Let me begin by saying that I am not a supporter of any
political faction involved with the current Syrian crisis. For example, Bashar
al-Assad is an oppressive tyrant in the mold of his father, Hafez.
Assad, The Elder, came to power via the route of a military
coup some 40 years ago. He went on to use, among other things, the Air Force
Intelligence Services as a tool of incarceration, torture, and murder in order
to maintain control within Syria.
Assad, The Younger – aside from his usual duties as an autocratic
dictator for some 13 years --
violently and massively overreacted to the peaceful demonstrations that began
taking place during 2011 in Syria as a part of the so-called Arab Spring that
had spread across North Africa and into the Middle East. Apparently, Assad interpreted those
demonstrations to be something of a harbinger of regime change along the lines
that had taken place in Egypt and Tunisia previously … events which also began
with public demonstrations of dissatisfaction concerning the prospect of having
to continue on with the political corruption, abuses, exploitation, injustice,
and incompetence that characterized the forms of governance in Egypt and
Tunisia.
As a result, Assad authorized government forces to fire into
crowds of peaceful demonstrators, throw protestors into jail, and torture
citizens. From there, things went downhill very rapidly as they often do when
people have a poor understanding and appreciation of the unforeseen forces that
begin to emerge when chaos is let loose to roam the land … the sort of poor
understanding toward which the United States has shown itself to be inclined
again and again during the last 60 years, if not longer.
In the process, not only have there been more than 100,000
deaths in the Syrian civil war, but, as well, some 4.5 million Syrians have
been dislocated within the country, and another 2 million have been forced into
refugee status beyond the borders of Syria. Moreover, in some locations – Aleppo, for instance – there
has been massive looting, including the dismantling of entire factories whose
parts have been shipped off to Turkey, and elsewhere, to be sold.
Unfortunately, at the present time, the possible
alternatives to Assad within Syria are not all that appealing either. There are
reports that there are some 1,200 different factions within Syria, ranging
from, on the one hand, small family groups who have been aggrieved by, and are
seeking revenge for, this or that form of injustice or atrocity, to, on the
other hand, much larger, well organized, disciplined, and very well funded
armies/militias such as the al-Nusra Front that has pledged its allegiance to
fundamentalist, extremist religious elements within the Middle East that are
backed by money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.
Moreover, not everyone who is fighting in Syria is
indigenous to that country. For example, the al-Nusra Front is allied with
individuals who come from elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world and who are
fighting on behalf of a Wahhabi/Salafi set of theocratic beliefs. The Wahhabi
orientation is somewhat different from the Salafi perspective, but they both
are rooted in similar values and ideas – namely, they both give expression to
very rigid, dogmatic, doctrinaire, narrow, and legalistic interpretations of Islam,
and neither of those religious movements are shy about seeking to impose their
interpretations on other people irrespective of whether those people are Muslim
or not.
A variety of reports from in and around Syria indicate that
personnel from the CIA and U.S. military Special Forces have been training some
of these extremist elements for some time. That training began before the issue
of chemical weapon usage in Syria arose.
Elements of Hezbollah (Lebanon) also have entered the war in
Syria but on the opposite side of the Saudi-supported Wahhabi/Salafi forces. In
fact, some individuals have credited the entrance of Hezbollah fighters into
the Syrian morass as having helped to push the Syrian conflict in a direction
that gave – however fleetingly -- some degree of advantage to the Assad
government in the on-going hostilities.
Hezbollah is aligned with Iran. Moreover, Iran has a mutual
defense pact with the Assad government, and Iran is believed to be helping to
finance, if not equip, the Hezbollah units from Lebanon.
I hold no animosity toward Iran. On the other hand, I am not
an active -- or an inactive -- proponent of the Shi’a approach to Islam, any
more than I am an active, or inactive, advocate for the Wahhabi/Salafi manner
of engaging Islam.
The Russians also have a presence in Syria. They have had a
long-standing set of economic, cultural, and military arrangements with Syria
over the last 40 years that began under the auspices of the Soviet Union and
continued on with Russia following the breakup of the old communist empire in
1991.
For example, the port of Tartus is the second largest port
facility in Syria, and the Russians have a relatively small base in Tartus.
That facility is the only base the Russians possess outside of the former
Soviet Union, but it does give them a legitimate standing, of sorts, in Syria
that the United States does not have.
On Friday: September 6, 2013, the final day of the G-20
Summit, took place. Putin used
that occasion to organize a news conference during which he pledged Russian
assistance to Syria in the event there is a military intervention of some kind
by foreign governments with respect to that Arab country.
The nature and scope of such assistance was left
unspecified. However, beside the Russian Navy vessels that already are present
off the coast of Syria, the Russian news agency Interfax recently reported that
it had been informed by a source affiliated with the naval command center in
St. Petersburg that additional military ships have been reported sailing through
the Bosphorus Strait and are on their way to the eastern Mediterranean and the
vicinity of Syria.
One of the foregoing ships was reported to have picked up a
‘special cargo’ of some kind from the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk before proceeding on toward
the Mediterranean. The nature of that cargo was not identified.
The Israelis also have made their presence felt in Syria.
Among other things, over the last year or so, the Israelis have authorized
several military air strikes across the Syrian border for this or that reason
involving issues of alleged national security.
According to the Times
of Israel, there are reports from media sources in Lebanon that Israeli
Defense Forces are gathering along the Israeli-Lebanese border in possible
anticipation of American intervention in Syria. Furthermore, Lebanese media
sources have reported that Lebanon has issued complaints to the United Nations
that Israeli jets have been consistently violating Lebanese air space in
southern Lebanon for a number of days.
Moreover, we should not forget the Chinese who have
developed a flourishing economic relationship with Syria over the last 9-10
years. As a result, China has become Syria’s biggest trading partner, even
outstripping the long-standing Russian-Syrian economic alliance.
In addition, the Chinese have deep ties to Syrian oil. For
example, the Sinochem Corporation has a 50% stake in Syria’s largest oil field,
and the China National Petroleum Corporation owns shares in two of Syria’s
largest oil companies. Furthermore, the Chinese have entered into multibillion,
multiyear contracts with Syria to explore and develop Syria’s oil potential.
A Russian news outlet, Telegrafist, has reported that the
Chinese have dispatched the Jinggangshan -- an amphibious dock landing vessel
with defensive weapon capabilities -- to the Mediterranean to keep tabs on both
the Russians and the Americans who also have sent war ships into the area.
However, there are also additional reports that the Chinese have dispatched
additional ships into the area with more potent arrays of weaponry.
Some people refer to the Syrian conflict as a civil
war. That is, the hostilities were
a function of Syrians fighting against Syrians.
