As if the government weren’t already out of control. Following the clear failure of the ‘War on Terror’, launched by George W. Bush following 9/11, the US will re-up it’s efforts, which have only seemed to cause an increase in terror operations around the world.
Members of Congress, including many within the President’s own party, are looking for more blood to be spilled in the Middle East. The two main fronts in the ‘War on Terror’ have failed horribly. Iraq is now a failed state, where instability following the US backed installation then deposition of Saddam Hussein has served as a breeding ground for radical Islamists, angry at the West’s decades-long corporate imperialist designs on the region. Add to that horrible equation a government propped up by US and other foreign interests that alienated a large portion of the Iraqi people. A third of the country has now fallen to radical elements, despite GW and Obama declaring only a few years ago that Iraq was won.
Afghanistan, destined for a very similar fate, is already falling back into the hands of the Taliban — our Soviet era allies Reagan called “freedom fighters,” turned sworn enemies, turned quiet diplomatic partners. Yeah I know, it’s confusing. Read this article we posted earlier today for an in depth look at the origins of the Taliban and how America helped create them.
The war on terror has done nothing but increase the threat from terrorism. Whether from foreign policy blowback or forcing the decentralization of terror groups, the fact is that ISIS and many other groups are more emboldened and powerful than ever, despite trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives lost to combating them. Due to the US strategy of targeting leaders for assassination rather than taking the wind out of terror movements by understanding how and why they are able to recruit new fighters, America’s anti-terror tactics have only made terrorism harder to defeat. Every time a leader is assassinated in a drone strike, the organizations split and become autonomous, making them harder to find and to predict. But these clear foreign policy failures have not slowed down Congress’ and the Administration’s march towards war.
After America ruined Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and countless others, it’s now setting it’s sights on Syria, and to a lesser extent, Ukraine; both allies of Russia.
Here is where things begin to get scary. Congress is just about ready to cede it’s power to declare war. While this isn’t something new, considering the last time America actually declared war was in WWII, it will give dictatorial powers to the Executive Branch to throw the country into any war as long as it’s against some form of terrorism (which is a tactic, not a group, army, or country). According to legislation announced today by Congressman Frank Wolf, it will authorize,
“to use all necessary and appropriate force against those countries, organizations, or persons associated with or supporting terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and its regional affiliates, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and any other emerging regional terrorist groups that share a common violent extremist ideology with such terrorist groups, regional affiliates, or emerging terrorist groups, in order to eliminate all such terrorist groups and prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States or its allies by such terrorist groups, countries, organizations, or persons.”
This is a dangerous, open ended, ceding of control away from the people, and into the hands of the President and his unelected foreign policy “experts”.
This will effectively take Congress out of the equation of waging war as long as the Executive Branch says it’s against terrorism. But Rep. Frank Wolf goes even further. According to The Daily Caller,
He also plans to introduce legislation repealing the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which mandates that only Congress can declare war, and requires the president to notify Congress at least 48 hours before committing U.S. forces to military action. Wolf’s bill says that the resolution “has not worked as intended, and has added to the divisiveness and uncertainty that exists regarding the war powers of the President and Congress.”
This legislation, which is similar to a bill proposed by war monger in chief John McCain earlier this year, will essentially remove all war powers from representatives and turn the President into a de facto emperor on foreign policy.
While most presidents since WWII have committed treason by blatantly ignoring the War Powers Act, there now seems to be an appetite in Congress to repeal the act and make waging unjust wars even easier for the President and his advisers.
Obama already violated the War Powers Act when he unilaterally toppled the Libyan government headed by Gaddafi, and we all see how well that worked out.
Americans should get serious about politicians violating the constitution such as that War Powers Act and have these ‘leaders’ prosecuted to fullest extent of the law. The consequence if we don’t will in all likelihood result in WWIII and millions more dead innocent people.
In the short term, this renewed push in the corporate media and the government for more war on terror should be resisted by every American. It has already been admitted that there is no strategy to combat ISIS; and the best prospects for peace in Iraq, as we have noted before, is to allow Iraqis to form an organic resistance to these ISIS brutes. Any US intervention, as seen in every single anti-terror operation we’ve been involved in the passed two decades, will only result in more instability and more of a threat of terrorism. Not to mention more Americans dead and billions more in debt.
Image credit: White House photo by Eric Draper
Nick Bernabe is the founder and editor of TheAntiMedia.org. He contributes articles to multiple independent news sites and is a San Diego based activist.
