Perpetual War Is Fine With the New York Times After All
By Norman Solomon
The editorial board of the New York Times has an Orwellian knack for war. Sixteen months ago, when President Obama gave oratorical lip service to ending “perpetual war,” the newspaper quickly touted that end as a democratic necessity. But now—in response to Obama’s speech on Wednesday, September 10, announcing the escalation of war without plausible end—the Times editorial voice is with the endless war program.
Under the headline “The End of the Perpetual War,” published May 23, 2013, the Times was vehement, calling a new Obama speech “the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America.” The editorial added: “For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future.”
The Times editorial board was sweeping in its conclusion: “Mr. Obama told the world that the United States must return to a state in which counterterrorism is handled, as it always was before 2001, primarily by law enforcement and the intelligence agencies. That shift is essential to preserving the democratic system and rule of law for which the United States is fighting, and for repairing its badly damaged global image.”
Judging from the New York Times editorial that appeared hours after Obama’s pivotal speech, the newspaper’s editorial board has ditched the concept that the state of perpetual war is unsustainable for democracy. Under the headline “The Attack on ISIS Expands to Syria,” the Times editorial offers only equivocal misgivings without opposition “as President Obama moves the nation back onto a war footing.” Without a fine point on the matter, we are to understand that war must be perpetuated without any foreseeable end.
The concluding paragraph of the New York Times editorial in the September 11, 2014 edition is already historic and tragic. It sums up a liberal style of murmuring reservations while deferring to the essence of U.S. policies for perpetual war: “The American military’s actions in the Middle East has (sic) often fueled Arab anger, even when the United States was spending billions of dollars on beneficial programs, including health and education. Mr. Obama expressed confidence that the plan against ISIS will work and, at the moment, seems aware of the risks he takes.”
Like the vast bulk of the rest of U.S. mass media, when push comes to militaristic shove, the New York Times refuses to make a break from the madness of perpetual war. In fact, with rare exceptions, the dominant media outlets end up fueling that madness. A strong challenge to it will have to come from elsewhere. From us.
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Norman Solomon is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
Obama and ISIS
By David McReynolds
We can all agree that ISIS (or ISL) is a dreadful organization which has committed grievous crimes in Iraq, crimes which extend far beyond the beheading of American journalists to include mass executions of civilians. The problem is that, as always happens in these cases, there is a certain “selective outrage,” a kind of “willed amnesia” about our own role in such matters.
Let me leave aside ancient history such as Vietnam, and, just looking at Iraq, remind ourselves that the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein for a long period of time, including his war against Iran which lasted nine years, during which he used poison gas against the Iranians with no comment from the White House. Or, after the first Gulf War, when Saddam had agreed to the terms of surrender and was withdrawing his troops from Kuwait, our planes machine-gunned the retreating troops who, under any possible definition of the terms of surrender, should have had safe passage.
Then, the U.S. encouraged an uprising among the Iraqis against Saddam, but provided no support and stood by when Saddam slaughtered them by the thousands. Or perhaps to remember the massive loss of civilian lives in Iraq after our inglorious “Shock and Awe” invasion. Or the torture chambers we set up, photographs of which horrified the world.
Not all of the sins of America, taken together, justify the beheading of a single journalist—but memory may help us understand the roots of that horror.
Obama’s speech on September 10 went out of its way to chide Russia, at precisely the moment we need the help of Russia (and Iran) in dealing with ISIS. He stoked the old fires of the Cold War by referencing the troubles in Ukraine—for which the U.S. is primarily responsible. And, most tragic of all, instead of offering some hope of ending the bloodshed in Syria, he is going to extend further aid to one side in the civil war there, which will prolong and deepen it.
If ISIS is indeed the enemy, then, in Syria, the most natural ally is Assad, brutal as his dictatorship is. Let’s remember the U.S. has relied on Syria before, as an ally against Hussein, and as a convenient place to send suspects we wanted tortured in the most professional way possible. The roots of ISIS are, in part, in Syria, a bitter enemy of Assad, and, in large part, now in Iraq, where it has made an appeal to the Sunni population. The Sunnis are the minority religion, but, under Saddam Hussein, they ruled Iraq. As a result of the U.S. invasion, the Sunnis were driven from power and the government turned over to the Shiites (which have close ties to Iran). The U.S.-sponsored government in Baghdad used its power to wreak vengeance on the Sunnis, excluding them from any share of power, and, in far too many cases, using control of the State to murder and imprison them.