While the problem might have begun as a civil war, it has
morphed into something that is much more complex and dangerous – not only with
respect to Syria but in relation to the whole world. More specifically, the
Syrian conflict has been transformed into a proxy war: Sunni (e.g., al-Nusra Front) against
Shi’a (e.g., Hezbollah); Saudi Arabia against Iran; Israel versus Iran; the
United States and Iran; the United States and Russia … and China.
More and more pressure is being applied to Syria both from
within and without. As a result, the country could disintegrate before our
eyes, and this fragmentation might be the fuse that is capable of igniting
World War III.
Over the last several weeks, the problem posed by Syria has
intensified considerably. The source of this added heat is the use of chemical
weapons by someone in Syria.
No one disputes the fact that chemical weapons were released
in Syria. However, what is far
from clear are answers to questions such as: who is responsible, or why were chemical weapons used, or
how many casualties occurred as a result of the usage of chemical weapons, and,
finally, what should be done about the situation?
President Obama has reported that some 1,400 people,
involving more than 400 children were victims of the most recent chemical
incident. Other independent
observers have indicated that the President’s figures might be somewhat
inflated.
Even if one assumes that the President’s figures are
correct, the fact of the matter is that Obama, himself, has been directly
responsible for the deaths of between 558-1,119 innocent people, with somewhere
between 204-350 of those people being children. He has done this via the drone
program that he oversees and personally approves the targets in places such as
Yemen and Pakistan.
Whoever is responsible for the release of chemical weapons in
Syria has committed heinous acts … especially in relation to children who -- no
matter what the politics, actions, and views of their parents might be -- are,
nonetheless, innocent individuals caught up in conflicts that are not of their
choice. Nevertheless, surely the same characterization applies to the
slaughtering of innocent children in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere by the
United States.
Madeline Albright -- the former Secretary of State under
Bill Clinton and who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack
Obama -- was interviewed for the 60
Minutes television program in 1996.
Leslie Stahl indicated that she had heard “that half a million children
have died (in Iraq) … I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know … is the price worth it?”
Albright responded by saying: “ I think this is a very hard choice, but the
price … we think the price is worth it.”
Bill Richardson -- a former Energy Secretary and U.N.
Ambassador under Bill Clinton, and who also was nominated by Obama to be the
Commerce Secretary during the first term of Obama’s administration -- was
interviewed by Amy Goodman on September 22, 2005 for an edition of Democracy Now. Goodman raised the
question that had been asked of Madeleine Albright nearly ten years earlier –
namely, “Do you think the price was worth it … 500,000 children dead?
Richardson replied: “Well … I believe our policy was correct, yes.”
Of course, one must add to the foregoing totals the tens of
thousands of Iraqi children – not to mention adults – who died for the sins of
George Bush, the Younger, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the
Republican cabal that lied their way into a war that ended up destroying
Iraq. Nor should we forget that it
was the United States who supplied Saddam Hussein with the chemical weapons
that he used on his own people -- some of who were children -- while the United
States looked the other way because, at the time, it was in the interests of
the United States to do so.
Now, the issue of innocent children being murdered – whether
in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or Pakistan -- is certainly a very important moral
issue. However, neither President Obama nor the United States government have
the requisite moral authority or credibility to address that matter since they,
themselves, have the blood of children on their hands. One cannot order drone
strikes, as President Obama has done, that kill innocent people or award the
Presidential Medal of Freedom to a person (i.e., Madeleine Albright) who
believes that slaughtering half a million children is a price worth paying for
whatever foreign policy might have been realized, nor can President Obama
nominate an individual for a Cabinet level position (i.e., Bill Richardson) who
believes that slaughtering 500,000 children is the “correct” policy and expect
to be taken seriously when the same President talks about the unspeakable
horrors of innocent children dying as a result of the recent use of chemical
weapons in Syria.
Whoever was responsible
for the release of chemical weapons in Syria during the August 21, 2013
incident, that event was not the first time chemical weapons have been used
during the two-year Syrian conflict. Recently, Anthony Gucciardi, an
investigative reporter, indicated that Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a
report in early September 2013 revealing how a March 2013 chemical weapons
incident that occurred in Aleppo, Syria was the result of U.S. supported rebel
activities.
More specifically, the
statement said: “Probes from Khan
al-Assal show chemicals used in the March 19 attack did not belong to standard
Syrian army ammunition, and that the shell carrying the substance was similar
to those made by a rebel fighter group.”
That same fighter group has been determined to be responsible for the
burning of a number of villages of innocent civilians in Syria.
The information concerning the March 2013 Sarin-gas attack in Aleppo
was contained in a 100-page technical analysis that was released to the United
Nations in July 2013. The research underlying the report was not only conducted
in accordance with the methodological protocols that have been established by
the international group Organization For the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
but, as well, forensic evidence which had been gathered in conjunction with the
Aleppo incident were analyzed by labs in Russia that have been certified by the
OPCW.
By contrast, statements released to the public by France, Britain,
and the United States in relation to the August 21, 2013 chemical incident in
Syria consist largely of circumstantial evidence, devoid of any real forensic
rigor. In fact, the aforementioned statements from western governments do not
even reflect any of the evidence that has been collected and is in the process
of being analyzed by, United Nations weapon inspectors.
Now, someone might argue that the statement by the Russian Foreign
Ministry is nothing more than Russia trying to create cover for its long-time
Syrian ally. This might, or might not, be true, but, even if it were, such a
course of action would be no different than when the United States makes
repeated excuses for the Israeli government’s atrocities and brutalities
involving the Palestinian people or tries to cover up the Israeli use of the
chemical weapon white phosphorus against Palestinians in 2008 and 2009 –
incidents that were reported on by the International Red Cross, Human Rights
Watch, and Amnesty International … in fact, following a series of reports by
the foregoing NGOs, the Israeli government also staged a chemical attack
against the United Nations headquarters in Gaza.
Despite U.S. assurances that classified documents prove Assad was
behind the August 2013 chemical attacks, the situation is far from clear.
First, the United States referred to all kinds of classified documents in its
attempt to justify its criminal invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the equally
criminal incursion into Iraq in 2003, but those documents were all rooted in
lies, so, the United States has a considerable credibility problem when it
comes to the use of classified documents as a means of trying to justify its
subsequent actions.
Secondly, and, perhaps equally important, Dale Gavlak and Yahya
Abaneh wrote an August 29, 2013 news story indicating there is quite a bit of
evidence to suggest rebel forces may have been responsible – even if
inadvertently so – for the August 2013 chemical weapons incident. After talking
with numerous doctors, rebel factions, and residents of Ghouta (the suburb of
Damascus where the chemical event took place), the picture that emerges is
quite different from the story being pushed by the United States government
concerning the same event.
