Forgive me, but who is the actual Commander in Chief of the US armed forces? Is it the President or is it Congress? My 9-th grade ELPSA classes sure made me think it was the President, but Congress sure as hell seems to think that it is CinC.

ANYONE who votes for an bill that demands a timetable for troop withdrawals should be impeached for violating or endorsing the violation of the Constitutionally-set separation of powers.

I don't care WHAT you think about the Iraq war or how we are fighting it or managing it. There should be NO reason to blatantly and willfully violate the Constitution like this. You don't like the President? Too bad, he is CinC. Congress can fuck w/ the budget, but until such time as Dubya isn't POTUS, then he will be CinC. And anyone in Congress who tries to fuck with that is guilty of treason.

[/soapbox]

7/10/2007 9:17:53 PM

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_cnb.html

Quote :

"Legislative Branch * Checks on the Executive o Impeachment power (House) o Trial of impeachments (Senate) o Selection of the President (House) and Vice President (Senate) in the case of no majority of electoral votes o May override Presidential vetoes o Senate approves departmental appointments o Senate approves treaties and ambassadors o Approval of replacement Vice President o Power to declare war o Power to enact taxes and allocate funds o President must, from time-to-time, deliver a State of the Union address "

7/10/2007 9:31:29 PM

Could you be any more obvious with this troll bait you piece of shit?

7/10/2007 9:42:22 PM

SIEG HEIL

7/10/2007 9:42:33 PM

he's not trolling you stooge, he's serious.

7/10/2007 10:29:53 PM

Could the president not veto any such bill? Am I missing something? If they get enough votes for an override then it seems pretty constitutional to me. The whole checks and balances thing.

Quote :

"Power to declare war"

How is that relevant? Congressed passed the "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq," in other words... Declared war on Iraq...

7/11/2007 12:12:28 AM

I would be happy if they impeached all politicians who violated the constitution over the last few years.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 12:25 AM. Reason : I didn't realize it was unconstitutional for congress to try to pass bills.]

7/11/2007 12:24:43 AM

Quote :

"How is that relevant? Congressed passed the "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq," in other words... Declared war on Iraq..."

Congress can declare war and congress can undeclare war.

7/11/2007 12:31:47 AM

How do you undeclare war? And it doesn't say anything about undeclaring war.

"Power to declare war" != power to undeclare war?

7/11/2007 1:13:07 AM

Quote :

"he's not trolling you stooge, he's serious. "

I don't think he is. I know Burro is a conservative, but he's not that dumb.

7/11/2007 1:52:01 AM

Quote :

"How do you undeclare war? "

Power of the Purse + War Powers Act

Plus, the Senate must ratify any treaty with a foreign nation, including peace treaties.

7/11/2007 8:28:59 AM

Quote :

"There should be NO reason to blatantly and willfully violate the Constitution like this."

Bush doesn't seem to have a problem with it when it aids him.

7/11/2007 8:50:54 AM

Quote :

"Legislative Branch * Checks on the Executive o Impeachment power (House) o Trial of impeachments (Senate) o Selection of the President (House) and Vice President (Senate) in the case of no majority of electoral votes o May override Presidential vetoes o Senate approves departmental appointments o Senate approves treaties and ambassadors o Approval of replacement Vice President o Power to declare war o Power to enact taxes and allocate funds o President must, from time-to-time, deliver a State of the Union address"

That does not give them the power to manage a war.

7/11/2007 8:52:46 AM

Manage the war, no, but I think it's reasonable to say that if they declare war they can also declare peace or an end to war.

7/11/2007 8:54:49 AM

They have the right to attach conditions to their spending, which loosely manages the war.

The War Powers Act gives them the right to know exactly what's going on, and implicitly allows them to stop funding if they don't like what they see.

7/11/2007 8:58:47 AM

Quote :

"Manage the war, no, but I think it's reasonable to say that if they declare war they can also declare peace or an end to war."

That's not what the constitution says. It says they have the power to declare war. That's it.


^ Manage funds, yes! They can do that. THey need to man up and cut funding if they want to end this war. They don't need to pass meaningless resolutions. Fucking put it to a vote, cut the funding, and that's that. They do have the power to do that. But they lack the balls.

7/11/2007 9:04:10 AM

How anyone can feel more comfortable with a single man backed by a litany of secretive shadow government men making the decisions, versus 535 people that have their bills, actions, and otherwise out in the open, is a little bit beyond me.

