Obama claims he has authority for 3 year war in Iraq and Syria

[morningfog]

Without Congress.

A year later and he's learned to just say "fuck congress we're going to war."

Yeah yeah it isn't "war" if Americans aren't dying or something. Can't wait for tomorrow's boogey man speech.

[morningfog]

1. Make no mistake, this is pre-emption.

[kelly1mm]

2. Perhaps he has the authority as comander-in-chief to order military action (depending on your take

on the constitutionality of the War Powers Act) but it is pretty clear he has no ability to fund those military actions without congress.

[unblock]

3. is the iraq war resolution still open?

or any of the 9/11 open-ended crap?

as for funding, they'll never cut the military, can't he redirect that money, if needed?

[kelly1mm]

5. You may wish to review how the Democratic Congress defunded the Nixon Administrations

bombing of Cambodia and Laos near the end of the Vietnam War.

What Congress would do is fund the military but specify what exactly it could be spent on.

The executive branch cannot just redirect money wherever it wants, especially in direct contravention of explicit legislative action.

[obxhead]

26. Boner has had a huge smile for the last 2 days.

They're friends (mic) are about to make a boatload of cash.

Refunding isn't going to happen, the war drums will pound and Obama will continue to dance to their funky beat.

[morningfog]

4. Link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-prepared-to-order-airstrikes-in-syria-as-part-of-strategy-against-islamic-state/2014/09/09/058199e2-3834-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

[morningfog]

6. Make no mistake, this is a war of choice. No Syrian War!

[Brigid]

7. Words fail me.

[morningfog]

8. This is unchartered legal waters. This will be on par with the torture memos and the US citizen

assassination justifications.

[woo me with science]

10. +1 The curtain is coming down swiftly now.

We are seeing the brick wall at the back of the theater.

We don't live in the type of government they say we live in.

[SomethingFishy]

11. I just came off the NBC news link on Comcast and the headlines was screaming

"ISIS Threat: Fear of Terror Attack Soars to 9/11 High, NBC News/WSJ Poll Finds"

The story goes on to explain how Americans are shitting in their boots over ISIS. "Highest threat level since 9/11, blah blah blah.."

They are gearing us up. Again. It's gotten to the point where the decision isn't whether or not to go to war, but how much war are we going to make. Just drones? Air strikes? Covert Ops? Boots on the ground.. There is no opposition. The left perspective now consists of "let's bomb them, strategically.. while the right's position is somewhere between "put boots on the ground and kill em all" to "Obama is is setting up an ISIS base in New Mexico".

There seems to be no place left for sanity.

Funny, but in my personal list of things I'm afraid of, ISIS wouldn't even scratch the top 10.

[woo me with science]

9. ...

But of course.

[RobertEarl]

12. Obama has to follow the media

The media will write the tickets congress and others will use in this election ride.

He has no choice but to play the game.

A few bombs here, a few bombs there, and the media is happy, and maybe they go easy on the Peaceniks in this election?

Don't forget he almost bombed Syria, but he didn't. He could have, but he didn't.

What our military is doing is taking out our left over supplies that were sold to the IS by chicken Iraqi soldiers. That's not actually a bad thing.

[anti partisan]

14. The cavalier attitude with which you talk about destruction of human life...

sadly seems to be the norm in today's society where sociopaths are successfully able to lead public opinion into supporting their nefarious agenda.

[RobertEarl]

15. Nefarious?

I am a pacifist. But also a realist. The US is empire, and we broke Iraq and it's hurting because we left all that gear there. Now it is being used to kill many innocents. Blow that shit up. Any destruction of US weapons is fine by me. IS can drop the weapons and run away and they will live.

I think the poor people of Iraq are in this case glad we are doing something right for once.

[anti partisan]

16. I agree that the less heavy artillery in the region, the better, but radicalism is...

even a worse problem, and we are fanning the flames of dangerous, destructive radicalism.

Our actions have unintended consequences whether we like to think that far ahead or not. See: original Iraq war

PS: I'm not calling you nefarious but we as a society have become numb to the thought of blowing people up in the Middle East to the point where it doesn't even seem like a big deal. Whose agenda benefits from this?

[RobertEarl]

17. Obama's history is better than previous

Better.

Our society as a whole is still pretty mean spirited, tho. Empire is a cause for great pride and for the economy, as we can pretty much take whatever we want. Could be Obama is just a placebo, or it could be that his medicine has not had time to work. The history books will tell.

In the meantime, our society is pushing for action in Iraq. Part of it is we know we broke it, so let's fix it. And the other part is bush lovers, of which there are far too many.

[anti partisan]

18. What is his medicine?

From my perspective, it looks like reluctant appeasement of the hawks, even though it is a fruitless goal as they will never be satisfied and the corporate media will continue to give them a podium to fear-monger until their tongue falls off.

And his primary objective to me seems to be maintaining and/or improving his public image in the short-term, regardless of the long-term consequences. He has conceded to the neocons the concept that peace is a sign of weakness and "projecting America's might" with expensive death toys is very badass.

[babylonsister]

13. OK, oh wise one, what do you propose the

President do? Is a beheading or two weekly A-OK with you?

[morningfog]

20. Two murders is not worth a war.

That is absurd.

[babylonsister]

21. How many more would be acceptable to you before

we cooperate in trying to put a stop to this/ISIS?

[morningfog]

22. How many innocent people are we justified in killing in our effort to destroy IS?

Innocent people are killed everyday, all over the world. It is not the US military's job to respond with acts of war.

Are you not bothered with the mission creep currently underway and the reliance on highly sensationalized murders as a justification? What was a single act of humanitarian relief in Iraq is quickly snowballing into a 3 year air war in Syria, with unpredictable results. This is what the next president will inherit, and the next president may not be as "restrained" as Obama. Especially since directly entering a war against IS will undoubtedly lead to more egregious acts by them against us.

Syria is in a long and brutal civil. All sides (and there are many) have acted barbarically for the past few years. The instability of the war has given IS space to step in. US bombs in Syria aimed at one faction of the civil war will not have a stabilizing effect. Rather, it will just be fuel on an already very strong fire.

[snooper2]

24. Are we talking about ISIS everywhere or just in Kurdistan or Yemen or Syria or Iraq?

If everywhere, 200 to 1?

[arcane1]

27. The Saudis behead people too.

But since they are our allies, it's called Cranial Liberation.

[kentuck]

19. Everything is political...

...in today's world.

In my opinion, the President wants the Congress to act. But they would prefer to be able to stand on the sideline and criticize. The President can't win.

If Congress does nothing, the President will continue to do what he has been doing for the last few weeks. The War Powers Act has up to 90 days discretion for the President. That will get us near election day.

In the meantime, we will hear the same old bullshit from the Republicans....and some Democrats.

The President does not want another war in Iraq or the Middle East.

[Baclava]

23. War! War! War!

wait - which side in Syria are we arming again?

my tax dollars demand an answer