More specifically, it seems that rebel forces had received a
shipment of chemical weapons from the intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia,
Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Apparently the weapons had been channeled through an
individual from Saudi Arabia using the name Abu Ayesha, who was fighting with
the rebels.
The rebels had been sleeping in private homes and mosques in the
Ghouta region. While in the area, the rebels also had been storing the chemical
weapons in tunnels, and the word is that one of the rebels mishandled the
weapons, resulting in the release of the toxic chemicals, not only killing some
of the rebels but, as well, killing other residents of the Damascus suburb.
The foregoing story is consistent with a Mossad intercept of a
Syrian communication that was shared with the United States government. The
intercept was a phone conversation between someone high up in the Assad military
and another individual that was lower down the chain of command.
The higher-ranking person was apparently upset and wanted to know
who was responsible for releasing the chemical weapon, apparently fearing that
someone had either exceeded his/her authority or had gone rogue and decided to
use chemical weapons. However, if the foregoing news account of Gavlak and
Abaneh is correct, then no one in the government had exceeded authority or gone
rogue because the August 2013 chemical incident was an accident committed by
some of the rebels.
Unfortunately, the Israeli government wishes the United States to
believe – which the U.S. apparently does – that the aforementioned intercept
constitutes something of a smoking gun proving that the Assad government was responsible
for the release of a chemical agent. However, in the light of the foregoing
news report, the Mossad intercept does not necessarily prove what the Israelis
claim it does … indeed the Mossad intercept might help prove that something
quite different was going on, but the Israeli and U.S. governments were seeking
to frame the intercept and insert it in their own narrative concerning events
in Syria.
During the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings concerning
President Obama’s resolution about military intervention in Syria, Senator
Barbara Boxer asked Secretary Kerry: “… I remember in Iraq, sure, eventually
the word came down and everyone agreed, but then we found out there was
disagreement. To your knowledge, did they [the intelligence agencies] come to
the same conclusion [about the chemical event in August of 2013]? Secretary
Kerry replied: “To my knowledge, I have no knowledge of any agency that was a
dissenter or anybody who had an alternative theory, and I do know … I think its
safe to say that they had a whole team that ran a scenario to test their theory
to see if there was any possibility that they could come up with an alternative
view as to who might have done it. The answer is: They could not.”
The foregoing sentiments are sort of reminiscent of Condoleezza
Rice’s statement before the 9/11 Commission when she said: “No
one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon ...
into the World Trade Center, using planes as missiles” -- but the fact of the
matter is that both prior to 9/11 and on 9/11, the Pentagon and other agencies
of the government ran a series of military exercises involving, among other
things, precisely that scenario … but, then, why should Condoleezza Rice have
known about those sorts of things since she only was a member of the National
Security Council?
Secretary Kerry’s remarks
display a similar naïveté, if not ignorance, with respect to the alleged
scenario that was run by various intelligence agencies in order to determine
whether, or not, someone beside Assad might have released chemical weapons
during the August 2013 event. The
Gavlak and Abaneh news report outlined above indicated that the chemical
release was a mistake or accident committed by the rebels. The Mossad intercept
which I alluded to earlier indicated that someone lower down the command chain
might have either gone rogue or exceeded authority, and, if true, Assad did not
necessarily order the attack. The Russian Foreign Ministry statement noted
previously stipulated that evidence related to the March 2013 chemical/gas
incident in Syria pointed toward the rebels and not to Assad.
The foregoing scenarios are
not imagined. They are based on evidence.
The interpretation of that
evidence which was contained in the news reporting might, or might not, be
correct. However, whatever the case might be, apparently the seasoned pros of
the United States intelligence services were not sufficiently competent to even
think up those kinds of possibilities, let alone actually investigate them.
Yet, despite the
questionable quality of the various intelligence services, the United States
is, once again, ready to leap into the abyss of disaster and catastrophe by
being willing to bomb everything and anything in Syria. No one knows just how
rigorous – if at all – the foregoing alternative theory testing process by the
intelligences services was, and I, for one, would not trust the competency of
the Senate Committee members to be able to ask the necessary, critical
questions concerning the nature of the classified intelligence data that
supposedly has been assembled concerning the Syrian chemical event of August
2013.
All we have is the word of
intelligence agencies, along with the word of the senators who were given
access to the so-called classified information concerning the alleged chemical
attack. We don’t know what the classified information said or how reliable it
was, and given both the past history of the many errors of those very same
intelligence agencies, as well as the willingness of members of Congress to be
gullible with respect to consuming that kind of information, the fact of the
matter is, nothing which any of the senators said following their classified
concerning Syria briefing has a very high degree of credibility.
Speaking of the release of toxic weapons in the Middle East, we
should not forget the following facts – facts which various intelligence
agencies might like to deny but cannot. Prior to the 1991 Gulf War, the
incidence of cancer in Iraq was approximately 40 per 100,00 individuals.
Following the 1991 war, the incidence of cancer in Iraq shot up to
800 per 100,000 individuals. Moreover, following the Iraq invasion of 2003, the
cancer rate doubled to 1,600 per 100,000 individuals. In addition, the rate of
birth defects in Fallujah, among other places in Iraq, is 1,400 times higher
than was recorded in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The foregoing skyrocketing incidence of cancer and birth defects in
Iraq is due to the use of depleted uranium that is used in the munitions of the
U.S. military in order to achieve, among other things, greater penetrating power
in relation to enemy targets but which also is radioactive. Furthermore, even
U.S. soldiers are suffering from the toxic contamination generated by the use
of depleted uranium.
155 countries voted to ban the use of depleted uranium. The United
States, France, United Kingdom, and Israel voted against the resolution.
The other day I read a September, 3, 2013 item from Bloomberg News that described how, despite
the fact that lead has been banned from most products sold in the United States
and Europe (notwithstanding the presence of some lead-containing Chinese
exports), both the European Union and the United States permit companies to
sell millions of dollars worth of lead-containing products to a burgeoning
foreign market in various developing countries. Given that it has been
empirically demonstrated there is not any safe level of exposure to lead –
especially among pregnant women, infants, and young children -- can one
characterize the willingness of, say, the United States government (which is
responsible for the regulation of commerce) to knowingly permit American
companies to sell lead-containing products in foreign markets to be anything
but chemical warfare (in the guise of economic activity) that is being waged
against the children of the developing countries where those products are sold?
In 2004, the United States military used white phosphorous in
Fallujah, Iraq. The source for this information comes from a number of western
journalists who were embedded with the American infantry.
Initially, the United States claimed that, yes, white phosphorous
had been used in Fallujah but only in the role of an obscurant or smoke screen,
and this was perfectly legal to do. Yet, somehow, mysteriously, civilians in
Fallujah were horribly burned by, and died from, exposure to white phosphorous.