7/11/2007 9:04:57 AM

^^ They're threatening to withdraw funding if benchmarks aren't met in Iraq...

that's the whole point of this thread

7/11/2007 9:11:56 AM

^ they've been threatening since they won the election. Fucking do it or shut the fuck up. My bet is that they will not do it.

^^ Because nothing would get done. How can those 535 manage a war in another country when the same 535 people can't even fucking pass an immigration bill in this country?

That's the whole point.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 9:14 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 9:14 AM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 9:13:50 AM

The president is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, yes, but that only means he is given the decision making ability / responsibility to craft military policy at the his level, it does not make the armed forces his private little GI Joe set. If congress votes to terminate funding, it is their perrogative. As far as "undeclaring" war, I don't think thats possible. Wars are ended by treaties, it is the power of the executive branch to negotiate and the power of the legistlative branch to approve treaties. You can't put the cat back in the bag, so to speak.

7/11/2007 9:16:28 AM

Quote :

"Manage funds, yes! They can do that. THey need to man up and cut funding if they want to end this war. They don't need to pass meaningless resolutions. Fucking put it to a vote, cut the funding, and that's that. They do have the power to do that. But they lack the balls."

catch 22 b/c when they cut funding, more troops are likely to be killed, and the repubs will chime in and say the democrats are causing it b/c of the fund cutting....it's not that easy.

7/11/2007 9:54:50 AM

^ More will be killed only if the President continues the war without funding, then it's on his hands.

7/11/2007 9:59:29 AM

Regardless, Congress can't do shit about the war they approved. The only thing they can do is cut funding. And if their convictions run that deep, then propose the legislation. To date, that has still not occurred.

7/11/2007 10:03:58 AM

^ I agree with you entirely.

It's much easier for both sides to continue to spend spend spend with the current plan, as long as it doesn't get in the way of Americans playing their video games, buying their SUVs, and eating their fast food. It's sad that no one on the right or the left has the political balls to make a stand and defund the war. Both sides know that the other side will launch a vicious attack leading into '08 if anything that could possibly be construed as worse than the status quo were to happen.

What is the status quo? A continued occupation in Iraq, where we spend billions upon billions, only a few soldiers get killed, and nothing really happens.

What is worse? We pull out and a civil war breaks out. We pull out and some loony manages to pull a small scale terror attack (al qaeda backed or not) here. Regardless of what happens that is different from the status quo, BushCo, armed with a spineless media (on both sides) will go full scale terrorizing of it's own citizens, worse than they currently do....all so that one party or the other can attempt to warp public opinion into winning them the 08 elections.

It's sickening, and I doubt this country ever gets off this slippery slope of corruption, corporatism, and cronyism we are traversing. I just hope they let me live out a middle class lifestyle, and die in peace.

7/11/2007 10:34:21 AM

^ I understand you but I don't share the pessimism at the end. We've been through much worse (Nixon, Cold War, ineptness of the Carter presidency). This is a blip on the radar of American History. It's full of nasty, ridiculous politics, and it's a shame, but by far the worst thing that has ever happened to this country.

It'll end, sooner or later, without the triumph and pomp and circumstance of Versailles or the fleeting disaster of Vietnam... no one will notice, one day, we'll just be gone. We'll continue buying our SUVs, eating our fast food, and procreating...

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 10:37:16 AM

Quote :

"That does not give them the power to manage a war. "

they havent been trying to

if you are talking about money... well they are allowed to do that

7/11/2007 4:46:04 PM

Quote :

"It's much easier for both sides to continue to spend spend spend with the current plan, as long as it doesn't get in the way of Americans playing their video games, buying their SUVs, and eating their fast food. It's sad that no one on the right or the left has the political balls to make a stand and defund the war. Both sides know that the other side will launch a vicious attack leading into '08 if anything that could possibly be construed as worse than the status quo were to happen."

Exactly. As the saying goes, "the military went to war, the country didn't."

Defunding the war is politically untenable. If the Democrats cut funding then they are politically liable in '08 for the collapse of Iraq, if they continue to support the president, the upset their base but they are not open to criticism from the rest of the country.

Quote :

"It'll end, sooner or later, without the triumph and pomp and circumstance of Versailles or the fleeting disaster of Vietnam... no one will notice, one day, we'll just be gone."

You done lost your fucking mind.

7/11/2007 7:04:48 PM

^ but at least it's poetic.

7/12/2007 8:35:38 AM

If you meant it in the T.S. Eliot, "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper" sense, then yes.

