They did not vote for war. There is much more to the language than “as (Bush) determines to be necessary” and that is because the JAUMF (Oct2002) is the same as any legal contract. The President being the top law officer of the land has certain obligations to act with propriety, honor and integrity to the facts specifically with regard to DECIDING if an offensive war is NECESSARY. -Ntfldbw 02-20-2013 11:10 PM.
If the JAUMF (Oct2002) is not an agreement between two Parties, ie Congress and Administration, then what is it.
What do you call these? Sideshows?
Do you prefer to use the term agreement?
con·tract - kon-trakt; noun
an agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified.
an agreement enforceable by law.
the written form of such an agreement.
It seems ‘agreement’ shows up in the first three definitions. So what is your problem.
“So you’re accusing Blix of lying or being misinformed when he said in February 2003 that Iraq was cooperating on process but not on substance?” -Raven+man 02-22-2013 05:21 PM.
Why on earth would I be accusing Blix of lying in February. My knowlege of the evolution of Iraq’s cooperation as documented by Blix in the series of reports he presented to the UNSC was that Blix reported no problems surrounding access to sites from day one of renewed inspections and by early March Blix said he could call Iraq’s attitude on cooperation to be pro-active but it still would take a few months to resolve some old outstanding issues to declare Iraq in compliance
You’re wrong. I quoted Blix pleading with Iraq to cooperate on substance on February 4, 2003. If Iraq were cooperating fully with Blix, why did Blix “plead” [that’s his word] for better cooperation on that date? Answer: because Iraq was not fully cooperating between September 12, 2001, and February 4, 2003, in contrast to your unsubstantiated and fanciful claim.
And a statute isn’t an agreement or contract. In this case, it is an authorization. There is no comparison to contract law. An authorization is an exercise of legislative authority, not a quid pro quo.
“So you’re accusing Blix of lying or being misinformed when he said in February 2003 that Iraq was cooperating on process but not on substance?” -Raven+man 02-22-2013 05:21 PM.
“Why on earth would I be accusing Blix of lying in February? My knowledge of **the evolution of Iraq’s cooperation **as documented by Blix in the series of reports he presented to the UNSC was that Blix reported no problems surrounding access to sites from day one of renewed inspections and by early March Blix said he could call Iraq’s attitude on cooperation to be pro-active but it still would take a few months to resolve some old outstanding issues to declare Iraq in compliance” -NotfooledbyW 02-22-2013 07:25 PM.
“You’re wrong. I quoted Blix pleading with Iraq to cooperate on substance on February 4, 2003.
But why or what am I wrong about?
"If Iraq were cooperating fully with Blix, why did Blix “plead” [that’s his word] for better cooperation?” - Raven+man 02-22-2013 07:32 PM.
Did you see or miss my use of the word “evolution”?
Blix wanted to get answers faster. But Blix was not calling the pace of cooperation on substance to be a violation of the inspection regime’s ability to disarm Iraq. There was no timetable in Resolution 1441 or in the JAUMF (Oct2002).
Blix is not a liar because Blix did say that cooperation on substance had come by early March.
Will you discuss Saddam Hussein’s offer in December 2002 to allow the CIA, FBI and US Military come into Iraq with the UN inspectors as a veriable form of SH’s desire to cooperate and to show that he had no WMD. As is NO MORE ‘bluffing’ that he had them when it mattered? Or will you avoid it?
The problem with your cites is that they talk about actions Saddam took in the past, but they are not careful about the timelines. Of course Saddam acted as if he still had WMDs at various times, but the important question is, did he do it after the AUMF, and I haven’t seen anything that indicates he did. Of course Blix acknowledged that Saddam had bluffed about WMDs in the past, but where did he say that Saddam continued to do it after the UN inspectors were readmitted in November 2002?
On the contrary, after the AUMF, Iraq submitted a detailed report to the UN in November 2002 that denied it had any WMDs, and Saddam granted a long interview to CBS in Feb 2003 where he personally told the world that Iraq had no WMDs.
Surely you remember the likes of Bush and Cheney giving speeches about how Saddam’s denials were proof that he was a liar.
“We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons, the very weapons the dictator tells the world he does not have,” Bush said.
The sad truth is that from November 2002 to March 2003, we got more truth from Saddam than we did from Bush and Cheney.
And a statute isn’t an agreement or contract. In this case, it is an authorization. There is no comparison to contract law. An authorization is an exercise of legislative authority, not a quid pro quo. - Raven+man 02-22-2013 07:32 PM.
