If you go back to that fluid moment in time Bush was pushing for the UNSC to authorize war. Things make sense when viewed contemporaneously with the events and dynamics of the time.
It took a while to work out the1441 language and Bush agreed to it.
Then Bush ignored what he agreed to.
That is not fault of Congress. That is the fault of Bush alone.
But Bush is not enforcing 1441 in reality. He does not claim to be enforcing all prior resolutions either.
For your mistaken interpretation to be true as actual events unfolded, Bush should have vetoed 1441 instead of approving it unless it required full compliance by a certan date such as March 17, 2003 if that was his ultimatum date.
He could not get it in November 2002 and he could not get it in March 2003.
That is why you are wrong.
It is impossible to claim that Bush was enforcing 1441 when the method of enforcement remained peaceful disarmament through inspections.
You can keep writing that Bush enforced a couple or so it but you cannot justify it once 1441 came into being the most relevant of all resolutions regarding Iraq.
What are you even talking about? Something from the Hubris thread?
She wanted to delegate the power to invade to Bush, rather than the UN. We know how that turned out, don’t we?
That’s another non-answer. Why would the UNSC be less likely to pass a resolution like 1441 if Congress had passed the Levin Amendment instead of the AUMF that it did pass?
His phrasing was “nor lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” He doesn’t indicate which resolution or resolutions in particular, because he doesn’t have to.
What? I’ve no idea what you mean by this.
That’s one possible method of enforcement: a stern threat to do, er, something:
Another method: direct military force. Others abound: bribery, shaming, economic sanctions, displacement of persons, assassination, etc. The idea that a list of demands, which is what 1441 was, could only be enforced in one particular way is absurd.
Yes, I can, see above. And it’s fine that for you, 1441 was the most relevantist and specialist of all the resolutions, but don’t confuse that with 1441 actually being the only relevant resolution, or think your musings on what’s the most relevant have any meaning outside your own mind.
Also, why did Bush ask for and sign the AUMF?
Do you think Bush was going to do that without massive bombing, ground invasion, regime change and occupation? Do you remember that Bush told us that he had intelligence that left no doubt that Iraq was actually concealing WMD from UN inspectors in March 2003, so therefore Bush had to go in and do that job of destroying this arsenal using military force to find and destroy them.
Bush’s lie that he told on March 17, 2003 works exactly the same whether the Levin Amendment passed or not. You have no argument here either.
In fact the AUMF is stronger than the Levin Amendnent when considering the reality of what actually occurred subsequent to the AUMF. You just have to recognize that all means all and 1441 was part of all.
That is because as it worked out Bush was required to enforce 1441 and enforcing 1441 meant that diplomatic means was the means if enforcement according to the majority of the UNSC.
The Levin Amendment does not restrain Bush if the resolution being sought turns out to work. The AUMF does attempt to restrain Bush if one reads it properly and without changing it or leaving half the words out.
We’ll never know, will we? It’s certainly within reason that such a specific authorization would restrict the C-in-C to those specific actions, with a Congress and a Supreme Court to check his power.
For you, “reading it properly” means utterly ignoring the “The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to…” clause. There’s nothing proper about ignoring parts of the law you find inconvenient to your partisan worldview.
I do not hold any kind of view or argument that 1441 was the only relevant resolution. Why do you come up with these arguments for me? 1441 became part of “all” relevant UNSC resolutions when Bush accepted it in November 2002. It is your attempt to separate 1441 from all that is flawed. It cannot be separated. All means all.
When Bush signed the following, 1441 was a relevant UNSC Resolution and part of all of them. And Bush said it could not be enforced. He in no way could mean that he was enforcing UNSC resolutions with regard to Iraq because he could not use force to enforce 1441 due to the fact that 1441 and all the others were in reality being enforced by peaceful diplomatic means.
Is there just one NotfooledbyW, or do you have a team working on this and failing to share their notes? Remember a few minutes ago when you wrote that 1441 was the “most relevant of all”? Or the various times you argued that it was the “controlling” resolution over the previous ones?
I’ve never tried to separate it out, I’ve repeatedly said that all means all. Where do you come up with these arguments for me?