But we're still in Germany, South Korea, and Okinawa, much more is at stake economically in Iraq than those first three. We're either leaving because (stratego-politically) we got our asses handed to us, or we're going to be there till the oil runs dry.

7/12/2007 11:53:29 AM

we're not going to get our asses handed to us. The death toll is ~3500

We've lost that many in a day in previous wars.



I wish we'd just fight the fucking war to win it instead of doing giving Iraq the Vietnam treatment.

7/12/2007 11:58:32 AM

1) completely not the point
2) I said politically and strategically, not tactically. We won Vietnam tactically, we lost strategically.

A couple of years ago, Foreign Affairs magazine did an article about how the American public will tolerate casualties if progress is being made. If they perceive that it is, they will tolerate large casualty numbers, if they perceive that it is not, their threshold is relatively low. This doesn't even take into account the economic cost of fighting such a war. Using casualty figures as an argument against a war is poor logic, but not as poor as using low ones to justify it.

If we fail to achieve our political goals, we have failed, no matter how many military goals are met. Right now, we're screaming down the path to failure and due to political mis-handling, have relinquished combat-momentum to the insurgents. Getting that momentum back will require a larger troop presence than we can currently manage.

7/12/2007 12:43:44 PM

^That is pure conjecture. The last war that had support was WWII, massive casualties and massive gains as well. That fits into your equation.

However, your logic does not take into account the fact that perhaps society has changed and society may not tolerate casualties no matter the circumstance.

[Edited on July 12, 2007 at 12:45 PM. Reason : .]

7/12/2007 12:45:32 PM

If by conjecture you mean personal experience from two tours in Iraq and extensive reading on the subject, then yeah, I have no basis for what I'm talking about.

7/12/2007 3:10:37 PM

Quote :

"A couple of years ago, Foreign Affairs magazine did an article about how the American public will tolerate casualties if progress is being made. If they perceive that it is, they will tolerate large casualty numbers, if they perceive that it is not, their threshold is relatively low. This doesn't even take into account the economic cost of fighting such a war. Using casualty figures as an argument against a war is poor logic, but not as poor as using low ones to justify it. If we fail to achieve our political goals, we have failed, no matter how many military goals are met. Right now, we're screaming down the path to failure and due to political mis-handling, have relinquished combat-momentum to the insurgents. Getting that momentum back will require a larger troop presence than we can currently manage."

I don't care how many times you've been to Iraq, none of that stems from personal experience. That is conjecture, pure and simple.

7/12/2007 3:12:36 PM

Says the king of conjecture:

Quote :

"However, your logic does not take into account the fact that perhaps society has changed and society may not tolerate casualties no matter the circumstance."

Quote :

"we're not going to get our asses handed to us."

Quote :

"It'll end, sooner or later, without the triumph and pomp and circumstance of Versailles or the fleeting disaster of Vietnam... no one will notice, one day, we'll just be gone. We'll continue buying our SUVs, eating our fast food, and procreating..."

Part one was referencing a Foreign Affairs article that was based on research. Research would be the opposite of conjecture. See for yourself, here is the article: http://tinyurl.com/drbth

Quote :

"If we fail to achieve our political goals, we have failed, no matter how many military goals are met"

Thats not conjecture, that is the definition of war-time defeat.

Quote :

"I wish we'd just fight the fucking war to win it instead of doing giving Iraq the Vietnam treatment."

You mean like, say, following the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, taking GEN Shinseki's advice on troop strength instead of politically determined numbers? How about the persistant denial of a strong insurgency until mid / late 2004? How about the complete lack of contingency plans for post invasion Iraq? Thats not conjecture, those are the actions that this administration took for political expediency that ran counter to the advice of military professionals.

7/12/2007 3:58:00 PM

last part I agree with. Completely.

Difference between you and I is that I admit my conjecture with key words:

Quote :

"However, your logic does not take into account the fact that perhaps society has changed and society may not tolerate casualties no matter the circumstance."

Quote :

"A couple of years ago, Foreign Affairs magazine did an article about how the American public will tolerate casualties if progress is being made."

You say that article was based on research. How much fucking research does it take to tell the future? Oh that's right, none. That's the definition of conjecture

[Edited on July 12, 2007 at 4:04 PM. Reason : .]

7/12/2007 4:03:48 PM

Touche.

[Edited on July 12, 2007 at 4:22 PM. Reason : /sarcasm]

7/12/2007 4:22:04 PM

Quote :

"You mean like, say, following the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, taking GEN Shinseki's advice on troop strength instead of politically determined numbers?"

