No More Blank Checks for War
After the assassination of the archduke in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, Austria got from Kaiser Wilhelm a "blank cheque" to punish Serbia. Germany would follow whatever course its ally chose to take. Austria chose war on Serbia. And World War I resulted.
On March 31, 1939, Britain gave a blank check to Poland in its dispute with Germany over Danzig, a town of 350,000 Germans. Should war come, Britain would fight on Poland's side.
Poland refused to negotiate, Adolf Hitler attacked, and Britain declared war. After six years, the British Empire collapsed. Germany was burnt to ashes. Poland entered the slave quarters of Joseph Stalin's empire.
Lesson: No great power should ever give to a small ally or client state a blank check to drag it into war.
This raises the question: Has President Bush given Israel a blank check?
A year ago, Israel attacked and smashed an alleged nuclear reactor site in Syria. In April, Israel held a five-day civil defense drill. In June, Israel sent 100 F-15s and F-16s, with refueling tankers, toward Greece in a simulated attack. The planes flew 1,450 kilometers, the distance to Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.
On June 6, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened, "If Iran continues its nuclear weapons program we will attack it."
Ehud Olmert returned from a June meeting with Bush to tell Israelis, "George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term."
Is Israel bluffing, or in dead earnest?
For while Israel can do damage to Iran, she cannot defeat Iran without using nuclear weapons. But any attack Israel launched against Iran would require U.S. complicity, and any Israeli war with Iran would almost certainly require the United States to do most of the fighting to win or end it.
Thus, if George Bush does not want war with Iran, with two U.S. wars already, he must inform the Israelis in unequivocal terms that the United States opposes any Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran, and will not assist but denounce any such attack.
If Bush believes war with Iran is vital to U.S. security, he should make that case to Congress. To allow Israel to start a war we do not want would be an abdication of his duty as president.
Clearly, among the reasons Israel conducted its dress rehearsal for war was to maximize pressure on Iran to halt enriching uranium. Bush may well have welcomed the added pressure.
But as the Iranians have insisted, they are entitled, under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty they signed and Israel did not, to enrich uranium for fuel in power plants. Tehran has declared it will not be the only nation to surrender its legal rights under the NPT. And in response to the Israeli military exercises, Tehran conducted its own missile-firing exercises this week.
If neither side yields, confrontation is inevitable. Perhaps soon.
For we are only four months from the election, and Israel is pawing the ground to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
Is this Bush's back door to war with Iran?
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen, in Israel a week ago, returned to say a "third front" in the Middle East, with Iran, would be "extremely stressful" to U.S. forces.
He is saying that U.S. ground forces probably cannot now cope with another war, with a nation three times as large as Iraq.
Asked about Israel taking unilateral action, Mullen replied, "This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don't need it to be more unstable." But Mullen is not the president. What did Bush tell Olmert? Does Israel have a green light, a yellow light or a red light?
Should Israel attack Iran and Bush deny complicity, he would no more be believed than were Britain and France in 1956. Then, the Israelis stormed into Sinai, and Britain and France said they were intervening to separate the warring nations and secure the Suez Canal. Outraged, Ike ordered the British, French and Israelis alike to get out of Suez and Sinai. They did.
President Bush must step up to the plate.
If he believes sanctions are not succeeding and Iran's nuclear program must be halted, he should go to Congress for authority to neutralize the facilities. If he has not so concluded, he should tell Israel it is not to start a war that U.S. airmen, sailors, soldiers and Marines will have to finish.
America needs to restore that absolute freedom of action in matters of war and peace she once had, before entering the skein of entangling alliances that now encumber the republic.
No ally, no client state, should ever be allowed to drag America into a war she has not chosen, constitutionally, to fight.
No more blank checks for any nation.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
The only real check on the power and recklessness of Bush, the neo-cons and the Israeli government is the power of people high-ranking in the defense and intelligence establishments who are opposed to another war - they and their backers on Wall Street. This power is exercised where most of us cannot see it - we can only guess - much like Cold War Kremlinology. But if there is no war with Iran, that hidden power will be the reason - not anything which the venal US Congress does or does not do.
Kirt,
We need to abide by the provisions of the Constitution. The Senate should demand its role in declaring war.
Dubya Bush didn't ask for a formal declaration of war, but the Senate did give its approval for the Iraq intervention. The Senate's approval is required for any treaties with other nations.
