that it didn’t take a genius to see through. I expect my Senators to think critically about legislation they are passing no matter what it is. But when it comes to the use of military force, I expect them to comb through every crumb of information they can get. I do not expect them to base their votes on some press conference statements that the president throws out there that is almost always going to be some self-serving bunch of BS meant to push his political agenda.

And of course Congress was free to issue a stop order in early 2003 once they saw Bush shutting down the diplomatic efforts. If Congress indeed expected a much more detailed and drawn-out diplomatic effort, I see no evidence of that in any of its actions. No new resolutions drawn up, no loud outcry of “foul”. Why is that, if the “context” was so clear?

85

Gee, John, that’s a poser. I keep trying to think of something that happened between October, 2002, and early 2003, and I can’t think of anything that might have so affected the political landscape. Let’s see, would have to be November or December, wouldn’t it? Nope, drawing a blank here…

86

The election? What did that have to do with what the law said or whether or not the Dems would speak out against an invasion if they supposedly were expected a long diplomatic effort beforehand? Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting-- they couldn’t speak out for fear of the Pubbies calling them nasty names. I mean, given the choice between keeping silent about a major breach of executive authority and having someone call you a nasty name, you gotta go with the silence.

87

John Mace isn’t just parsing the authorization to use force though. He’s shown what Congress could have done, if it was exercising prudent oversight: they could have approved something like the Levin or Spratt amendments. (Nice work, btw).

But that’s just Congressional micromanaging. The President needs leverage if he’s to negotiate with Saddam, and this just ties his hands, sends mixed signals, etc.

To be specific, the Levin amendment might be arguably imprudent if the administration had not reached a decision to invade 6 months earlier.

John: If Bush Sr., Clinton, Nixon or Eisenhower had been President, would the Levin amendment be prudent in your opinion? If not, the Democratic Congress was guilty of insufficient appraisal of GWB’s character, but innocent of categorical spinelessness.

88

Because a politician who comes out against an impeding war that is successful risks their career. Kucinich maintained his beliefs. Many did not. It was a career calculus. If the war was a resounding and easy victory, they probably could never be elected again. It was a career decision. It takes a lot of guts to stand up against the war drums. No network or TV pundit could afford to take the chance. Newspapers were afraid.
They just showed how they lacked the guts…

89

I don’t know enough about Eisenhower, but I’d say “yes” to the other 3. Let’s not forget that Clinton bombed the shit out of Serbia w/o authorization from Congress, and when that country posed less of a threat to the US than even Iraq did. Nixon didn’t start the Vietnam War, but he sure expanded it before his “secret plan” to end it finally kicked in. Bush Sr. might have been more prudent (that was his catch-phrase), but Congress should never abdicate it’s constitutional authority to declare war. There was a (very good) reason that the founders gave that authority to Congress and not to the president-- Congress is slow to act; the president can be impetuous.

“Congress” consisted of many individuals who, on the floor of their respective chambers, explicitly warned that body of the emptiness of the “threat” and the dangerousness of ceding too much war authority to the president. I still can’t fathom why they took that vote so cavalierly. The American people weren’t calling for blood. But yes, the majority in Congress didn’t do due diligence.

90

Thanks for the reply John. You seem to have a pretty coherent position, one that I understand was actually practiced before WWII. For better or worse, the cold war changed that.

Polls are one thing. Electoral vulnerability is another. The two are related, but they are not the same.

91

Saddam was contained. The sanctions and restrictions had held for ten years and there’s no reason to think they’ve couldn’t have been held for ten more. And Saddam was an old man - time would have solved the problem of Saddam like it solved the problem of Stalin or Mao.

The other thing that we’re all avoiding is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room: George W. Bush is incompetent. Sure he’s a liar and ideologue, but other presidents have been liars and ideologues and they’ve done fine. Bush’s problem is that he’s a bungler. Nobody would care about any of the bad things he’s done if he had done them successfully. Lincoln did all kinds of unconstitutional things - but he won the Civil War. FDR told all kinds of lies - but he won World War II. Bush’s big mistake wasn’t starting a war - his mistake was losing that war.

92

Probably.

93

Well, let’s assume for a minute that the AUMF actually did require Bush to exhaust “all diplomatic efforts” before invading. That he could only invade as a “last resort”. The fact is, he would never exhaust all diplomatic efforts-- someone could always come up with some new initiative to try. It only stands to reason that there must be some judgement call that has to be made. Now, if only the AUMF gave us some hint, some indication as to who was to make that judgement call. Alas, it is silent on that matter. Right?

Or… perhaps we can look at what the public thought. By the time the invasion happened, IIRC, something like 75% of the American people supported the president’s judgement call. That’s quite a significant majority. We don’t know if a majority in Congress supported Bush, but I think we can make a pretty good guess.