After additional news coverage concerning the use of chemical
weapons by the Untied States during the battle of Fallujah in 2004, the United
States military authorities finally admitted that white phosphorus had been
used in incendiary devices that had been fired into the city of Fallujah,
resulting in many deaths of men, women, and children.
White phosphorous is prohibited from being used in conjunction with
civilians by the Geneva Conventions, as well as by the Convention of Certain
Chemical Weapons. And, yet, both the United States and Israeli military have
transgressed against those international prohibitions and norms.
During Vietnam, the United States released tons of the highly toxic
chemical dioxin in the form of Agent Orange. Other toxic chemicals were
released into the ecology of Vietnam through Agents Blue, Green, Purple, and so
on … agents that have been traced as playing a significant role in causing
birth defects and deformities in the children of Vietnam.
The foregoing weapons were used because they had been shown to be
toxic through empirical work, and, therefore, no one can try to claim that:
“Gee, we had no idea.” Nevertheless, for years, the U.S. government has tried
to deny there was anything inappropriate or toxic in conjunction with the use
of such chemical agents.
None of the foregoing is cited in order to try to justify the use of
chemical weapons in August 2013 within Syria – irrespective of who is shown to
have been responsible for such acts, and quite apart from whether this was done
by design or by accident. The foregoing array of facts merely indicates, as
previously suggested in this essay, that the United States has no credibility
or moral authority when it comes to being outraged by the use of chemical
weapons in Syria … it is a case of the rather huge pot (the United States)
calling the kettle (Syria) black (and no racial reference is intended here).
The United States claims to be very concerned about the callous and
inhumane way in which international conventions concerning chemical weapons
have been trampled upon by the Assad government. The United States wants to
teach Assad a lesson and ensure that such an egregious contravention of
international standards of moral behavior will not occur again, and, therefore,
agents of President Obama (in the persons of Secretary of State John Kerry,
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Martin Dempsey) have gone to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
with a resolution for authority to use military force in Syria to serve as a
deterrent against the likelihood that Assad might – if he actually did – use such
weapons again in the future.
Article 51 of the United Nations Charter stipulates:
“Nothing in the present
Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective
self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,
until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain
international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of
this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security
Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the
Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as
it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and
security.”
The United States has not been
attacked by Syria. No other member of the United Nations has been attacked by
Syria.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that neither the United States nor
any other member of the United Nations has been attacked by Syria, the United
States wants to violate the internationally agreed upon charter – one to which
the United States is a signatory – and attack Syria anyway. I’m a little
confused.
If the purpose of the proposed Obama resolution concerning his wish
to bomb Syria is to protect the sacred principles of internationally agreed
upon conventions from being violated, then how is that purpose served by
violating an internationally agreed upon convention – namely, the United
Nation’s Charter – in order to accomplish his aim? President Obama seems to be
speaking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, or, as some of my
Indian ancestors might say: ‘He speaks with a forked tongue’ … or, perhaps, we
can just refer to it as the mother of all forms of hypocrisy.
During a September 5, 2013 news conference that occurred in Sweden,
President Obama -- who was on his way to the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg,
Russia -- said the following words in response to a question about whether or
not his credibility was on the line in relation to the Syrian crisis: “My
credibility is not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on
the line, and America’s and Congress’ credibility is on the line because we
give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important.”
President Obama would seem to be engaging in a certain amount of
psychic projection. He is the one who seems to be playing lip service to
international norms such as: Article 51 of the United Nation’s Charter; or, the
conventions against the use of depleted uranium; or, the continued deployment
of landmines; or, the use of torture; or, the prosecution of certain cases of
criminal activity performed on the world stage (such as the war crimes that
have been committed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya) through the World Court in
the Hague; or, preventing Israel from continuing to transgress against
international norms concerning the occupied territories in Palestine; or,
inducing Israel to come clean on its nuclear program.
The fact the United States has not signed off on some of the
foregoing conventions does not mean the vast majority of the nations of the
world have not subscribed to those norms. Therefore, the United States laxity
with respect to an array of international norms might tend to suggest that the
United States is, at best, very selective –- in a completely self-serving and
unjustifiable manner -- and at worse, the United States is, in many instances,
a rogue nation when it comes to abiding by the norms of international
conventions.
President Obama likes to refer to the United States as a country
that lives in accordance with the ‘rule of law.’ One cannot be considered to be
a nation which operates under the rule of law if one cherry-picks only those
rules of law that serve one’s interests while ignoring all the rules of law
that might not serve one’s self-serving interests.
In relation to the resolution that President Obama recently sent to
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for consideration, he said: “This is not
Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan. This is a limited, proportional step.”
In one respect, President Obama is quite correct. The Syrian crisis
is not Iraq, and it is not Afghanistan.
Russia, China, Israel, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran were not a part of
the hostilities that the United States began during 2001 and 2003 in
Afghanistan and Iraq respectively (although Iran did -- for a time, to a
limited degree, and indirectly -- enter the fray some time after
hostilities began). Now, however, all the aforementioned forces (plus a few
more) have a stake in what transpires in Syria, and in this respect, the Syrian
crisis has the potential to be much, much worse than what transpired in
Afghanistan and Iraq … as horrific as the latter wars were and are.
President Obama claims that what he is proposing is a limited,
proportional step. One wonders about the reasoning underlying such an
assertion.
My understanding is that the President has asked for a 60-day period
during which he would be authorized by Congress to use military force in Syria.
The military force would take the form of, among other things, cruise missiles.
Apparently, there are also provisions within the proposed resolution for a
further 30 days of military action if that is deemed to be required after
evaluating the results of the first 60 days of bombing.
Everybody in Obama’s administration seems to feel that irrespective
of whatever might transpire during the 60-90 day period of authorized military
force, those activities will not be sufficient to destroy Assad’s chemical
weapons capacity. In fact, some commentators have indicated that the bombing of
Syrian targets will not necessarily even be directed toward chemical weapons
storage facilities since there is some concern that destroying those facilities
might release the very chemicals that are of such concern to U.S. authorities.
So, other targets will be selected. Perhaps they will zero in on
delivery systems such as airplanes or the runways needed by those vehicles.
The New York Times reported
on September 5, 2013 that: “President Obama has directed the Pentagon to
develop an expanded list of potential targets in Syria in response to
intelligence suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has
been moving troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons while Congress
debates whether to authorize military action.” Consequently, the original list
of targets has been expanded to more than 50 possible sites.