Tell the readers that the JAUMF (Oct2008) was not **based upon an agreement **between two parties for the doing or not doing of something specified.
“The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines … that … reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” JAUMF (Oct2002)
When Senator Clinton voted to give President Bush the authority in the JAUMF (Oct2002) to use military force against Iraq, Bush was under no obligation to ‘honestly’ and ‘faithfully’ make the determination to do so based upon the language contained therin. Is that what you are telling us?
This was the ultimate declaration by SH that Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Bush said he wanted to disarm Iraq peacefully … taking Iraq up on this offer… as the renewed inspections were beginning… was the ultimate chance to do so.
Because Bush didn’t. We all should know he was a liar.
The myth that the CIA got the intel all wrong is impossible, since the intelligence agencies were not permitted to go look for WMD themselves alongside the UN inspectors.
Who made the call to not even attempt to take SH up on his offer?
Of course you want a cite, whatever that is in your mind. Since you cannot deny that …
"The President being the top law officer of the land has certain obligations to act with propriety, honor and integrity to the facts specifically with regard to DECIDING if an offensive war is NECESSARY.: -Ntfldbw 02-20-2013 11:10 PM.
Well, I’m interested in your opinion: Is it your considered opinion that a congressman or senator is acting irresponsibly if he votes for a bill that assumes good faith on the part of the President?
Well, you made a statement about the law. So, a cite would be a judicial decision, a court case, that supports that statement.
You just joined this MB recently, but we laugh at the idea that “my post is my cite”. No one is going to accept that.
Tony: “Good faith” is not something that is objectively definable. I’m sure Bush thought he was acting in good faith. However, if any Congresscritter thought Bush wasn’t acting in good faith, why did none of them offer up a bill or even a “sense of the Congress” that he wasn’t? We’re talking about war here, not a vote about what is the official pie of March is.
“Raven+man tried to tell me that Bush acted on Saddam Hussein’s bluff - making it sound as if Blix endorsed the idea that the bluff was going on in 2003 as well.” - Ntfldbw 02-22-2013 04:16 PM.
“That’s the nature of a bluff, you can’t just call it off. Hussein’s actions contributed to the impression that Iraq was producing WMDs, and did influence the decision to invade. -Human Action 02-22-2013 04:35 PM.
Bush was influenced by an ‘impression’ based upon a ‘bluff’ from the past. What were the inspectors doing in Iraq after Bush decided to agree to get them back in?
You can’t be serious. I guess it’s possible that he thought that he was acting for the long-term good of the country, i.e. that the end justified the means, but IMO it is impossible that by March 2003 he did not know that he was misleading the American people with regard to an imminent threat from Iraq. His speeches were almost textbook examples of how you could give a false impression, while remaining barely, technically correct.
I used the word contract according to its definition so I cited the dictionary.
Are there rules on this forum where one cannot use one a word such as ‘contract’ as I did, because we need to spell out the entire definition instead? OK
So Lets play your silly game:
They did not vote for war. There is much more to the language than “as (Bush) determines to be necessary” and that is because the JAUMF (Oct2002) is the same as any legal AGREEMENT BETWEEN AT LEAST TWO PARTIES. The President being the top law officer of the land has certain obligations to act with propriety, honor and integrity to the facts specifically with regard to DECIDING if an offensive war is NECESSARY. -Ntfldbw 02-20-2013 11:10 PM
“As for the “crimes against peace”, you’d have to try every Congress critter, including HR Clinton and John Kerry, who authorized the war.” - John+Mace 02-19-2013 09:46 AM.
That is not so. The war crime would be 'kicking the UN inspectors out to start a war. Every Congress critter including Senators Clinton and Kerry voted in earnest force Iraq and the UN to resume inspections. They would not be charged with the crime of kicking out inspectors because it was Bush the Decider that did that entirely on his own.
Remember we are are being told that Congress critters gave Bush the full authority to make the determination whether to kick inspectors out or to let them stay if Saddam was cooperating. B ush determined to kick them out after Saddam was cooperating proactively according to Dr Blix.
There are no such rules, but I’m just telling you that no one is going to accept your post as you cite. And the idea the dictionary definition of a contract includes legislation simply isn’t correct. You need to provide a judicial opinion, from the SCOTUS, that a statute for from the US Congress is “a contract”.
Alternatively, you could consider the first rule of holes. If you don’t know what that is, it’s that when one finds oneself in one, the first rule is to stop digging.