Lincoln ignored the Constitution in more ways than any other President. Since that time Presidents have felt freer to claim "war powers" and to go on "police actions."
When the President is allowed to ignore the Constitution, the nation is inviting tyranny. Ironically, the center of the President's oath of office is "to support and defend the Constitution."
"Creative" interpretations of the Constitution by the Supreme Court are also dangerous. But the Senate has rejected in recent years any "strict constructionist" candidates for justice on that court.
#2 - I'm talking about the realities of the situation. The horses you mention have long since left the barn and your citation of Lincoln indicates you realize that. If the Constitution is the only thing that stands between us and a war against Iran, then war is on. As Joe Sobran once put it, "The Constitution is no threat to our form of government" and on another occasion "Our form of government is exactly what the Constitution was supposed to prevent".
"If Bush believes war with Iran is vital to U.S. security, he should make that case to Congress. To allow Israel to start a war we do not want would be an abdication of his duty as president."
If Israel were to attack Iran, wouldn't it be about Israel's security, and not that of the U.S.?
America should either directly influence Israeli policy, or should we stay out of it. Which is it Pat? You can't have it both ways.
Where there are few to no virtuous men, documents such as the Constitution are meaningless.
As a Christian, I understand a war on the part of "the United States" against Iran under the current circumstances to be immoral; yet, that moral, and I believe, logistical overreach may ironically be the beginning of the end for the empire.
I agree with Buchanan's basic premise. Israel is not even an ally (unless someone can quote me the treaty of alliance now in effect between us). Congress needs to define once and for all the dividing line between contingency operations, which the President can order in situations short of war, and War, which requires a declaration by the Congress. My own feeling is that the frontier between the two lies in the use of draftees and reservists in the latter, and it's all pervasive demands upon the national treasury.
The blank check was a mistake then and would most certainly be a mistake now. I wish that Bush would agree to meet with Ahmadinejad. Sadly, however, it's doubtful that Bush will seriously give negotiations a chance.
Experts have been predicting that Bush would authorize a strike on Iran for years:
“I believe President Bush is going to order air strikes (on Iran) before he leaves office”
-Norman Podhoretz (Lyons, 2007).
Bush and his cronies say they want peace and diplomacy, but the problem with the members of Bush administration is that you can't trust them. You can't take what they at face value.
The administration secretly planned and prepared for war with Iraq without disclosing it to the general public.
Yet, when asked about Iraq, Bush’s favorite response was “I have no war plans on my desk.” At one point or another after the planning began, nearly every member of the administration publicly denied any plans to go to war with Iraq.
The question remains: Why would we expect the Bush administration to start being honest and up front about its intentions now?
A better approach to Iran would be negotiations. We need to give Iran an honorable path of retreat. While Fareed Zakaria agrees that there is no reason not to use sanctions and embargoes against states such as Iran, he suggests that we also need to “allow a viable way out.” That is to say, we need to negotiate and not merely mandate.
I think we should more concerned about acquainting ourselves with the realities of Iran's foreign policy initiatives, and intelligently determining our most reasonable course of action.
Israel cannot bomb Iran without U.S. acquiescence, because the U.S. controls Iraq's airspace, through which the IAF would have to pass. Moreover, U.S. forces in Iraq and ships in the Gulf might be the first targets of Iranian retaliation, sending oil prices through the roof and the world economy into the dumpster.
Thus to avoid an unnecessary war we not only have to give Israel no blank checks, but we must actively restrain her. That is politically difficult for a weak lame duck administration half of which would like to attack Iran anyway, and will be difficult for a new, unstaffed President as well. Fortuantely our military circles know we would need conscription and a war economy to take on Iran, and they don't want to put our military at risk in its present hollowed-out condition. Let's hope the professionals prevail in this case.
What's going on now is probably saber-rattling rather than true war planning, which would more likely be kept secret, but whether the chest-thumpers can avoid a confrontation remains to be seen.
grumpy where you hiddin - you sf dude. i hear you i'm on no man's radar - like the rich. think they want anyone knowing what they had for bkfst. bithches. he-he-he. i once had a _________ big as a tail.
did the heart thing go that bad? they're butchers. not their fault now.
they're educated by the pill industry and the folks who like to cut.
you know the old story - "you like being a surgeon...i'd puke... how can you do it?"