According to General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the target list is comprised of military units, storage-facilities, as
well as artillery/missile/rocket equipment that are connected with the possible
use or protection of chemical weapons. Regardless of the targets selected, I
want to know how President Obama can be certain that the response will be
limited and proportional. He claims that 1,400 innocent civilians were killed
in the toxic chemical event, and, consequently, a proportional strike
presumably would involve the elimination of 1,400 members from Assad’s
government.
How does he propose to accomplish such proportionality? In every
military engagement in which the United States has been involved – from World
War I right through the Iraq war, the majority of people who have died from
military activity have been civilians.
Despite the exaggerated claims of defense contractors and the
military, most of the so-called smart weapons have proven to be fairly dumb. As
a result, civilians have been indiscriminately killed along with whatever enemy
combatants might happen to have been around when such smart weapons were
unleashed.
The chances are very high that innocent civilians will be more
proportionately affected than will members of Assad’s government or military
forces. When missiles are launched from U.S. ships, transportation networks,
food distribution chains, drinkable water sources, medical facilities, housing
complexes, and civilian jobs are all likely to be adversely affected, and, in
the process, there will be considerable disruption, displacement, degrading,
and destruction of civilian life.
Reuters has recently reported that on Wednesday – September 4, 2013
– the Russian Foreign Ministry made a statement that was intended for the ears
of the United Nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in relation to
the possible, impending military intervention into Syria by the United States.
More specifically, there is a Miniature Source Reactor near to Damascus which,
if hit, could represent a considerable radiation hazard for – at the very least
-- the people of Damascus.
In 2007, the Israeli government bombed a desert facility in Deir
al-Zor, Syria that -- according to intelligence gathered by the United States
-- was using a North Korean reactor design that, supposedly, was capable of
yielding plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. The Deir al-Zor
facility might, or might not, have been dedicated to the purpose which American
intelligence claimed, but there are several points that can be noted in
passing.
First, the Israeli attack was in violation of the United Nations
Charter since Israel was not under attack from Syria. Secondly, Israel does
have nuclear weapons and, therefore, one has to put the situation into context
– when people (e.g., Syria) feel threatened by the nuclear capability of a
neighbor (i.e., Israel), then the politics of fear take over, and there is a
desire in such people to want to defend themselves against such a nuclear
arsenal. And, finally, even if the intelligence concerning the Deir al-Zor
facility was accurate, neither America nor Israel seemed to care in the least
about what sort of radiological hazard they might be creating for innocent
people in Syria, and one can only hope that such apparent, callous indifference
is not shaping the targeting process that is currently transpiring among
American military officials in relation to Syria.
One of the estimates making the rounds is that some 200-300 cruise
missiles might be utilized during the proposed Syrian action. If my arithmetic
is correct and one wishes to exercise a proportionate response, then that works
out to be somewhere between 4.5 and 7 people per cruise missile, and given that
each cruise missile costs approximately 1.4 million dollars (and this doesn’t
include the costs of staffing and operating the ships from which the missiles
are fired).
According to a report from Reuters, Defense Secretary Chuck Hegal
recently estimated that even a limited military intervention in Syria would
cost tens of millions of dollars. Such a proportionate response doesn’t seem
very proportionate as far as the American people are concerned … a lot of
hungry, sick, and homeless people could be helped by the money that might be
used to allegedly uphold a humanitarian principle and international norm in
Syria.
As Alan Grayson, the Florida Congressman, said in relation to the
possibility of bombing Syria: “Why can’t we concentrate on our own problems?”
Indeed, what about the humanitarian principle of feeding the poor of America,
or providing them with shelter, or administering to their physical, emotional,
and community needs?” How is the bombing of people in Syria a more important
humanitarian principle than looking after the needs of our own citizens –
especially in view of the high likelihood that sending 200-300 cruise missiles
into Syria will lead to problems of hunger, shelter, and medical needs in that
country … thereby, merely increasing the misery of innocent people in the
world?
Raytheon, the maker of Tomahawk missiles, might be proportionately
happy with the launch of each implement of destruction (replacement profits
will be dancing around in their heads). However, such an exercise is not really
proportionate when it comes to the costs that will be incurred by innocent
civilians in Syria or the United States.
When testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
earlier in the week, John Kerry said: “You know, we got three people here
(i.e., Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Hagel, and General
Dempsey) who have been to war … you’ve got John McCain (Kerry pointed toward
the Committee members) who’s been to war. There’s not one of us who doesn’t
understand what going to war means, and we don’t want to go to war.” The
statement is somewhat disingenuous.
Secretary Kerry should have been asking what going to war means to
the innocent citizens in Syria who undoubtedly will have their lives torn apart
by the 60-90 days of bombing being proposed by the President. However, given that most politicians,
including Secretary Kerry, are very self-absorbed, the idea that war might
affect someone other than a soldier – and he only refers to soldiers in his
statement -- seems to be lost on him.
Secretary Kerry went on to say: “We don’t believe we are going to
war in the classic sense of taking American troops and America to war.” Like
Bill Clinton and his infamous parsing of: “I did not have sex with that woman,”
Secretary Kerry likes to play around with words when he alludes to the idea
that the President is not asking to go to “war in the classic sense.”
When bombs are dropped or missiles are launched, people die and
societies are destroyed. This remains true quite independently of whether boots
are put on the ground.
Furthermore, despite Secretary Kerry’s remonstrations to the
contrary, American boots already are on the ground in Syria in the form of CIA
operatives and Special Forces personnel who have been training, organizing, and
equipping rebels. In addition, many of those rebels are aligned with, loyal to,
and part of the very al-Qaeda network with respect to which the United States
has declared, and continues to declare, a ‘War on Terror.’
If dropping bombs, launching missiles, as well as training,
organizing and equipping rebels is not war, then what is it? If it looks like a
duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then one should refer to it as
war and not something else.
Bob Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
asked General Dempsey how an American military intervention might help the
rebels who are fighting the Assad regime. General Dempsey replied: “The path to
the resolution of the Syrian conflict is through a developed, capable, moderate
opposition, and we know how to do that.”
I hope the rest of the General’s qualifications do not reflect the
same degree of ignorance that the foregoing statement does, for if his other
qualifications are equally deficient, then this does not bode well for the
quality of the planning that is being devised in relation to Syria. The fact of
the matter is over the last several hundred years, neither the American
military nor a series of executive branch administrations have demonstrated any
understanding of other societies, cultures, and political environments …
beginning with the indigenous peoples that populated the Americas before
explorers, military expeditions, and colonists first showed up in North America
and proceeded to commit genocide against native peoples.
America is, however, very good at destabilizing societies around the
world. We do this through our military, our corporations, our financial
institutions, the judicial branch, and the foreign policy initiatives of the
federal government that often are implemented, in one way or another, through
the covert operations of the CIA.
Take a look at what we have “accomplished” in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
Libya. We have helped to destroy those societies.
