Posts: 30726
Threads: 2123
Joined: May 24, 2012
Reputation:
71
"War Powers" and U.S. History.
February 12, 2015 at 8:11 am
I do agree that it is better that a collective consensus and check on power should be required so that one person in a government cannot go it alone like a dictator.
Now having said that, knowing our U.S. history, it seems outside WW1 and WW2 the U.S. has had a very bad long term foreign policy even going back to the Barbary Treaty.
But especially after WW2 we have gotten into stalemates and or made things worse. This is not a left or right issue for me. I think we need to use more diplomacy and need to understand that the nature of conflict and our smaller world and our enemy's ability to blend in has changed the nature of how we combat conflict. I think we still have far too much old school power who are still stuck on our WW2 victory.
We cannot be isolationists but we also cannot be the world's police.
Posts: 1257
Threads: 38
Joined: October 15, 2013
Reputation:
16
RE: "War Powers" and U.S. History.
February 12, 2015 at 10:22 am
(This post was last modified: February 12, 2015 at 10:22 am by professor.)
Good commentary on wrong idea.
Wars are plotted behind closed doors, then a front man is placed before everybody showing how we have to go to war again.
Repeat process/ repeat process / continually.
The wrong idea is that we actually have a say in the sequence.
The one time the process was cut short, was when the public got so fed up with Vietnam and the murder and maiming of so many of my generation that it had to be shut down.
Posts: 19789
Threads: 57
Joined: September 24, 2010
Reputation:
85
RE: "War Powers" and U.S. History.
February 12, 2015 at 10:41 am
The only consesus this war power act has is the consensus amongst democrats that when democrats decided it was expedient to pursue a war, a much loathed previous republican administration ought not be given a chance to claim it had the foresight to foresee the need and authorize the use of force 13 years in advance.
Posts: 23039
Threads: 26
Joined: February 2, 2010
Reputation:
106
RE: "War Powers" and U.S. History.
February 12, 2015 at 11:58 am
The WPA should be repealed.
If we are to send Americans into combat, then the Congress should have to approve it.
Posts: 19789
Threads: 57
Joined: September 24, 2010
Reputation:
85
RE: "War Powers" and U.S. History.
February 12, 2015 at 12:51 pm
(This post was last modified: February 12, 2015 at 12:55 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Oh, I think Dubya knew what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it, the only problem is what he intends to achieve is beyond our power and how he intends to conduct it does not bring what he intends to achieve any closer.
Much the same can be said of Obama's administration's handling of the "Arab spring".
Americans, like children, are nothing if not clear in what they want. What they are unclear about is - also like children - what it takes to achieve what they want and what automatically would come with getting what they want.
Posts: 69247
Threads: 3759
Joined: August 2, 2009
Reputation:
259
RE: "War Powers" and U.S. History.
February 12, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Nah. The neo-cons expected to walk into Iraq and be greeted as liberators with the whole place becoming a happy little mid-east version of Switzerland in a couple of weeks.
They were naive to the point of abject stupidity. You can't just sprinkle Freedom Dust around.
