From The Nation
House Republicans like to talk -- and talk, and talk -- about their regard for the founders and the Constitution.
House Speaker John Boehner, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Tea Party, and their circle even attempted -- in unsettlingly bumbling manner -- to read the document into the Congressional Record at the opening of the current Congress.
Now, however, with a backdoor plan to commit the United States to a course of permanent war-making, they are affronting the most basic premises of a Constitution that requires congressional declarations of all wars and direct and engaged oversight of military missions.
The House Republican leadership, working in conjunction with House Armed
Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-California, has included in
the 2012 defense authorization bill language (borrowed from the sweeping
Detainee Security Act) that would effectively declare a state of permanent war against unnamed and ill-defined foreign forces "associated" with the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The means that, despite the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan
(which GOP leaders in the House have refused to officially recognize as a
significant development), the Department of Defense will be authorized
to maintain a permanent occupation of Afghanistan, a country bin Laden abandoned years ago, and a global war against what remains of bin Laden's fragmented operation.
Instead of an explicit declaration of war with Afghanistan or the
ill-defined global conflict, the GOP leaders slipped language into
the spending bill that simply announced the U.S. is "engaged in an armed
conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces" and that
claims an old "Authorization for Use of Military Force necessarily
includes the authority to address the continuing and evolving threat
posed by these groups."
That's about as wide-ranging as it gets, and the ranking Democrat on the
House Judiciary Committee argues that the language makes a mockery of
the Constitutional requirement that Congress check and balance the executive branch and the Department of Defense when it comes to questions of extending wars.
(The language included in the spending bill) would appear to "grant the
President near unfettered authority to initiate military action around
the world without further congressional approval," argues Congressman John Conyers, D-Michigan. "Such authority must not be ceded to the President without careful deliberation from Congress."
Conyers and 32 House Democrats have written Armed Services Committee Chairman McKeon asking that he "immediately call hearings ... so that the American people have an opportunity to consider the serious impacts that this legislation could have on our national security."
That's the right call.
Who says?
James Madison, the essential author of Constitution.
Madison observed in the founding years of the American experiment that:"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
The Madisonian impulse is kept alive today not by House leaders who
claim to revere the Constitution while adandoning its principles but by
those members of Congress who object to permanent war for the same
reasons that the wisest of the founders did.
Here is the Conyers letter:
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Dear Chairman McKeon:
We are writing
concerning certain troubling provisions in H.R. 968, the Detainee
Security Act of 2011, which we understand are likely to be considered as
part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of the Fiscal
Year of 2012. Whatever one thinks about the merits of the Detainee
Security Act, it is a serious enough departure from current
counterterrorism policy and practice to merit consideration apart from
the NDAA. Accordingly, we request that you use your chairmanship in the
House Armed Services Committee to immediately hold hearings so that the
public can further consider the various provisions within the Detainee
Security Act.
Among the many troubling aspects
of the Detainee Security Act are provisions that expand the war against
terrorist organizations on a global basis. The Authorization for the
Use of Military Force (AUMF) of 2001 was widely thought to provide
authorization for the war in Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda, the
Taliban, and others responsible for the 9/11 attacks. That war has
dragged on for almost ten years, and after the demise of Osama Bin
Laden, as the United States prepares for withdrawal from Afghanistan,
the Detainee Security Act purports to expand the "armed conflict"
against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and "associated forces" without limit. By
declaring a global war against nameless individuals, organizations, and
nations "associated" with the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as those
playing a supporting role in their efforts, the Detainee Security Act
would appear to grant the President near unfettered authority to
initiate military action around the world without further congressional
approval. Such authority must not be ceded to the President without
careful deliberation from Congress.
The
Detainee Security Act also unwisely requires that all terrorism suspects
eligible for detention under the AUMF be held exclusively in military
custody pending further disposition. The practical effect of this
provision will be to undermine the ability of the FBI and local law
enforcement to participate in counterterrorism operations, which could
have serious negative impacts on national security. Moreover, in a
recent hearing in the House Armed Services Committee, Department of
Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson noted that, rather than help clarify
detention authority, the military custody provision in the Detainee
Security Act would create serious litigation risk for the government.
The
Detainee Security Act contains several additional troublesome
provisions that relate to Guantanamo. The Detainee Security Act in
effect requires that terrorism suspects be tried in military
commissions, thereby cutting out Article III federal courts from
conducting terrorism trials. This is unwise, as Article III federal
courts have convicted over 400 individuals of terrorism-related offenses
since 9/11. Military commissions, mired by legal problems and
controversy, have convicted only six. The Detainee Security Act would
also make permanent current transfer restrictions on Guantanamo
detainees, further undermining the ability of the President to close the
offshore detention facility. In our view, restricting the President in
this way is unnecessary to promote a robust national security that keeps
the American people safe.
Whatever one thinks
of these various proposals in the Detainee Security Act, it is clear
that they will have serious consequences and should be examined
extensively. We therefore request that you use your chairmanship to
immediately call hearings on Detainee Security Act so that the American
people have an opportunity to consider the serious impacts that this
legislation could have on our national security.
Sincerely,
Representatives
John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Peter DeFazio
(D-Ore.), John Dingell (D-Mich.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Bob Filner
(D-Calif.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), Maurice
Hinchey (D-NY), Michael Honda (D-Calif.), Jesse Jackson (D-Ill.), Sheila
Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), Barbara Lee
(D-Calif.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), James McGovern
(D-Mass.), George Miller (D-Calif.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Jerrold Nadler
(D-N.Y.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), David
Price (D-N.C.), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Bobby
Scott (D-Va.), Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), Fortney "Pete" Stark
(D-Calif.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Henry
Waxman (D-Calif.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and David Wu (D-Ore.).
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
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