Now the American government wants to apply its expertise in
developing “capable, moderate opposition” in Syria. The opposition is so
capable and moderate that it is beheading people, burning villages, looting,
dismantling factories, and using chemical weapons.
Chemical munitions are considered to be weapons of mass
destruction. When 100,000 people
die – as has occurred in Syria, and that count continues to rise every hour of
the day – even bullets become weapons of mass destruction.
What difference does it make if innocent people die from a bullet, a
conventional bomb, or a chemical weapon? Dead is dead, and the slaughter of
thousands of civilians necessarily indicates that weapons of mass destruction
are being used quite irrespective of whether, or not, that usage comes in the
form of bullets, conventional bombs, missiles, depleted uranium, or chemical
weapons.
President Obama is using arbitrary and self-serving metrics when it
comes to measuring the presence of weapons of mass destruction in various
locations. The defense industries of America, Israel, Europe, Russia, and Iran
have been pumping weapons of mass destruction into the Middle East, Africa, and
Asia for years, and as a result, tens of thousands of people have died through
the introduction of those weapons.
Bush, The Younger, and associated knaves were deeply troubled by the
possibility that the alleged enemies of America possessed weapons of mass
destruction. The only use of weapons of mass destruction that took place in
Afghanistan and Iraq were deployed by America, and now President Obama wishes
to continue on with that grand tradition by taking limited, proportionate
action in Syria.
Some – including Russia’s Valery Putin – have suggested that it
would have been illogical for Assad to use chemical weapons. The entry into the
Syrian conflict of elements from Hezbollah has helped nudge the fighting in a
direction that – at least for the time being -- is to the advantage of the
Assad regime relative to the various rebel factions.
Others – for instance, James Morrow of the University of Michigan –
believe that dictators do stupid, illogical counter-productive things all the
time. Consequently, it is entirely possible that Assad might have done
something – i.e., release chemical weapons – that was not in his best
interests, and, indeed, Professor Morrow believes this is exactly what
happened.
Professor Morrow claims to have done a lot of research in
conjunction with the use of chemical weapons. His research led him to the
conclusion that when chemical weapons are used, those acts are almost always
carried out by governments, and, therefore, the good professor has little doubt
that Bashar Assad is guilty as charged.
Well, off the top of my head, I can think of three incidents that do
not fit in with Professor Morrow’s theory. For instance, there is the Sarin gas attack perpetrated by
the Aum
Shinri Kyo that took place
in Japan in 1995, and then there was the use of cyanide during the 1978
Jonestown massacre. Finally, there is the Union Carbide accident in Bhopal,
India during 1984.
The last case – an accident – is relevant to the Syrian situation
because there is some evidence to indicate that the August 2013 release of
chemical toxins in Syria might have been an accident. As previously pointed
out, the release of chemical toxins was reported to have been due to an
apparent mishandling of chemical weapons that had been provided to the rebels
in Syria by Saudi Arabia’s head of Intelligence Services.
Maybe Professor Morrow is correct in his beliefs concerning the
issue of responsibility for the August 21, 2013 chemical incident in Syria.
However, if the primary reason for arriving at his conclusion concerning that
event is because of some general background research he did that indicated how
other chemical attacks were almost always conducted by government entities, his
reasoning process seems rather empirically deficient because not only have I
presented three instances – with almost no research – that tend to refute
Professor Morrow’s thesis, but, as well, his statement reflects absolutely no
actual, detailed, rigorously acquired data concerning the August 21, 2013
chemical incident in Syria. One can only hope that Professor Morrow is teaching
his students a much more rigorous process of reasoning and drawing conclusions
than his research concerning chemical weapons in relation to Syria seems to
indicate.
Some people – politicians, a few journalists, and news commentators
– are arguing that if America doesn’t militarily intervene in Syria as a
response to the August 21, 2013 chemical incident in a suburb of Damascus, then
American credibility will suffer a catastrophic blow, and, furthermore, we will
be giving people like Assad a green light to use such weapons in the future.
For example, Secretary of State John Kerry recently said the following words
before the Foreign Senate Relations Committee:
“I cannot emphasize enough how much they are looking to us now,
making judgments about us for the long term, and how critical the choice we
make here will be … not just to
this question of Syria but to the support we may, or may not, anticipate in the
Mideast peace process … to the future of Egypt … to the transformation of the
Middle East … to the stability of the region and other interests that we have
…”
Secretary Kerry didn’t identify the “they” who allegedly “are
looking to us now.” One might suppose, however, that he is alluding to both the
“enemies” of the United States, as well as to America’s possible allies.
Be this as it may, the foregoing statement of Secretary Kerry gives
expression to both the politics of fear as well as uses the technique of
framing things in a way that is self-serving to him. What Kerry means by the
“peace process” is a continued policy that enables the Israeli government to
kill, torture, imprison, maim, and destroy Palestinians, while stealing their
land through illegal settlements and illegal walls of division. What Kerry
means by the “peace process” are policies that permit America to attack,
without provocation or justification, countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, and Syria in order to further the economic, financial, corporate, and
military interests of the power elite. What Kerry means by the “peace process”
is however the United States wishes to define that process and quite
independently of the needs and wishes of the people who are being crushed by
that “peace process.”
In the foregoing quoted statement, Secretary Kerry mentions “the
transformation of the Middle East.” Whose version of transformation does he
have in mind? The transformation he envisions is one that is acceptable to the
power elite in America, Britain, France, and Israel.
Moreover, when Secretary Kerry speaks about “stability in the
region” this is code for what corporate, financial, and military interests in
the West and in Israel consider to be stable and which will serve their
interests quite apart from considerations of the social, economic, educational,
environmental, political, institutional, environmental, and medical needs of
the people in the Middle East who live outside Israel.
Indeed, the words that
Secretary Kerry uses toward the last part of this foregoing statement are: “…
and other interests that we have." There is no doubt about who the “we” is
to whom Secretary Kerry is referring in his statement … and “they” -- the
people of the Middle East with the exception of some, but not all, Israelis --
are not part of that ‘we’.
During the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting, Secretary Kerry
indicated there were concerns that if Assad is not held accountable for using
chemical weapons and if Hezbollah should somehow acquire access to those
weapons, then the security of Israel will be threatened. However, at another
point during the hearings, Secretary Kerry said: “And Israel feels quite
confident in its ability to deal with Hezbollah if they [i.e., Hezbollah] were
to do so.”
If Israel feels quite confident in its ability to deal with
Hezbollah, then why is Secretary Kerry speculating about possible threats to
Israeli security? If one of the concerns of the United States administration
has with respect to Syria revolves around the issue of threats to Israeli
security, then there is no need to intervene in Syria since, by Secretary
Kerry’s own admission, the Israeli’s are quite confident in their ability to
handle such threats.