Also, it’s rather odd that you view the actions of the UNSC as becoming legitimate when the President of the U.S. “accepts” them, as opposed to when resolutions are passed. You do hold the UN in rather low esteem, all things considered, are you aware of that?
No, he said that “all relevant UNSC resolutions regarding Iraq” would not occur through diplomatic and other peaceful means alone. He was wrong, but he had the power to make that determination, thanks to the AUMF.
Bush disagreed that they were, in fact, being enforced. He had that power.
Bush as we learned was not restrictable. And unless the House had turned strong antiwar Democrat and the Senate jumped to at sixty antiWar Senators in 2003, your dream of checking his power to invade Iraq is extremely fantasy based.
I read ‘in order to’ which are the three words you ignore.
I have never argued that the AUMF as passed did not give Bush full authority to decide and determine when and how to invade Iraq. My arguments work with that reality as a given.
The Levin Amendment gives Bush the authority to use armed force to destroy WMD inside Iraq. The difference is that the LA holds the authority until after the UNSC finds a way to act.
Any outcome turns out the same since Bush was willing to lie that he wanted peaceful disarmament and war only as a last resort.
I just don’t fault Congress for not expecting a president to be a liar, and the LA does not prevent Bush from lying to them
anyway.
The LA should be a dead issue, but I realize you have little ammo without out it.
Not restrictable, eh? Why didn’t any President before Bush realize that they could break the law and do whatever they wanted? What made Bush so special, and, say, Nixon a criminal who resigned to avoid impeachment?
I don’t ignore it, I comprehend how the clause before the “in order to” interacts with the clause after it. You just ignore the first part, which you aren’t even denying anymore.
What a neck-snapping reversal. So, Bush didn’t need the UNSC to find Iraq to be in violation of 1441 before he could invade under the AUMF? Is that your current position?
Which is a huge difference to those who live in reality. They are both pre-authorizations for war, and a bad idea on that basis, but at least the Levin Amendment had conditions that weren’t negated by a “determines to be necessary and appropriate” clause.
I’m sure that conviction helps you sleep at night, protected by the delusional certainty that no Democrat anywhere shares any blame for the Iraq War.
In that case, literally any random citizen off the street would likely be a better representative of their peers than the sitting Congress of 2002, because, as we know, more people than not thought Bush was looking for a reason to go to war.
Eh. It’s not my baby, as I’ve said, pre-authorizing war in the event that conditions should arise in which war is justified, is a profoundly bad idea. The best thing Congress could have done was nothing.
I don’t know what “ammo” you even think I need. Your points are a shifting morass of whatever sounds right to you at any given moment. There’s no coherent thesis, other than that everyone but you is either ignoring or lying about the fact that the UNMOVIC inspections were working as well as could be expected. All other discussion, you either dismiss as a malicious diversion, or simply duck entirely. This is less a debate than an extended rant on your part, which is why everyone but me has backed away slowly and slipped out.
[QUOTE=Human Action]
This is less a debate than an extended rant on your part, which is why everyone but me has backed away slowly and slipped out.
[/QUOTE]
Yup. 
I realized it was a now win situation in the Pit thread. There is simply no way to get through to him or seemingly even get him to understand what you are trying to say, and his will-o-wisp ‘debate’ style it’s hard to even pin him down on whatever the hell he’s on about at any given moment. Hell, he’s so convoluted that I can’t even tell what the hell his position IS anymore…it’s gone through a number of iterations and permutations, and morphed several times.
My response was to your attempt to link my argument to the notion that 1441 was the “only” relevant resolution. That is not true. All relevant resolutions are relevant. The language in 1442 does make it a controlling resolution because it explicitly wad a FINAL Opportunity for Iraq to comply and get into compliance with all the previous resolutions. That is a fact.
My argument is that Bush was not given the power to disagree with and defy a UNSC Resolution that he sought and agreed to.
The AUMF gave him the sole authority to determine to use military force in order to enforce all relevant UNSC Resolutions regarding Iraq, but he did not enforce any UNSC Resolutions when he decided to invade in March 2003. He can’t be enforcing 1441 or any referenced in that document when 1441 was already being enforced by peaceful means.
