America’s never ending “war on terror” marches forward with a new twist, with President Obama formally asking congress to pass an authorization bill for the use of military force against ISIL . . .military force that is already being used and has been used for the last 6 months against ISIL, under authority that President Obama claims he already has.  This absurdity is being met with a variety of political opposition from all sides, but perhaps most notable is opposition by Republican war hawks, who are complaining that the authorization that the President seeks but doesn’t need, is too restrictive and doesn’t go far enough.

The end result of the rhetorical debates that are now taking place among politicians and the media, will be the same:  the United States will continue to wage war in Syria, Iraq, Northern Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and anywhere else it deems necessary to defend “freedom” and fight “terrorism.”   President Obama’s new request to the new congress, and all the debate that ensues from it, is nothing more than political theater that will ultimately allow all politicians involved to point the finger at each other, and not take responsibility for any of the blow back that inevitably flows from U.S. interventionism.

As I’ve explained in the past, the war in Syria is a proxy war for control of the energy rich region.  The so-called civil war in Syria, funded by U.S. Gulf State allies and assisted by the U.S. and Western allies,  is now approximately 4 years old.  It is a bloody and brutal conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands, created millions of refugees, and has now morphed into a Frankenstein’s monster known as ISIL or ISIS, who has taken over large territorial swaths in both Syria and Iraq.

When the grand prize of Iraq that the United States went to the trouble to invade under President George W. Bush began to lose control to the new threat posed by ISIL, the United States needed a way to find public support for an expanded war in Syria.  First there was the horror of Syria’s President Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians, which Obama wanted to punish with “punitive” bombings.  Russia and Assad threw a wrench into that plan, agreeing to give up Syria’s chemical stockpile of weapons.  Since a hostile republican congress expressed reluctance at the time, Obama agreed to the dismantling of the chemical weapons.  I predicted on this blog then that it was only a temporary pause in the march to war in Syria.   When ISIL started making gains in Iraq, and beheadings of Western hostages was posted on the Internet, the propaganda campaign on the new dire threat posed by the new group “who is so extreme that even Al Qaeda rejected them” was waged.

War hawks in the U.S., such as Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, began pushing the idea that U.S. ground forces would be needed.  Blame was also cast against Obama, not just by Republican war hawks, but by Former Secretary of State and future presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.  Their collective criticism and fault blaming lay not with themselves who voted to invade Iraq to begin with under the false pretenses of “weapons of mass destruction,”  but because Obama withdrew from Iraq prematurely (almost a decade later).  Hillary Clinton immediately ran before cameras and reporters after leaving office, claiming that  Obama should have listened to her and other war hawks and supported the mythical “moderate opposition rebels” fighting in Syria.  Of course the reality of this long and sprawling conflict didn’t begin with the U.S. leaving Iraq too soon and not supporting the “moderate rebels;”  it began with the invasion of Iraq and the arming of foreign fighters to overthrow Assad that morphed into ISIL.

Now the U.S. has escalated its military role in Iraq and Syria, training and re-training the Iraq army and the nonexistent moderate rebels in Syria, as well as deploying at least 2400 non-boots-on-the-ground “advisers” and special opps.  This is in addition of course to a massive bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria, or what our leaders and media prefer to call by the more sanitized and civilized term as “air strikes.”  Despite all this, Lindsay Graham has taken to the airways professing his deepest fears of ISIL “coming back here and killing us all at home.”  Speaker John Boehner, when not busy trying to undermine the White House negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal by collaborating with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu behind President Obama’s back, is complaining that Obama’s new request for using military force against ISIL is not enough.

In the noise of this political theater, it is easy to become distracted about what it all means, and it is a legitimate question to ask why Obama is asking for authorization for authority he claims he already has, and why war hawks are reluctant to grant him the authority they claim he already has but is not using adequately.

Although the U.S. Constitution specifically grants only congress the authority to declare war, it also makes the President the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.  The result has been, over the course of U.S. history, less official wars declared by congress, and more wars declared conflicts, with policy largely determined by the Presidency.  The last time war was officially declared by congress was World War II.  A backlash against the Vietnam War was the passage of the War Powers Act of 1973, which sought to clarify when and how long a President could wage war without  congressional approval, but in practice it has not changed much.  More common in practice are congressional Authorization to Use Military Force, or A.U.M.F.’s..

President George W. Bush got two of these authorizations.  The first one, used to invade Afghanistan, was in 2001, and gave the President broad authority to wage a global war against Al Qaeda and its associates.  It is this authority that President Obama claims he already has and is using in the campaign against ISIL.  The second A.U.M.F. that President Bush got from congress authorized the invasion of Iraq.  Mr. Obama’s new A.U.M.F. request to congress repeals Bush’s second authorization in 2002 for the Iraq invasion, and his accompanying letter claims to want to “refine” or “repeal” the 2001 authorization (the one he is still using now).

