Posted on 05/22/2007 7:08:23 AM PDT by bnelson44
Personal views of:
Brigadier General Steve Anderson
Deputy Chief of Staff
Resources and Sustainment
Multi-National Force - Iraq
A Powerpoint Presentation presented at: James Madison University, 27 Apr 07
Purpose
-Present unvarnished viewpoint of soldier serving in Iraq in Baghdad for previous 8 months
-Provide insights on Operation Iraqi Freedom that may run counter to how many presently view the war
-Promote understanding of what many believe is “the defining political-military event of this generation”
-Engage in candid discussion with students, faculty and other attendees regarding OIF
Myth No. 1: War was never declared.
Congress authorized the use of force in a resolution. Saying it is not a declaration of war because it does not say “Declaration of War” on the letterhead is a distinction without a difference.
Actually, I’m quite surprised that something marked FOUO is being distributed in public forums like this. Y’all shoudl know better.
If the "Macho-conservatives" want to keep teaching the Republican Party a lesson, eventually the Republican Party will regroup and win elections without them as they did to the Buchananites long time ago and this will certainly happen before 2008.
Yep, maybe you are right, we should just do away with the stupid old Constitution if we aren’t gonna follow it.
/sarcasm
GONZALES: “There was not a war declaration, either in connection with Al Qaida or in Iraq. It was an authorization to use military force.”
And I stole your “macho-conservative” word usage. It fits.
Amen my FRiend.
The PowerPoint Presentation is well worth seeing and using to beat Liberals with.
That statement from Gonzalez is not a statement that we are not at war.
If you want to get all legal about it, you could read this Harvard Law Review article that analyzes the law of war and the authorizations for doing so in US history. Curtis A. Bradley & Jack L. Goldsmith, Congressional Authorization and the War on Terrorism, 118 HARV. L. REV. 2047 (2005). Or you could accept the obvious weight of history and practice that the lack of a formal declaration of war does not preclude the existence of a state of war in any sense.
This keeps on being repeated as if it were some triumph of constitutional reasoning, when in fact it is an utterly meaningless distinction.
Really, what is the difference between Congress saying “We declare war” and Congress saying “We declare the use of force is authorized.”?
Hint: None whatsoever.
Weird comment.
You separate Iraq from war on terrorism by, apparently, equating war on terrorism with war against "AQ and bin Laden". First, I guess this means you think that only AQ are terrorists and terrorists = AQ; it doesn't seem to cross your mind that terrorists can be unassociated with AQ per se. Second, I guess this means you are unaware of the fact that AQ is operating in Iraq (either that or you're ignoring the fact). Otherwise why would you complain that by us being in Iraq we're not fighting the "war on terrorism", which (in your mind) is the war on AQ, which is "unfinished"?
I'll go more slowly for you: Al. Qaeda. is. in. Iraq. Do you want us to confront Al Qaeda or don't you? Don't pretend that you want to fight Al Qaeda and then complain that we're in Iraq. Al. Qaeda. is. in. Iraq!
Any way you slice it, weird comment.
The difference is paramount. One is not a declaration of war by our country against another. It’s a directive to use military force to enforce the UN resolutions. The same UN resolutions that led us not to invade in 1991, because we didn’t declare War. I had the same beef with the Kosovo conflict Clinton led us into.
The other is a hard and fast statement that the USA will come and kick your ass and that we won’t quit until your pissant (No offense to Pissant) little dictator/fascist/commie/insert-evil-adjective country as you know it is gone. In the case of ‘War’ we would have declared victory over Iraq already.
Hint: Like I give a sh!t about Harvard or the UN, both are useless institutions that further the goals and careers of liberal/commie/socialist/Barney Frank/Feingold idiots.
Thanks for the interesting info about Jim Jones, I hadn't known that.
However, it doesn't really contradict the point about religious fanaticism. Is not Marxist socialism a type of religious fanaticism? I think it is.
Lots of armchair generals around
Yep.
Or you could read
The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (Paperback)
by Max Boot
Savage Wars of Peace
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/4487451.html
By Max Boot
Much as we dislike doing so, when necessary we must send our military forces on peacekeeping missions and into regional conflicts. And in the war on terror, it will be necessary. By Max Boot.
As you read this article, America is at war. On distant battlefields, from Kandahar to the Hindu Kush, American soldiers are risking their lives to defeat a shadowy enemy. But it doesn’t feel like a war does it? Industry hasn’t been mobilized, civilians haven’t been drafted. There have been some added security measures at home but nothing like the rationing and other disruptions that the United States experienced during World War II. So what kind of war is this anyway?
It’s a small war, a term used during the twentieth century to describe encounters between small numbers of Western soldiers and irregular forces in what is now called the Third World. When we think of war most of us think of the Civil War or World Wars I and II—conflicts fought by millions of citizen soldiers supported by the total mobilization of the American home front. By contrast, U.S. involvement in places like Kosovo, Bosnia, or Afghanistan barely qualifies as a war in the popular imagination. Yet, as I discovered during the course of researching my book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, such “small wars”—fought by a small number of professional U.S. soldiers—are much more typical of American history than are the handful of “total” wars that receive most of the public attention.
(snip)
You might be suprised just how often we’ve gone to war w/o a declaration
“The biggest myth is that Iraq is a war on terrorism. The war against AQ and bin Laden is still unfinished.”
Can you please explain why we are killing, capturing and chasing so many Al Quaeda in Iraq if Iraq is not part of the war on terrorism?
You say: "You might be suprised just how often we’ve gone to war w/o a declaration."
No actually I'm not, I know about pretty much every undeclared small 'war' we've undertaken in the last 100 years. What I am surprised about is that our Commander in Chief can rightfully call Iraq, Iran and NK The Axis of Evil. Yet when we go to "war" with one of these countries and win in three months from the start of the invasion, without the expressed written declaration of war by congress we end up not declaring victory, hanging out on our conquered territory while our other enemies (iran/syria) send in Weapons, Intel, Islamic suicide nuts into iraq, who are bleeding us daily. We meanwhile sit back hamstrung in political debate which harms our troops, divides our country and even has some twits in our congress suggest that we have lost the 'war'.
Iraq deserved a declaration of war. It's not a 'small war'
“Agreed. I am conservative to the core but I never take my ball and go home. I work with the cards I am dealt and I HOUND my congress critters and senators via snail mail and email. Gotta work the system from all the angles given to us. Giving up is NOT AN OPTION! That’s a liberal/democrat characteristic that I want no part of.”
Thank you for that observation.
I am working on a new plan for this election. First, work to get conservatives nominated in the primary election, then see who we actually get and make a decision from that point on.
I find it interesting that I keep hearing that conservatives cannot get elected in this political climate, and yet virtually all of the Dems who won in 06 were running as conservatives.
I am really glad you pointed out that we only lose after election day if we quit.
I am not a quitter either.
“Yet when we go to “war” with one of these countries and win in three months from the start of the invasion, without the expressed written declaration of war by congress we end up not declaring victory, hanging out on our conquered territory while our other enemies (iran/syria) send in Weapons, Intel, Islamic suicide nuts into iraq, who are bleeding us daily. We meanwhile sit back hamstrung in political debate which harms our troops, divides our country and even has some twits in our congress suggest that we have lost the ‘war’.”
Are you saying that we would be better off declaring victory so that those against us in Iraq can come here and attack you or yours?
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