Yemen

Everything that we’ll cover in this piece, from the escalation to the trampling of the constitution, should come as no surprise, as anyone who’s been paying close attention to the situation in Gaza, for longer than just the last couple months, should have seen it coming from miles away.

In case you haven’t heard, the U.S. funded war between Israel and HAMAS is escalating. The Biden Administration, in partnership with the United Kingdom, has now bombed more than 16 sites in Yemen on the pretense that the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia, has been attacking and impeding Israeli and “Israel-connected” (aka American) ships in the Red Sea in retaliation for the aforementioned U.S. funded destruction of Gaza.

Regardless of your views on the bombing campaign that Biden initiated, there are a couple of indisputable points worth considering.

First, despite the fact that these attacks had been planned weeks in advance, they were carried out without congressional approval or debate. A number of representatives have made objections to the strikes on the grounds that they are illegal and unconstitutional.

It is worth noting, in case anyone was wondering, that it is a matter of debate whether the American President has the constitutional authority to order the use of military force without the proper congressional approval in this instance.

Secondly, even if you think Biden’s decision to bomb these targets without congressional approval was the right call, you cannot deny that his actions have now caused the war to escalate to include the use of American combat forces.

Now, instead of simply sending an endless stream of taxpayer dollars to another country on the other side of the world, we will potentially also soon be paying with the lives of our brothers, our sisters and our children in uniform.

 

Democrats and the Bush-Era Neocons, Reunited at Last

The title of this section is actually slightly misleading, as this unholy reunion of establishment Democrats and the political representatives of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) otherwise known as Neoconservatives, had actually occurred more than half a decade ago, in the immediate wake of Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump in 2016.

It was one of the most under-discussed things in progressive and liberal circles at the time. The Democrats, who were enjoying the limelight and clout awarded by a more polished President and a well oiled propaganda machine during the Obama Era, were in the process of assimilating the then radioactive and discredited neocons.

The reasoning was simple: both factions loathed Donald Trump as he posed an existential threat to them all. Democrats (and establishment Republicans as well) hated him because he was their biggest political enemy after years of uncontested uniparty-rule. The neocons loathed Trump because he sought to put an end to all wars and enact non-interventionist policy, essentially neutering the MIC.

In any other time, this budding union would have been looked on by Democrat voters with horror and dismay, however, the Trump Derangement Syndrome that had afflicted such huge swaths of the population at that time must also have been accompanied by some kind of amnesia. No one batted an eye once the same forces that were almost universally hated by the end of the Bush-era were now on the side of establishment Democrats.

Though it may have seemed like they were quietly getting the old band back together, the truth was that they never really parted ways.

One of the things that the security state and its representatives often do is prime the conditions for future wars while fighting current wars. Obama was still drone bombing civilians in the Middle East (including an average of 72 bombs dropped per day in 2016 alone) while the likes of Victoria Nuland were busy escalating tensions with Russia. A confrontation with Russia had been in the works for a long time at that point and it never would have happened if the neocons were actually reined-in during the Obama era.

Vladimir Putin was the new up and coming boogeyman for the denizens of the West to hate and fear, so developing an angle where Donald trump was an agent of the Kremlin served two purposes. This is how the Russia-Collusion hoax was born.

Soon, once disgraced neocons like Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland, Mike Rogers. Jamie Fly, etc. would grace left-wing media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, pontificating to us plebs about the dangers Donald Trump poses to Democracy.

Democrats frequently rationalize this alliance as a simple union of convenience: a pragmatic and transitory partnership imperative for the limited objective of obstructing Trump. However, that is a patent pretext and, to put it mildly, unpersuasive for a multitude of reasons. Long before anyone believed Donald Trump could accede to power, a reunification of Democrats and Neocons was taking place; this alliance is based on shared objectives, perspectives, and policies.

