HUFFINGTON POST– The House is expected to vote soon on a bill that hands over to
the president Congress’ constitutional authority to declare and
authorize war, substantially altering the delicate balance of powers
that the Founding Fathers envisioned.
The annual reauthorization of the Department of Defense contains unprecedented and dangerous language that gives the president virtually unchecked power to take the country to war and keep us there. This bill significantly undermines the Constitution, the institution of Congress and sets the United States on a path of permanent war.
The Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) declares that the United States is in an armed conflict with not only al Qaeda and the Taliban, but “associated forces” and individuals, organizations and nations that support such forces. The president could then have the full legal authority to send American troops to engage in acts of war anywhere–Yemen, Somalia, Iran, even the United States–without constitutionally required Congressional authorization and, consequently, without any restrictions or oversight from the American people or Congress.
This bill would also make permanent the degradation of law and human rights which has become Guantanamo. It imposes bans on the transfer of any detainee held at Guantanamo, including those who have been cleared of any charges. This means that the United States would be forced to keep imprisoning men who are known to be innocent or are not a threat. This bill not only allows the imprisonment of innocent people, but could mandate it.
The bill also prevents the use of Article III federal courts for the trial of most terrorism suspects. This circumvents our system of justice and our protections under the Constitution, showing a lack of faith in US law enforcement and courts which are the constitutional venues for stopping terrorism. Our federal courts have a long history of trying terrorist suspects, while military courts are untested, lacking in legitimacy and of questionable effectiveness. Since 9/11, federal courts have prosecuted over 400 terrorism-related cases, while military courts have convicted only six.
It’s as if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never happened. These wars cost thousands of lives of our men and women in uniform, and perhaps a million civilian lives, with long-term costs approaching $5 trillion. Yet, in light of the attempt to try to make permanent an authorization for war, it is as if the consequences of the wars we are in have not occurred. It’s as if our “humanitarian” military intervention in Libya, which has helped create full blown civil war and which has ensnared us in yet another military stalemate in the region, never happened. It is as if centuries of evidence of the ramifications of the military overreach of empires never happened. It’s as if the Constitution, which requires Congress to have a say in when and where we go to war and which guarantees U.S. citizens the right to a fair and speedy trial, was never written.
Congress must protect the American people from the over-reach of any Chief Executive who is enamored with unilateralism, pre-emption, first strike and the power to prosecute war without Constitutional or statutory proscriptions.
Permanent, global war is not the answer. It will not increase our national security. Far from ridding the world of terrorism, it will become a terrorist recruitment program.
Written by Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Resposted by the author from The Nation.
Follow Rep. Dennis Kucinich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RepKucinich
© 2011 Huffington Post
Photo by Flickr user Tony the Misfit
RabbiBrant-In spite of the destruction the US wuhrgot on South Vietnamese territory, most people there don’t seem to blame the US for it (at least that is what I have been told). But what about Germany and Japan in World War II? They really got walloped by the US and the British, including nuclear weapons on the latter and yet both countries are close allies of the US and public opinion supports that. Thus, we see that a sober reflection on the causes of the conflicts the US was involved in doesn’t necessarily lead to knee-jerk resentment on the part of the populations that was on the receiving end.Andy-What you say about the global chess game sounds reasonable, but what is the alternative? People had to choose sides. You can’t put your head in the sand. What about Cuba they chose (or at least Castro and his cronies) the other side. Are they better off for it? Like I stated, the alternative to empire is out and out anarchy. Who would benefit from that? The liberal dream of a bunch of benevelont little countries living in peace with one another without any coercive force lurking in the background is just a delusion. When the UN war formed all progressive opinion thought that here was a great chance to move beyong the nation-state to move towards a more collective security system that was internationalized. How did that work out? Did it prevent the War in Vietnam, the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and all the bloody wars in the Middle East and Africa? President Obama supposedly opposed the idea of the US being the lone cowboy in the world, yet he is running a war in Afghanistan, he liquidated Awlaki in Yemen so he is finding out what others already know .there is no alternative to empire flexing its muscles from time to time.