RIGHT NOW, SEVEN rural Oregon grandmothers have locked themselves in the offices of Republican Congressional Represenattive Greg Walden. The Grandmothers showed up at Walden’s office to deliver to him petitions, testimonials and other stories from a huge, locally arranged Town Hall Meeting on the Cost of War that neither Walden nor is staff could bother to attend despite having received notice of the meeting for several months. These town halls were put on in four of Oregon’s five Congressional districts and were attended by more than 700 rural Oregonians. They were supported by the statewide Rural Organizing Project in Oregon, but were put on and run by local groups dedicated to human dignity and ending this inhumanity called the Iraq War.
After Walden refused to talk these brave women on the phone, they refused to leave the office and locked themselves in. One of these women has a grandchild on his third tour in Iraq. On would think she deserved the courtesy of a phone call. They will likely spend Tuesday night in the office. To avoid embarrassments such as visited Oregon Senator Gordon Smith when he had Grandmothers arrested for the gall to actually want to speak with their Senator, Walden’s office is trying the tactic of appeasing them or waiting them out.
But, after Walden offered to hold a conference call with them at the end of the day, the brave Grandmas told him that was too little too late, and now insist that he pledge to vote against the upcoming Iraq War Appropriations bill before they leave. Way to go Grannies! Who knows how long they will hold out. If you live in Central Oregon, get over to Walden’s Bend office and support these magnificent women.
There are heroes among us. They are unlikely people and live in unlikely places, like Grandmothers in rural Oregon. They should inspire us all. What are we doing to stop the War?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The War Powers of Congress
David Sirota summarizes on his blog (Sirotablog at workingforchange.com) the sentiment among many Congressional Democrats that there is little they can do to stop President Bush's proposed escalation of the Iraq War. They claim Congress largely lacks the power to prevent the President from inserting 20,000 more American troops in the middle of a Baghdad sectarian civil war fueled by hatreds both ancient and new and an Anbar Province guerilla insurgency that is a desert version of Viet Nam, or if you prefer, an American version of the successful 1916-1918 Arab guerilla revolt against an immensely more powerful occupying Turkish army glorified in "Lawrence of Arabia."
In response, I thought I would don my Community College part-time Political Science instructor and Master of Laws hats to set out and briefly analyze the basic Constitutional provisions on warfare powers. You may be surprised by how much power Congress really has.
Here are the Congress's powers regarding warfare, found in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
To declare war . . . and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies. . . ;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States.
With regard to funding, the Constitution gives Congress the power to:
lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
Of course, we know that all bills regarding national spending must originate in the House of Representatives.
Here are the President's powers with regard to warfare, in Article II, Section 2:
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States
What the Constitution called the Militia, we now call the National Guard.
Without making this a legal research paper, suffice it to say that the intent of the founders in making the President the Commander in Chief was to place the military under civilian, and therefore voter, control. It was NOT designed to make the President a military officer or the military a pawn of the President. Despite this fact, the Supreme Court has given the President rather expansive powers when acting as Commander In Chief in times of war. But the subject at hand is the power of Congress over warfare and its ability to prevent or alter President Bush's proposed surge of American troops into Iraq.
First, let's be very clear. What the Democrats are really talking about when they claim they lack power is politics. They are afraid they will be accused yet again of failing to support the troops and of being weak on the War on Terror, for one of the least understood principles in the Constitution's balance of warfare powers is the simple fact that without Congress there can be no military.
Only Congress has the power to "raise and support armies" and "provide and maintain a navy." In this sense, ONLY Congress, not the President, has the ultimate war power, the power to create a military in the first place. I am not speaking of wisdom, but power here. Surely Congress would never threaten to disband the American military and I would never suggest that, but Congress does have THAT MUCH POWER.
Yes, the President could veto any laws purporting to make changes in the military, subject to override by two-thirds of both Houses. The bottom line is that a relatively unified Congress has THAT MUCH POWER.
Do not let them get away with arguing they are subordinate to the President with regard to the military. If we are ever to free ourselves from the myth that the President has all the power when it comes to warfare, we the people must make Congress's actual power part of the public debate. That Congress can literally disband the military shows who has the real power.