For instance, one of Dick Cheney’s foremost foreign policy advisers during the Bush administration was Victoria Nuland. Nuland, who was married to one of the most influential neocons, Robert Kagan, transitioned without difficulty from the Bush White House to the Obama State Department, then to the Clinton campaign’s chief foreign policy adviser, and now is second in command in Joe Biden’s State Department.

The ramifications of this reunion are significant and enduring. By a wide margin, neocons have caused considerably more harm to the United States and the world than any other single group. They were the masterminds behind the Iraq invasion and the accompanying deceit, the post-9/11 global torture regime, and the prevailing political atmosphere that stigmatized dissent.

Keep all of this in mind as we fast-forward to today.

 

Unconstitutional Escalation?

The United States had ceased bombing Yemen for roughly a year now, that is, until last Thursday when the Biden Administration decided it was going to bomb 16 different sites in that country.

To provide some critical backstory, there had been a somewhat informal ceasefire between the Houthis and the Saudis for the last year, which by the way was a war that had started under President Obama, who extensively helped the Saudis by decimating Yemen and creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history, until the recent bombardment and deprivation taking place in Gaza of course.

Regardless of the various excuses being bandied about, what Biden and the UK did was, by definition, an escalation. We weren’t bombing Yemen, and now we are.

The primary justification you’ll see for for this escalation, among others, is the often misrepresented War Powers Resolution (or Act) (50 U.S.C. §§ 1541-1550).

Section 1541(c) of the War Powers Resolution states:

“The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.“

None of the three scenarios cited above indicate that the President can take unilateral offensive military action without the consent of Congress.

Former Michigan Congressman Justin Amash recently broke it down on X:

The first two (scenarios) allow the president to take offensive military action but only with Congress’s express approval (Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the exclusive power to declare war). The third authority allows the president to take defensive military action without Congress’s approval in the event of a specific type of national emergency, a sudden unforeseen attack on the United States (happening too quickly for Congress to meet) necessitating immediate action to protect Americans.

It’s for this last situation (or for situations in which the president introduces forces into hostilities unlawfully) that the War Powers Resolution provides for the oft-mentioned 48-hour report to Congress (§ 1543) and 60-day (up to 90-day) timeline (§ 1544). If there’s an attack in progress on the United States (i.e., currently happening), we expect the president to respond swiftly to neutralize the attack and protect Americans—and then we will hold the president to account.

The Framers of the Constitution agreed at the debates in the federal convention of 1787 that the president should have the “power to repel sudden attacks” but not the power to otherwise introduce forces into hostilities without congressional approval.

The War Powers Resolution does not confer any new authority on the president to take offensive military action without congressional approval—nor could it under our Constitution. It instead checks the president when, as the Framers contemplated, the president introduces our Armed Forces into hostilities to repel a sudden attack.

The belief that Presidents have no limitations on their power is one that came about during the Bush-Cheney era, particularly when they exploited 9-11 to usher in radical theories of executive power under Article Two of the Constitution.

You’ll see people argue that The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001 which was passed shortly after 9/11 authorizes the President to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks, or harbored said persons or groups.

The argument seems to go back and forth endlessly. Putting aside the legal jargon, as I am not a law scholar, we can judge the merit of this authorization by it’s fruit.

This authorization was a neocons wet dream. It was first used to go after Al Qaeda and, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service published May 11, 2016, has since been used “37 times in connection with actions in 14 countries and on the high seas.” The countries that have been targeted via this authorization include Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

Remember when Obama and Hillary iced Gaddafi? The AUMF was cited in that instance as well.

It is not hard to see that the founders were opposed to the idea of a standing army at the ready to be used at the discretion of a President. The President is only commander-in-chief once there is a war declared by Congress. The arguments that Biden had the authority to attack Yemen is a neocon’s argument, as they were the ones who dreamt up the AUMF, well before 9-11, as the ultimate workaround to initiate endless wars.

The AUMF should be repealed.

Reposted from: The Post-Liberal