If I’m missing something here, perhaps someone can walk me through the objectively definably process by which a president would “exhaust all diplomatic efforts” under the AUMF. One problem, of course, is that every war is different. It’s not like we have some long tradition of knowing when enough is enough-- no jurisprudence on the subject that we can refer to. Congress considered, and rejected, a requirement that Bush get UNSC approval for the invasion, so we have to assume that that was not one of the objectively definable steps.

I think we can now see why it’s such a bad idea for Congress to give that decision to the executive branch. They are the ones who are supposed to make the judgement call, precisely because there is no objective standard that can be called upon. We have entrusted them with that most difficult of decisions. Unfortunately, they proved themselves to be (largely) a bunch of incompetent fools this time around. But that doesn’t change the law-- it just means it was a very bad law.

94

John Mace: I think you’ve done a very nice job in this thread and I commend your stamina.

I also agree with Little Nemo. We simply wouldn’t be having this discussion if the U.S. was any good at making colonies in this day and age. If we ever do pacify Iraq it will slowly but surely fade from the newspapers and the blogs and join the club of Random Countries Our Troops Hang Out. See: Camp Bondsteel.

This was a response to my noting that over many decades (most of the 20th century, really) Dems have started and supported many wars and foreign interventions – a point which may not have been explicit, I admit – so I felt this whiffed a little. But in this particular case you are correct, the Dems were split on whether to invade Iraq. So I guess only half of the party in 2002 were imperialists.

No, it doesn’t bother me that the Republicans almost to a man support war. I don’t support Republicans except for the lulz (see: wanting to have Rudy be elected).

If I believed in the version of democracy they taught in third grade and I supported a party and I came to understand that the core issues I thought they shared with me were in reality the opposite, I would be quite bothered. If I was energetic enough I’d protest. If not, I’d just drop out of the pretending and admit that I love Big Brother.

But to answer your obvious question, yes, Bush and his cabal have far more moral blame than the Dems. Bush and co. asked for the gun to shoot the Iraqi girl in the face and ultimately went ahead with it. The Dems just helped supply it and support it and talk about how great it is that we’re shooting her in the face and how we must continue to shoot her in the face going into the future. Many Dems said the way Bush was shooting her in the face wasn’t quite the way they would’ve done it and some conceded we should shoot her less. But without Bush and PNAC to give them such a great idea in the first place, well, who knows, right?

95

Incidentally, Neville Chamberlain did the right thing.

Those of you familiar with the columnist William Kristol probably already know that he’s an idiot. However, in his column today, he’s trotted out a phrase we’ll probably be seeing again: he predicts that if a Democrat wins the Presidential election, (s)he will “snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory in Iraq”. It’s a perfect, stupid right-wing talking point: it’s pseudo-clever, so that it sounds smart if you don’t think too deeply; it implies that Bush’s policies have been successful so far; and it proactively shifts the blame to Democrats for the likely disastrous, or at best anticlimactic withdrawal.

Sometimes I wonder if the RNC won’t be just as happy to lose the election; whoever the next President is, Republican or Democrat, (s)he’s going to have to get us out of Iraq, or at least draw way down. I don’t think it would be politically possible to maintain the occupation at anything like the level of the past – damn, almost five years now. Somebody’s inheriting a huge mess to deal with.

96
  1. It’s a good request, which I’ll dodge. Anyone?

The process could have been handed to the now-vindicated Hans Blik, who was in charge of the pre-war WMD hunt. He was beginning to draw some awkward conclusions when every tip passed on from the CIA led nowhere.

I suspect that we invaded because GW Bush was sick of Saddam jerking America around for 10+ years. In hindsight, that’s really bad (non)reasoning.

  1. Back to the request. The great preponderance of the evidence suggests that the Admin’s diplomatic efforts were all public relations and that the admin was intent on invasion. See the Downing Street Memo, minutes of the meeting with Spain’s PM, etc. Diplomatic efforts must at a minimum be bona fide for them to be exhausted.

  2. #2 isn’t a bad barroom argument. I’m not so sure that it would work in a court of law.

97

I got it! Here’s your process:
Dear Mr. President:

Either exhaust all diplomatic efforts in good faith or win the war quickly. Otherwise, we will impeach your ass.

Love,

Congress

Of course they didn’t say that. But maybe they should have.

98

That wouldn’t have made any difference. The president was, and is delusional:

January 2, 2008
Nothing congress could have done short of impeachment could effectively neutralize what was essentially a madman in chief.

99

Huh. That’s at least the fourth time the President has said that. I guess the press likes to give the man a free pass.

President Bush before the invasion, March 17, 2003: “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals – including journalists and inspectors – should leave Iraq immediately.”

So much for reality. Afterwards, he seemed to claim that Saddam Hussein banished these inspectors.

July 14, 2003: “The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in.”

Jan 27, 2004: “said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in.”

March 21, 2006: we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did…"

… and the Jan 2008 example makes 4.

I lack the psychological training necessary to evaluate the President’s honesty, memory, mental stability or emotional disposition.

In other news, 3/4 of all Republicans approve of George Bush’s performance as President. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jR80ylRipRFz_BSPltSUJ06-lMegD8U36DCG0