Well, said the surgeon i get to cut up people and get paid for it -what's not to like. ... ?
point is - besides being indoctrinated - and with the notion it's bucks for them - they AIN'T too schmart. Ha-Ha. you dig, those "doctors."
FUNNY.
god ain't too schmart either - but i'd bank on him. usually. funnyl.
I dont see how we cant have good relations with Iran. Until recently US and Israel were partners with them when Iranian Hezbollah military units were help training Bosnian and KLA terrorists to genocide the Serbs in the Balkans (massacres, torture, jihadi production videos, etc) which the CIA, Mossad, MI6, ISI etc, also help train.
Were experiencing the same problems that occured during the start of the 20th Century with the same religious and ethnic minority formenting discourse in media and government pushing us towards unnecessary wars. A topic probably not covered in Pats latest book.
delete this if you must but for our very survival we in the u.s. MUST take down our current govt. it don't Work unless you're some sort of pervert.
f-ck'em...
there's nothing kids... dig it, if you have the nuts...
which you don't.
even if you have the brains under God - he wants heart... he wants soul he wants what you can give since he gave it to you... if not he says - ooops die bithches... or bastards to be an equal opportunity... diss...
and even god sucks... see, what creation is... in your grasp - if it ain't too depressing, which it also is... god knows... funny - it sucks.
it's just yours... under god... he don't even require it (under him) - if you think so fine - or don't ..... get down with it.... it's yours, who else's????????
take it bithches...
let him laugh... but not at you if you DO
and watch the sun rise... do it -
Mr. Zander, your immoral and nonsensical words are not welcome on this website. Returning quickly to the topic at hand, I commend Pat for recognizing the lawless, wrongheaded, and totalitarian actions of our government and how they need to stop. However, I certainly hope Pat isn't deluding himself into thinking that his words will have any effect on policy. War against Iran is coming, possibly as soon as November. We do not have control over U.S. foreign policy. The country whose borders we live within and its government which we furnish with our tax dollars both do not belong to us. Strike that first part, actually. As Prof. Wilson once said, this ISN'T a real country. Americans have a government, and that alone, one that is our master and lord. We do not have a nation or country. We have the managerial state James Burnham warned us of.
While Israel has a God-given right to exist within its borders, it should neither be the puppet of the USA, nor a "client" state, nor should we be required to fight wars on its behalf, save only for an unprovoked attack on it by a regional power.
We have an interest in helping Israel defend itself (primarily through trade in defensive weapons technology and intelligence) but we have no duty to her in any wars of aggression, even if it suits our mutual short term aims of denying Iran nuclear weapons or other WMDs.
Mr. Buchanan has this exactly right, however:
If we allow ourselves to get entangled in yet another unlawful, unconstitutional war, a third front with our armed forces already stretched to the breaking point, it could very well spell the end of our "empire", and threaten the future of our Republic as well.
My earlier point, put a different way, is that there is no hope
for a rational policy (or a rational government) without written, defined limits on the powers that officials can exercise.
Without a Constitution that has the respect and force of law, those in power will do whatever they please and that will be self-serving things---like making money and staying in power. I doubt that the nation can go on long, given a determined enemy abroad and a lack of conviction within.
I'm a frequent visitor to this site, and I thought that I'd throw my hat in the ring. As a W+L grad and recent Catholic convert I feel right at home.
I usually agree with what PB has to say. I believe, however, that he is faulty in his assessment of the events leading up to the outbreak of WWII. I think he gives Hitler too much credit. To be sure, the Chamberlain government, humiliated by the German takeover of rump Czechoslovakia in March 1939 (it should be noted that Poland was complicit in this act) gave the Poles a "blank check." However, the Polish crisis was far more complex than simply the question of Danzig. Hitler dangled Danzig in front of the British and the French in order to sway world opinion and perhaps pull of another coup a'la Munich 1938. He would not have stopped at Danzig. In fact, he demanded the Corridor as well. He couched this demand in typically vague terms- talks of plebiscites and railroad rights but his aim was clear. The Poles, stubborn as they were, refused to accede to these demands, knowing that the loss of the Corridor would have inevitably led to the carving up of their State in the same manner as Czechoslovakia. Hitler's goal, enunciated as early as 1922, was the wholesale destruction of the Polish state. His foreign policy was directed entirely towards a Drang nach Osten.