But by claiming he has all the legal authority needed by congress under the 2001 authorization, and by not repealing it, Mr. Obama in engaged in nothing more than smoke and mirrors in his claim that he wants to involve congress in this war decision.  What he is seeking is actually a redundant, newly worded 2001 authorization to wage an endless war on “terror,” with terror being loosely defined as Al Qaeda, ISIL, or “associate” groups, or “successor” groups.  In other words, anybody the White House, past, present and future, decides to subjectively label a terrorist organization, will be fair game, and congressional approval, forget a declaration of war, will not be necessary, just a nice endorsement to help spread the blame around when the blow back and consequences become unpalatable to the American public.

Likewise, congress is more than happy right now to complain about the White House’s strategy and tactics for combating ISIL, without actually voting on official policy. The  war hawks are claiming that Obama’s new request is just political cover pretending that he wants to combat ISIL when he really doesn’t, and that they want a more broad authorization that would allow ground troops.  Obama’s new proposal limits ground troops in Syria and Iraq by not committing them to “enduring” operations – another subjective term that means nothing, should the President decide on a more robust occupation.  Obama’s new request also puts a time limit of 3 year from its enactment, but of course since he still claims authority for his actions already on the 2001 authorization, even were the new authority to be passed, the old authorization after 911 will still be in effect in three years when the new authorization expires. . . a mere 17 years later.

No matter how this new, contrived “debate” between congress and the White House plays out over this neverending war, or what Obama terms America’s “perpetual war footing,” one thing remains clear.  The office of the President will continue to wage war whenever it wants, and sometimes congress will give them the official green light – like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry did on voting for the Iraq invasion – and then blame being “mislead” when it goes wrong, or deferring responsibility and blaming White House management of the conflict from the sidelines.  In the end, Obama only wants the appearance of congressional approval, and congress only wants the appearance of support if it goes right, and the latitude to complain endlessly if its complicated.

Here is a link to copy and paste to your browser of Obama’s request for military authorization:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/11/us/politics/document-text-of-obamas-resolution-to-authorize-military-force-against-isis.html

 

 

 

 

In perhaps the most dramatic display of tension between the White House and Israel in years, President Barack Obama has drawn a line in the sand and taken a strong public stand against the stunning arrogance of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the traitorous backstabbing by Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

The United States is currently involved in historical, high level negotiations with Iran over their nuclear development program.  While Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for the peaceful development of energy, many western governments fear that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.  For years now, the United States has engaged in economic warfare against Iran with crippling sanctions.  Also, Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated, and cyber attacks have been waged against Iranian nuclear facilities.  These actions are littered with evidence linked to the governments of Israel and the United States.  The war drums have been beaten continuously in the background by warmongers such as Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsay Graham, and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.  There has been speculation since before President George W. Bush left office, about whether or not the U.S. would launch a “preemptive strike” against Iran to prevent them from being able to make a nuclear weapon.

Despite the ongoing economic warfare, assassinations, and sabotage, the Iranians and Americans have managed to enter into high level negotiations, in which some economic sanctions against Iran have been temporarily lifted, in pursuit of a more permanent solution in which Iran is allowed to develop nuclear material for energy, while being monitored and prevented from reaching nuclear bomb making capability.  Against the backdrop of decades of hostilities between the two countries, this progress is both historical and extremely hopeful for the long term outlook for peace in the region.  Now, Iran and the United States share a common enemy, ISIS.  There are many reasons to continue to pursue the diplomatic negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

To warmongers and neo-cons, and right-wing Israeli leaders like “Bibi” Netanyahu, this peace process is a betrayal of their ideology and philosophy.  They continue to play the fear card of an insane Iranian government who is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon to “wipe Israel off the map.”  Now, outraged at the prospects of peace with Iran, they are engaged in the usual fear mongering propaganda campaigns, but this time, they have crossed a serious red line in terms of how they pursue their political goals.

After the President’s State of the Union Address, Speaker of the House John Boehner and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer secretly arranged for Netanyahu to give a speech before a joint session of Congress this March, in which he will criticize the White House’s negotiations with Iran.  Mr. Netanyahu and an army of Israeli lobbyists have been pressuring Congress to undermine current negotiations with Iran by enacting a new round of sanctions.  Obviously, such a reckless move by Congress  while current negotiations with Iran continue, has the likely potential to derail any potential peace deal.  This is exactly what Netanyahu and many warmongers in the U.S. congress want.

During the State of the Union Address, President Obama threatened to veto any legislation enacting new sanctions against Iran, while the current negotiations continue.  In response, in a stunning and brazenly disrespectful political maneuver, John Boehner and Ambassador Dermer broke diplomatic protocol to arrange for Israel’s Prime Minister to address Congress, without seeking White House approval first.  This flagrant disregard for protocol, carried out behind the White House’s back by the Speaker of the House, to invite the leader of a foreign country to address the U.S. congress. for the specific purpose of criticising the President of the United States and persuading Congress to act against him and side with Israel on foreign policy, is just short of treasonous.