Now the Sunnis have turned to ISIS for their revenge. And ISIS has used the weapons the U.S. sent to the Iraqi army, which turned and fled, leaving behind their tanks and heavy artillery. The chances are good that more American aid will end in the same way.
The one exception in Iraq is the Kurdish area. Contrary to media reports, the Peshmerga broke in their first encounter with ISIS—but they have a real stake in setting up their own territory and there is a good chance that, unlike the Iraqi army, they will stand and fight once they have caught their breath. (I feel guilty, as a pacifist, to even suggest aspects of military strategy and tactics—I am only trying to offer an analysis.) It is true that a Kurdish “state” in Iraq will create new problems, but they are the one group that might prove a match for ISIS.
Meanwhile, one has to wonder why American intelligence was caught so totally off guard by ISIS and its sweep into Iraq. Just as our sources failed to alert us to this impending disaster, they may be overestimating the power of ISIS, which will be subject to internal strains.
Missing entirely from Obama’s speech was any recognition of the dangerous role Saudi Arabia and Qatar have played in creating ISIS. If there is a hidden card in this deck, it is in the military and financial support these states gave to the Islamist forces in Syria—the very forces which evolved into ISIS. It is surely ironic that Obama and his advisers would go out of their way to chide Russia—which might actually be of help—and remain silent on the countries which have played so ominous a role in creating the current problem (funding for Al Qaida came in large part from wealthy Saudis).
ISIS, dreadful as it is, is not a threat to the United States. It is part of the civil war which has emerged in Iraq. Massive bombing campaigns will not solve a problem which has its roots in the internal tensions and religious conflicts in Iraq. For diplomacy to have a chance, the U.S. will need consultation with Iran, just as it needs to avoid deepening the civil conflict in Syria. Obama’s speech failed to deal with the real problems. He seems unaware that the American Empire has ended.
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David McReynolds is a former staff member of the War Resisters League, was twice the Socialist Party’s candidate for President, and served as Chair of War Resisters International.
Legal Rationale for Isis Strikes: Shoot First, Ask Congress Later
By Spencer Ackerman
In the space of a single prime-time address on September 10, Barack Obama dealt a crippling blow to a creaking, 40-year-old effort to restore legislative primacy to American warmaking—a far easier adversary to vanquish than the Islamic State. Obama’s legal arguments for unilaterally expanding a war expected to last years have shocked even his supporters.
Ahead of Wednesday’s speech, the White House signaled that Obama already “has the authority he needs to take action” against ISIS without congressional approval. Obama said he would welcome congressional support, but framed it as optional, save for the authorizations and the $500 million he wants to use for the U.S. military to train Syrian rebels. Bipartisan congressional leaders who met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday expressed no outrage.
The Administration’s rationale, at odds with the war it is steadily expanding, is to forestall an endless conflict foisted on it by a bloodthirsty legislature. Yet one of the main authorities Obama is relying on for avoiding Congress is the 2001 wellspring of the war on terrorism he advocated repealing only last year, a document known as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that few think actually applies to ISIS.
Taken together with the congressional leadership’s shrug, Obama has stripped the veneer off a contemporary fact of American national security: presidents make war on their own, and congresses acquiesce.
The constitution envisions the exact opposite circumstance. A 1973 reform, the War Powers Resolution, attempted a constitutional restoration in the wake of the Vietnam War, ensuring that the legal authorization for conflict deployments were voided after 60 days. Yet its restrictions on military action have proven far less durable in conflicts like Grenada, Kosovo, Libya, and now the 2014-vintage Iraq war.
For the Obama administration, an allergy to congressional authorization is enmeshed with the president’s stated desire to end what he last year termed a “perpetual war” footing. It has led Obama in directions legal scholars consider highly questionable. Some of Obama’s legislative brush-offs are straightforward.
The Administration did not seek legislative authority for its 2011 Libya air war, something Congress was unlikely to grant. Skepticism also mounted in Congress last year when Obama proposed attacking Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Secretary of State John Kerry told the Huffington Post that Obama could bomb Assad even if Congress voted against it. But not only has Obama rejected restrictions of his warmaking power, he has also rejected legislative expansions of it—a more curious choice. In 2010, shortly after the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, the incoming chair of the armed services committee, Buck McKeon of California, endorsed passing a new congressional authorization for the so-called war on terrorism. McKeon reasoned that a mutating terror threat had pushed the legal boundaries of the brief 2001 AUMF and that a new generation of legislators had not granted their endorsement.