If you don’t believe me, ask XT. XT has made it clear that Bush was not enforcing UNSC Resolutions regarding Iraq.
Compare to:
How can you possibly reconcile those statements?
Also: again, why are UNSC resolutions only binding on the U.S. if the sitting president “accepts” them?
This has been covered about six times by now, so, to mix things up instead of just walking away (I’m self-destructive that way), time for a thought experiment:
Say the AUMF and resolution 1441 both pass, and the inspectors enter Iraq. Over the next few weeks, persistent, credible reports of inspectors being denied access to Iraqi government buildings emerge. In one incident, captured on video, a team of inspectors is hauled out of their vehicles and beaten by Iraqi soldiers. One team that does manage to enter a facility discovers radiological evidence that uranium was stored there as recently as two months before. Another team locates an Iraqi colonel who gives them detailed reports of stockpiles of sarin gas shells being rotated around to keep them away from the inspectors. Using this information, a few crates of the shells are located and confiscated.
In the face of all this, the Hussein regime claims their cooperation is complete, and blames any irregularities on confused, low-ranking soldiers. The sarin is said to have been overlooked due to errors in paperwork.
A resolution finding Iraq to be in breach of 1441 is introduced by the U.S. ambassador, and vetoed by Russia and France.
Is Bush justified in invading? If so, why? If not, why not?
Good for XT. It’s got nothing to do with me.
Why do you think they cannot be reconciled? You got nothing on me. I am citing the languag within the AUMF that Congress authorized the President to decide and determine to use military force in order to enforce all relevant UNSC Resolutions against Iraq.
Bush was not given the power to disagree with and defy a UNSC Resolution that he sought and agreed because that would not be enforcing the very Resolution he himself negotiated. Bush was given full authority to decide and determine when and how to invade Iraq if the UNSC did not pass a new resolution or if the terms of an agreed to Resolution were not being met.
The terms of 1441 were being met. Bush tried to inject his deadline terms into 1441 at the last minute but failed to get a majority to back him.
Beyond that failed attempt to secure new terms Bush failed to be using military force to enforce all UNSC Resolutions and therefore at that late date in the inspection process Bush was no longer abiding by the terms of the AUMF.
I do not fault Congress for Bush’s failure to comply with the language in the AUMF and you do by denial of the language in the AUMF.
Both statements stand up to my argument.
This is part of why people don’t want to debate with you. You ignore questions and points outright, and most of what you do is an elaborate game of “gotcha”, wherein you confront people with 10-year-old posts and demand an accounting, and place wriggling out of corners above any sort of consistency in your positions.
So, by “when” to invade, you meant only choosing the actual day, and not whether to invade?
Moving right along…
What’s with the continued emphasis on “agreeing to” UNSC resolutions? Is the UNSC a legitimate body or not?
Who gets to decide if the terms of a resolution are being met?
I’ve been over all of the above before, so I’ll digress:
Why did Bush ask for and sign the AUMF?
What’s your answer to my thought experiment?
That Cop Out is reversible. I could say the same about most of those who think they are debating me, but I don’t have to. The record is quite clear. I counter the arguments presented to me by others and wait for a response. Just as in this case, right here, your response in the next paragraph is an evasion. This evasion:
“So, by “when” to invade, you meant only choosing the actual day, and not whether to invade”
That is not at all what I wrote, and I’m sure you know it. You are just stringing out the argument and then will make more comments blaming my style or my stubbornness.
so if you can respond or counter what I wrote please do.
Of course he was given the power to decide to invade if the terms of the AUMF were met and I have written that often.
You’re right about that, the record is clear, and quit unflattering to you, sir. Note that you respond to a post criticizing your consistent tactic of ignoring other people’s points and questions by…ignoring most of the post, including some points and questions. Bravo.
Ok, then I officially have no idea what you meant by:
I gave it my best shot at interpreting it, and all you did above was tell me that it wasn’t “at all” what you wrote. That’s profoundly unhelpful.
Now I’m even more perplexed, because this makes it sound like “when” to invade does include “whether” to invade if he determined that one of the two situations in the AUMF was in play.
You are ignoring ‘if the terms of the AUMF are met’ so it is not my problem that you can’t comprehend it.