The Obama administration is angry, and made clear that President Obama will not meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu when visits.  An official White House snub to the leader of Israel is remarkable, given the long history of close alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv.  What is more remarkable, is the number of republicans and democrats who have come to the defense of the Israeli ambassador, Boehner and Bibi.  Mr. Dermer, before becoming an ambassador for Israel in 2013, was a republican operative in the 1990’s, as well as a U.S. citizen with an Israeli mother.  He has since renounced his U.S. citizenship, is an ambassador for Israel and so close to Netanyahu that he is sometimes referred to as “Bibi’s Brain.”  Having worked in U.S. politics for years, Mr. Dermer is clearly aware of the diplomatic protocols, but obviously loyal to Israel and Netanyahu first.  He had met with Secretary of State John Kerry for over two hours right before arranging for Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to congress, without even mentioning it to Kerry.

A shocking sample of how some U.S. politicians are defending this outrageous undermining of a U.S. presidency was reported in the New York Times recently on January 28th:

    “Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said Mr.        Dermer had been “extremely strong and successful” at his most important tasks,        which are to represent Israel’s interests and defend Mr. Netanyahu’s prerogatives      at a critical time for Israel’s security.

   “This administration has repeatedly sought to both undermine and embarrass this       prime minister, and the same Democrats who now profess to be so outraged by         this have been notably silent,” Mr. Brooks said. “When the dust settles on this —       and the dust will settle — I think that he’ll continue to be effective on the range of       issues that are important to Israel’s security.”

It is noteworthy the amount of importance that Mr. Brooks and other U.S. politicians place upon Israel’s security over the United States’ security.  It is well known and documented that the United States government is a pay-to-play “democracy,” in which billions of dollars are spent on bribes to U.S. officials – called “campaign contributions,” or “free speech.”  Most Americans understand that our politicians are sponsored by the Wall Street financial industry, oil companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and high tech industries within the Military Industrial Complex.  Perhaps less known is the extent to which a great number of our politicians are sponsored by the powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.  In addition to corporations being people too and allowed to donate (bribe) our leaders for laws and policy written to benefit themselves over the well being of everyone else, the foreign government of Israel is also allowed to lobby (sponsor) our leaders with money and support for the interest of Israel’s foreign policy preferences over the United States.

Israel is a client state of the U.S.   They are the biggest recipient of direct U.S. foreign aid, much of it high tech military weapons, of which the Israeli government regularly uses to murder and torture Palestinians, in addition to continued building of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.  The U.S. is also usually the sole supporter and enabler of Israeli war crimes, and protector of Israel against United Nations actions.  Israel is known to have over 300 nuclear weapons, as well as a stockpile of illegal chemical weapons, perhaps one reason Syria was reluctant to give up theirs.  Were it not for the full financial, military, and diplomatic support of the United States, Israel would not exist and act as it currently does, with near impunity.

It would behove Mr. Netanyahu to remember this arrangement.  Although the United States is a bullying, military world super power, in the end it will act on its interests first, not its allies’ interests.  If Israel mistakenly thinks that it is now the tail that can wag the dog, it could be in for a very rude awakening.  Despite some members of congress being a pro-Israel, warmongering cheerleaders, such actions by Netanyahu and his American puppet John Boehner, do not sit well with many Americans, both conservative and liberal.  New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote an opinion piece yesterday titled “A Bad Mistake,” where he criticized the actions of Bibi and Boehner, and warned of the backlash already taking place.  He used the Fox Propaganda News Channel as an example of this backlash, quoting Chris Wallace as saying:

“To make you get a sense of really how, forgive me, wicked, this whole thing is, the Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Israeli ambassador to the United States for two hours on Tuesday, and Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador, according to the State Department, never mentioned the fact that Netanyahu was in negotiations and finally agreed to come to Washington, not to see the president, but to go to Capitol Hill, speak to a joint session of Congress and criticize the president’s policy. I have to say I’m shocked.”

( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/opinion/thomas-friedman-a-bad-mistake.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Opinion&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article )

It is shocking, and outrageous.  If this were any other country donating money to our Congress to divide them against each other and our President for the purpose of influencing U.S. foreign policy to their wishes instead of our own, would it not be called treason?  I have to wonder what President Obama has said behind closed doors to Speaker Boehner since this backstabbing betrayal.  How John Boehner can still call himself a U.S. Representative is beyond me.  Clearly, he represents the interests of the highest corporate bidders as so many of our political leaders do, and in addition to that, the state of Israel, and in particular, their right-wing war machine.

Now, for your entertainment, here is how I imagine the conversation with Obama and Bibi will go, the next time they meet in private.  Obama is played by Joe Pesci, and Bibi is played by Robert De Niro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfGuYeC1KOs