Yet when McKeon’s committee invited the Administration’s thoughts, its representative rejected the effort. Jeh Johnson, then the Pentagon’s chief lawyer and now secretary of Homeland Security, said the 2001 law—passed before al-Qaida’s contemporary affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa existed, let alone the emergence of ISIS, which is no longer part of al-Qaida—provided “sufficient” legal authority for contemporary U.S. counter-terrorism.
According to several Administration officials over the years, Obama has been wary that Congress will offer up new laws that entrench and expand an amorphous war that, in his mind, he has waged with the minimum necessary amount of force. Obama last year advocated the eventual repeal of the 2001 authorization—as well as the 2002 congressional approval of the Iraq war—to aid in turning a page on a long era of U.S. warfare.
Yet, on September 10, a senior Administration official told reporters that the 2001 authorization covered the war against ISIS. Legal scholars have already debated its coverage of al-Qaida affiliates that did not exist in 2001. ISIS, however, is not an al-Qaida affiliate, having been specifically disavowed by al-Qaida’s leader, Ayman Zawahiri. Ken Gude of the liberal Center for American Progress, a think tank close to the Administration, tweeted that he was “utterly shocked” the Administration would contend the 2001 authority applied—an argument he had earlier in the day called “laughable.”
Asked to explain the Administration’s reasoning, a different senior U.S. official acknowledged the “split” between al-Qaida and ISIS, but indicated the Administration considered it legally immaterial.
Based on ISIS’s longstanding relationship with al-Qaida (AQ) and Osama bin Laden; its long history of conducting, and continued desire to conduct, attacks against U.S. persons and interests, the extensive history of U.S. combat operations against ISIS dating back to the time the group first affiliated with AQ in 2004; and ISIS’s position—supported by some individual members and factions of AQ-aligned groups—that it is the true inheritor of bin Laden’s legacy, the President may rely on the 2001 AUMF as statutory authority for the use of force against ISIS, notwithstanding the recent public split between AQ’s senior leadership and ISIS.
Obama’s read on Congress has merit. Legislators who endorse congressional authorization of war against ISIS have offered packages that already look beyond the group. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) would give Obama and his successors power to attack all groups sharing “a common violent extremist ideology”—not defined—with ISIS and contemporary al-Qaida affiliates. A bill from Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), would empower the president to confront ISIS “and any successor terrorist organization.”
However, the prevailing view in Congress driving a deferral of legislative authorization for the ISIS war is political. Neither Republicans nor Democrats wish to introduce a wild card into the forthcoming congressional elections. Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA), who favors a vote, observed to the New York Times that many of his colleagues reason: “We can denounce it if it goes bad and praise it if it goes well, and ask what took him so long.” Explanations like those contextualize Congress’s diminishing dissatisfaction with violations of the War Powers Resolution over the course of four decades.
Still, that confluence of interests between Obama and the legislature has left Congress on the margins of what might be considered the Third Iraq War. Members of the U.S. public who do not want a return to war in Iraq or an expansion of war into Syria, are left without a mechanism to prevent it.
While Obama may think of himself as a bulwark against perpetual U.S. war—and while his political adversaries consider him insufficiently martial—his actions tell a different story. Obama’s foreign-policy legacy is marked by escalating and then extending the Afghanistan war beyond his presidency; empowering the CIA and special-operations forces to strike on undeclared battlefields in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya; the 2011 Libya war; and now returning U.S. warplanes to the skies above Iraq, and, soon, expanding their mission to eastern Syria.
Though Obama typically forswears conventional ground combat in his wars, a factor that tends to blunt congressional outrage, the new war Obama unveiled on the 10th looks like a different test case. His ostensible prohibition on U.S. ground “combat” forces in Iraq elides the 1,100 ground troops he has ordered back into Iraq since June, a figure certain to expand once the U.S. military revitalizes training for its Iraqi counterparts and Syrian anti-ISIS rebels. Administration officials anticipate a years-long war against the well-financed ISIS and any vote Congress casts will come after it has begun, making legislative rejection unlikely. All that creates a precedent for future presidents: shoot first, ask permission later, if at all.
American and global publics can reasonably ask what 13 years of U.S. war have durably achieved. One answer, unlikely to have been anticipated by the architects, caretakers, and practitioners of this conflict, is the hobbling of legislative restrictions on war enshrined in the Constitution and the expansion of a legal authority Obama said last year kept the country on an unacceptable footing of perpetual war.
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