At another juncture during the hearings, Secretary Kerry said: “You
will notice that Israel has on several occasions in the last years seen fit to
deal with threats to its security because of what’s in Syria and not once has
Assad responded to that to date.” Aside from the fact that in dealing with
threats by making military strikes inside Syria, Israel once again demonstrated
its contempt for international norms (and Secretary is testifying to this),
apparently, the moral of the Secretary’s remarks is that all Assad understands
is force, and, if we don’t hold Assad responsible for the alleged use of
chemical weapons, then he will use them again.
The fact of the matter is that Secretary Kerry has no idea what
Assad will do. If Assad is the thug that Secretary Kerry has labeled him to be
in previous statements, then how can Kerry be sure that Assad won’t be provoked
into using whatever weapons he has by the sort of military intervention being
proposed by the President – a proposal that violates the United Nations
Charter?
Apparently Secretary Kerry has powers of clairvoyance … or he knows
people that do. In response to Senator Rand Paul’s assertion that it can’t be
known what Assad will or won’t do if not attacked, Secretary Kerry assertively
replied: “Senator, it’s not unknown. If the United States of America does not
hold him (Assad) accountable on this with our allies … it is a guarantee Assad
will do it again … a guarantee, and I urge you to go to the classified briefing
and learn that.”
According to Secretary Kerry, there is information that will be
forthcoming in classified briefings that guarantees Assad will behave in a
certain way. Perhaps, the people who are responsible for such a guarantee are
the same individuals – or similar to them – who failed to predict the fall of
the Soviet Union, and who failed to detect the fact that Pakistan had developed
nuclear capabilities, and who got the issue of weapons of mass destruction so
wrong with respect to Iraq.
Furthermore, I wonder if the guarantee to which Secretary Kerry is
referring is anything like the guarantee that exists in Article IV, Section 4
of the U.S. Constitution that requires the federal government to deliver to
every state (and this includes the citizens inhabiting those states) a
republican form of government … one that is objective, transparent, just,
compassionate, honest, moral, impartial, reasoned, independent of
self-interest, and does not attempt to serve as judges in its own cause …
causes such as militarily intervening in places like Syria. I’ll come back to
this issue shortly.
If Assad is responsible for the August 21, 2013 chemical
incident in the suburbs of Damascus, he should be held responsible, but that
should be done through the International Criminal Court. Why should we suppose
– as President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry do -- that the only option
for holding Assad responsible is through military intervention?
If the world had stopped arming the multifaceted factions
within Syria, including the Assad government, two years ago, then, perhaps, we
would not be staring into the abyss of a possible World War III, as is the case
at the present time. The munitions dealers of the world – and the United States
is the largest of them – have made the Syrian conflict possible.
If the United States wishes to identify those who are
responsible for what is going on in Syria all it has to do is look in the
mirror (and Britain, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Russia –
among others -- should do the same) because U.S. economic, military, and
foreign policy in the Middle East over the last 100 years has helped bring us
to where things stand today. To be sure, Assad has his role to play in the
Syrian crisis. However, there are many players both outside of, and within,
Syria who are responsible for the Syrian crisis.
One wonders why the only fingers that are being pointed are
toward Assad? The process of adjudication seems rather arbitrary, biased, and
filled with the politics and rhetoric of fear.
Now, let me let you in on a little secret. No matter what
one might think about the August 21, 2013 chemical incident in Syria and no
matter who one believes is responsible for its occurrence, neither the
President of the United States, nor Congress – short of declaring war – has any
authority under the Constitution to pass resolutions calling for militarily
interventions that do not rise to the standard of declared war. In other words,
unless Congress makes an actual declaration of war in relation to Syria, then,
the Constitution is devoid of the sort of provisions that would empower either
the President, or Congress, to authorize military operations in a foreign
country.
For example, the Constitution designates the President as
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, as well as in
relation to the militia of the several states. Nonetheless, this designation does
not entitle the President to conduct military operations -- either overtly or
covertly – absent being “called into the actual service of the United States”
by Congress.
The President is only the Commander in Chief of the Army,
Navy, and state militia “when” he is called upon by Congress to serve in this capacity.
However, the President, individually, cannot initiate such actions. There is no
executive privilege for conducting military operations independently of a
declaration of war by Congress.
There are even further restrictions on a President’s role as
Commander in Chief. Under Article I, Section 8, Congress has the power both:
“To raise and support armies”, as well as “to make rules for the government and
regulation of land and naval forces.”
The Commander in Chief cannot raise armies on his or her
own. The Commander in Chief cannot make the rules for governing and regulating
the armies that are raised. All the Commander in Chief can do is direct the
armies in accordance with the rules for governing and regulating the military
forces that have been established by Congress.
Some people like to speak about the idea of implied powers that
supposedly lay nascent in the Constitution. Nonetheless, there is nothing in
the Constitution that mentions the idea of implied powers with respect to either
Congress or the President.
The closest that one comes to the idea of implied powers is
in the “necessary and proper clause” at the end of Section 8 in Article I.
However, that clause pertains to Congress and not to the President.
More importantly, even with respect to Congress, what is
considered necessary and proper is a function of the powers that are specifically
enumerated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Ninth and Tenth
Amendments collectively stipulate that the powers of the federal government do
not extend beyond the enumerated powers specified in the Constitution.
The Ninth Amendment indicates that: “The enumeration in the
Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be considered to deny or disparage
others by the people. The Tenth Amendment stipulates that: “The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Taken collectively, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments indicate
something very important. More specifically, if a given power is not enumerated
or specified in the Constitution as being a prerogative of the federal
government, then whatever rights and powers are not enumerated belong to the
people and are not subject to government authority.
The foregoing provisions are rooted in an issue that was
brought up again and again during the process of ratifying the Constitution. Colonists
were afraid that the federal government would try to extend the scope of its
powers by legislating new ones, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were
established to address those concerns.
The idea of implied powers of Congress or executive
privilege of the President are circumscribed by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
If the Constitution does not enumerate or specify a given power, then one
cannot try to get around that restraint through the notions of implied powers
or executive privilege.
The idea of implied powers in relation to the Executive
Branch – which usually is referred to as executive privilege -- is a mythological
invention of the Executive Branch via the Office of Legal Counsel (which is
overseen by the Department of Justice and the Attorney General). Executive
privilege is just that – a privilege that the Executive Branch, without
Constitutional authorization, has granted itself.
Neither Congress nor The Executive Branch, and in fact not
even the Judicial Branch, has the Constitutional authority to grant the
President executive privilege. Such powers are not enumerated in the
Constitution, and, therefore, are without constitutional standing.