In PB's writings I get the sense that he believes the British were partly to blame for the outbreak of war in autumn of 1939. I cannot disagree more. World War II, in Europe, at least, was Hitler's war. To think that the cession of Danzig alone would have satiated Hitler is silly. The British were right to stand up to German expansionism, they simply picked the wrong time to do it, and the wrong ally. Had they called Hitler's bluff in the Rhineland or the Sudetanland, history might have taken a much different turn.
Just ignore Zander or chuckle. He is always here under various names. He is either taking revenge on a certain editor's tirade long ago, or his brain is fried on heroin. Either way, it's comic relief.
right pcH - some of my posts I don't even remember having made - due to alcoholic blackouts. not heroin. i like alcoholic blackouts... the gift of the loss of memory - prior to alzheimers. I'm sober now so i won't even read my posts above. I skipped over them now. they remain for me in the night. glad you got a chuckle. wow, i'm funny.
think i'll start drinking soon again today. don't worry, i don't drive. sold my car & t.v. Not for needed funds, on principle. cheers.
mostly I stay home. Or if I venture out I'm usually 86'd from most places. it's my claim to fame. my fear is some other john zander or another man of a thousand names will pretend to be me, and I won't know it. I have no idea if those posts above some or all of them are mine. I have not read them, and won't. but it does seem like there are too many of them. i have always said - please censor me. god forbid, perhaps they're merely 'honest' not just humorous - i don't know.
I think that putting the blame solely on Bush for the coming Iran war while wringing one's hand over the incompetence/unwillingness of the Congress is naive. Bush could not do any of the nonsense he has done without the concurrence of the Congress. The fact that some of these, like the so-called Patriot Act or Defense spending for the War in Iraq actually go to a vote is immaterial. We have one political Party in this country and it acts deliberately, even if secretly, to secure the things it wants; it is, furthermore, controlled by and in hock to Israel. Any real fighting in Washington is over the crumbs. And most of the arguing is solely noise for public distraction. When Israel demands its war in Iran our indebted Party will comply -- but don't look for them to suffer or sacrifice.
Pat is impressed that Iran signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and Israel did not. But Iran is, to my knowledge, the only country which has threatened to wipe another country 'off the map'. Methinks that counts for something.
#21 - How tiresome to hear endlessly repeated this neo-con war party propaganda. The Iranians never threatened to wipe Israel or anyone else off the map. The statement was that "the regime which rules Jerusalem will vanish from the pages of time" i.e. from history. Nothing was said about Iran planning to do this itself. Recently, the Iranian president has stated that Israel will collapse on its own. Obviously, the Iranian regime does not wish the Israeli regime well, but that is not a just reason even for Israel to go to war against Iran, let alone for the US to do so.
The Blank Cheque to Poland led straightway (1939) to the murder of 60,000 German civilians and 100,000 German civilian casualties. On one day alone allegedly "Polish" citizens - Ladovitch, Karpinski, and Weis - massacred 5,500 German civilians. German territory was invaded and Polish maps showed new Polish borders on the Oder, across lands that had been German since the ages of the Beaker Folk (ca. 2000 BC).
Why is it that the little people - the farmers and the shopkeepers - always pay for the crimes of the great?
The Blank Cheque to inter-war Poland led straightway (1939) to the murder of 60,000 German civilians and 100,000 German civilian casualties. On one day alone allegedly "Polish" citizens - Ladovitch, Karpinski, and Weis - massacred 5,500 German civilians. German territory was invaded and Polish maps showed new Polish borders on the Oder, across lands that had been German since the ages of the Beaker Folk (ca. 2000 BC).
Why is it that the little people - the farmers and the shopkeepers - always pay for the crimes of the great?
In 1939, the Blank Cheque to Poland between the wars led straightway to the murder of 60,000 German civilians and 100,000 German civilian casualties. On one day alone allegedly "Polish" citizens - Ladovitch, Karpinski, and Weis - massacred 5,500 German civilians. German territory was invaded and Polish maps showed new Polish borders on the Oder, across lands that had been German since the ages of the Beaker Folk (ca. 2000 BC).
Why is it that the little people - the farmers and the shopkeepers - always pay for the crimes of the great?