Only problem with that is that Congress won't let Dubya do his fucking job and actually RAISE troop numbers in the theatre. While, yes, the administration dropped the ball initially, now their hands are tied, because Congress, for some odd fucking reason, thinks it has organizational control over the troops.

We lost Vietnam because politicians wouldn't stay out of the military's fucking business, and we will lose Iraq2 as well if Congress doesn't mind its own damned business.

And yes, I AM serious in this thread. If the War Powers Act actually gives congress organizational control over the armed forces, then it is unConstitutional, plain and simple. And, for the record, I have no problem with Congress pulling the plug on funding. I DO have a problem with Congress telling the President how to run the military

7/19/2007 8:42:49 PM

Quote :

"Only problem with that is that Congress won't let Dubya do his fucking job "

are you FUCKING KIDDING? the REPUBLICAN CONGRESS, along with Democratic acquiescence, gave GWB carte fucking blanche for five goddamned years.

and what did Bush and Rummy do? the screwed the goddamned pooch.

precisely because they didnt listen to the generals and planned a motherfucking war using the best-goddamned-case scenario

so are you fucking stupid? or do you think we're stupid? we were all here when this war began, and I for one remember the bullshit they were saying at the time, the same bullshit you're trying to pretend they didnt say.

We have fucking blown Iraq. Yes, I agree, completely pulling out right now is the worst possible option -- except for all the others.

and just shut the fuck up about constitutionality. President controls the military. Congress controls the money. its called separation of powers. move on.





[Edited on July 19, 2007 at 9:22 PM. Reason : ]

7/19/2007 9:20:49 PM

Wait, so the administration can legally exercise informal suasion to affect what bills congress introduces and how party members vote, but congress shouldn't exercise legal, informal suasion to affect executive policy?

Sounds like someone doesn't know how the government or the law works.

7/19/2007 10:08:16 PM

^ no, not when their "informal suasion" runs directly counter to the letter of the US Constitution.

^^ hey, fucktard, how about you read THE NEXT FUCKING SENTENCE there, buddy. thanks.

7/23/2007 8:37:41 PM

Quote :

"Only problem with that is that Congress won't let Dubya do his fucking job and actually RAISE troop numbers in the theatre."

Ummmm. No. Try "Dubya's" questionably competent first Sec Def arguing that we didn't need more than two Army divisions, a Marine division, air power, and special operations to successfully pacify Iraq in the first place. From the start this administration has tried to fight the war on the cheap.

Either way the current surge isn't sustainable over the long run with current troop strength, this isn't a congressional issue it is a personnel tempo issue.

Quote :

"now their hands are tied, because Congress, for some odd fucking reason, thinks it has organizational control over the troops."

Tactical momentum was ceeded to the Iraqis by this administrations refusal to accept a military reality that differed from their political agenda.

[Edited on July 23, 2007 at 9:32 PM. Reason : t]

7/23/2007 9:27:22 PM

so now, instead of letting the President fix his mistake, you'd rather take unConstitutional steps and...

7/23/2007 10:26:02 PM

Remind us all again how ignoring generals on the ground and doing the same thing that has us in this quagmire is going to fix the mistake?

7/23/2007 10:49:56 PM

Yes, please remind me of that. Seeing as how that's basically what Congress wants to do by sidestepping checks and balances and all...

If Congress REALLY wanted to hold the President's feet to the flame, they would go and talk to the generals and see what they want, instead of imposing arbitrary timetables for failurewithdrawals and such. But that would make too much sense

[Edited on July 23, 2007 at 10:55 PM. Reason : ]

7/23/2007 10:53:55 PM

Quote :

"they would go and talk to the generals and see what they want,"

You mean, talk to the generals that were hand picked to replace the generals that were booted out for not telling BushCo what they wanted to hear?

Yea, makes perfect sense!

How is a timetable any worse than open ended commitments where benchmarks aren't being met?

7/23/2007 11:00:22 PM

so, then, you are OK w/ giving a big "Fuck You" to the Constitution, then, I take it?

7/23/2007 11:15:45 PM

It's funny how anyone defending bush can cite the constitution as anything with authority given the fact that bush constantly says by actions that he is above the constitution.

7/24/2007 7:15:30 AM

The trolls in this section have gotten slack in their game.

7/24/2007 7:32:50 AM

Quote :

"Congress wants to do by sidestepping checks and balances and all..."

haha, that's rich. Now it's Congress that is ignoring checks and balances, while the little-old-bush administration is just "trying to do what the founding fathers intended".

7/24/2007 7:53:42 AM