Consequently, all the drone operations that are run out of
the White House are unconstitutional. Furthermore, all of the covert operations
that are performed by the Central Intelligence Agency – or other clandestine
forces of the federal government -- are unconstitutional because they
constitute military operations that are conducted without a declaration of war
by Congress.
In addition, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution
places further operational constraints on the meaning of “necessary and proper”
in relation to Congress since whatever the federal government does to carry
into execution the enumerated powers it has been granted in the Constitution
must be done in accordance with the principles of republicanism that are at the
heart of the guarantee to which Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution gives
expression.
The Constitution does state that Congress has the power “to
define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and
offenses against the laws of nations.” However, are we to suppose that the
United States Congress is being given authority through the foregoing
enumerated power to go into other countries and define offenses in whatever way
it likes or to punish citizens of other countries in whatever way it deems fit?
The answer to both questions is: No! Authorizing the
President to go into other countries and to arbitrarily define crimes or to
arbitrarily punish the citizens of a country beyond the borders of the United
States would be a gross violation of Article IV, Section 4. Such actions cannot
be reconciled with the moral principles that are inherent in the philosophy of
republicanism because those actions could not be shown to be a function of impartial,
transparent, objective, non-arbitrary, rational, just, compassionate, noble principles
with respect to which the members of Congress were not acting as judges in
their own cause or interests.
The Constitutional power afforded Congress “to define and
punish … offenses against the laws of nations” refers to American citizens who may
have committed such offenses. No one is his or her right mind would suppose
that such a power was intended to entitle America to interfere in the internal
affairs of other countries by arbitrarily defining offenses and punishing
whomever the federal government deemed was guilty of committing such offenses
against the laws of nations.
The Constitution empowers Congress to call forth the militia
to repel invasions. Syria has not invaded the United States. Therefore,
Congress cannot use the militia (including the National Guard) to repel
countries that have not invaded the United States, nor can Congress use the
militia to fight undeclared wars in other countries.
Congress has been empowered by the Constitution “to grant
letters of marquee and reprisal.” However, a letter of marquee concerns private
individuals – known as privateers -- and not an army.
Privateers were authorized to attack and capture enemy ships
and bring those vessels before admiralty courts for the purpose of sale. While
such letters of marquee and reprisal were an accepted part of the world of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, today, there are rules and norms that
would deem such actions to be a violation of international law. As such, the
idea of issuing letters of marquee and reprisal are as defunct as are the
provisions in the Constitution that mention slaves.
Even if international protocols concerning such letters of
marquee and reprisal were not in place, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution
would place severe constraints on what could, and could not, be done through
those sorts of letters of authorization. The Executive and Legislative Branches
are not free to authorize just anything they like.
What is authorized through those sorts of letters must be in
accordance with the guarantee of republican governance that is specified in
Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. Thus, military contractors would not
be able to do the things they have been enabled to do in Afghanistan and Iraq
by the United States Government because their actions cannot be reconciled with
the moral principles of republicanism.
Making rules concerning “captures on land and water”, or
“making rules for the regulation of the land and naval forces,” or “raising and
supporting armies” are not the same thing as conducting military operations.
All the foregoing enumerated Congressional powers can only be directed toward
foreign countries when war has been declared or the United States has been
physically invaded. There is nothing in the Constitution that permits military
operations to be directed toward foreign countries in the absence of a
declaration of war.
Even in conjunction with the “necessary and proper” clause
of Article I, Section 8, Congress is not empowered to authorize military
operations that do not meet the standard of a declaration of war. This is
because conducting such non-war military operations is not one of the specified
or enumerated powers that have been granted to Congress, and, in addition,
conducting those sort of non-war military operations cannot be shown to be
“necessary and proper” with respect to the moral constraints placed on Congress
and the Executive by the guarantee of republican government that is specified
in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.
Thus, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 is unconstitutional.
While that resolution sought to place curbs on Presidential authority to
conduct military operations that were not sanctioned through a Congressional
declaration of war, Congress did not have the power to authorize military
operations that were not based on such a declaration … that is, there is no
enumerated power pertaining to Congress that permits Congress to authorize the
President to conduct military operations that were not conducted under the
auspices of a declaration of war --
which is exactly what the War Powers Resolution seeks to do.
If there is “a
national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or
possessions, or its armed forces” (wording is from the War Powers Resolution),
then either Congress declares war in response to that emergency or Congress is
constitutionally required to stand down. Troops cannot be committed to alleged
national emergencies and attacks unless a declaration of war has been legislated
by Congress.
Can one conclude from the foregoing that Congress is
entitled to declare war according to its wishes and inclinations? The answer
is: No!
Any declaration of war must be capable of meeting the test
of Article IV, Section 4. In other words, in order for a given declaration of
war to be considered to be Constitutionally justified, Congress must be able to
demonstrate that such a decision has been impartial, objective, honest,
transparent, just, fair, rational, and arrived at through standards of
integrity.
Moreover, because a central principle of republican philosophy
requires that the members of the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary
cannot be judges in their own cause, it is the people – not the government --
who must determine whether such a declaration of war has satisfied the
guarantee of republican governance. This power has been delegated to the people
via the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
None of the foregoing considerations prevent Congress and
the President from defending the United States against direct physical attacks
upon America. However, such empowerment does not entitle the President, or
Congress, or the military to expand the meaning of the United States and,
thereby, seek to claim that the 700-plus military bases which have been
established around the world constitute states or are entitled to conduct
military operations in conjunction with those bases unless a declaration of war
has been legislated by Congress that is capable of meeting the standards of a
guarantee of republican governance in conjunction with such a declaration … and
as indicated above, the responsibility for determining whether the government
has satisfied that Constitutional principle inherent in Article IV, Section 4,
belongs to the people and not to the government.
Undoubtedly, there will be many who might object to the
foregoing analysis, considering it to be impractical for the times in which we
live. Be that as it may, if one wishes to consider the United States as a
nation that operates in accordance with the rule of law than either we must
abide by the requirements of the Constitution as written or we must come up
with something that is different ... perhaps better.
Whatever the future might hold with respect to the foregoing
problem or issue, nevertheless, at the present time, everything that exists in
the current form of the Constitution must be understood through the light of
Article IV, Section 4 because that is the only place in the Constitution where
a guarantee has been given. Thus, as far as the current Syrian crisis is
concerned, neither the President nor Congress is empowered by the Constitution
to pass a resolution that authorizes military operations without the presence
of an accompanying Congressional declaration of war, and, furthermore, if a
declaration of war were to be passed, that law must be capable of satisfying
the requirements of Article IV, Section 4, and the judgment as to whether, or
not, the federal government has satisfied the conditions of republican
governance is the responsibility of the people, not government.