The second principle on Congress's Constitutional power, as opposed to political wisdom, calculation or will, is the sole power to declare war. We all know Congress never declared war in Iraq. Thus, Congress could simply decide the President has no power to proceed in Iraq because it is an undeclared war. Congress may have precluded this route when it passed a resolution authorizing the President to use force in Iraq. Under the plain language of the Constitution, however, the power to declare war necessarily includes the power to undeclare war; the power to grant authorization to use force necessarily includes the power to rescind that authorization. One act Congress can take is to rescind the President's authorization to use force in Iraq or place limits on it, such as not sending more troops before a vote of the majority of the both Houses of Congress. Sirota notes that Nancy Pelosi, Jack Murtha and Ted Kennedy are all currently trying to impose such a limitation.
Third, contrary to assertions that Congress lacks the power to control what is actually done with the troops once they are raised and funded, the Constitution gives Congress the power to "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." While this power surely falls short of ordering specific troop movements and the like, it does not appear to prevent other means of troop regulation. For example, nothing appears to preclude Congress making rules that tightly regulate the time troops can spend in combat overseas, or the number of rotations into combat each soldier can be subjected to over a defined period of time. Congress could at least assert their power and let the President refuse to comply and take the issue to the Federal Courts.
Fourth, of course, there is the well-known power of the purse. Congress can easily cut off all funding for Iraq. Again, think power, not wisdom or political sense. Congress can certainly refuse to fund any extra troops, or condition release of funds on limiting or reducing troop numbers. The President obviously intends to make this politically difficult by sending the troops right away and then casting any proposed reduction in funds as endangering troops already in battle.
Congress's final power rests over the Commander In Chief himself (hopefully, someday, herself): the power to impeach. Surely a President who ignores or violates Congressional denial of authorization to wage war or rules placed on the use of troops, is potentially guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors." Congress should let the President know that ignoring their enactments on war and the military will subject him to impeachment proceedings.
In creating the brilliant divisions and balances of governmental power in our Constitution, our founders were trying to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch of government, but especially in the executive branch. In one of today's many inconsistencies rendering irony a futile art, our founders agreed with what modern conservatives who support unfettered executive prerogative still claim to believe: excessive governmental power is the greatest threat to liberty in civilized nations.
One of the founders' biggest fears was a military unaccountable to the people and controlled by unchecked executive power. To prevent this, they gave Congress first powers over the military-the powers to create, govern and regulate, fund, and declare war-and the elected Executive derivative power-to serve as commander of the troops.
Now you know. Don't let your Representatives and Senators shirk their Constitutional duties in military matters by claiming they don't have the power.
In response, I thought I would don my Community College part-time Political Science instructor and Master of Laws hats to set out and briefly analyze the basic Constitutional provisions on warfare powers. You may be surprised by how much power Congress really has.
Here are the Congress's powers regarding warfare, found in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
To declare war . . . and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies. . . ;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States.
With regard to funding, the Constitution gives Congress the power to:
lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
Of course, we know that all bills regarding national spending must originate in the House of Representatives.
Here are the President's powers with regard to warfare, in Article II, Section 2:
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States
What the Constitution called the Militia, we now call the National Guard.
Without making this a legal research paper, suffice it to say that the intent of the founders in making the President the Commander in Chief was to place the military under civilian, and therefore voter, control. It was NOT designed to make the President a military officer or the military a pawn of the President. Despite this fact, the Supreme Court has given the President rather expansive powers when acting as Commander In Chief in times of war. But the subject at hand is the power of Congress over warfare and its ability to prevent or alter President Bush's proposed surge of American troops into Iraq.
First, let's be very clear. What the Democrats are really talking about when they claim they lack power is politics. They are afraid they will be accused yet again of failing to support the troops and of being weak on the War on Terror, for one of the least understood principles in the Constitution's balance of warfare powers is the simple fact that without Congress there can be no military.
Only Congress has the power to "raise and support armies" and "provide and maintain a navy." In this sense, ONLY Congress, not the President, has the ultimate war power, the power to create a military in the first place. I am not speaking of wisdom, but power here. Surely Congress would never threaten to disband the American military and I would never suggest that, but Congress does have THAT MUCH POWER.
Yes, the President could veto any laws purporting to make changes in the military, subject to override by two-thirds of both Houses. The bottom line is that a relatively unified Congress has THAT MUCH POWER.
Do not let them get away with arguing they are subordinate to the President with regard to the military. If we are ever to free ourselves from the myth that the President has all the power when it comes to warfare, we the people must make Congress's actual power part of the public debate. That Congress can literally disband the military shows who has the real power.
The second principle on Congress's Constitutional power, as opposed to political wisdom, calculation or will, is the sole power to declare war. We all know Congress never declared war in Iraq. Thus, Congress could simply decide the President has no power to proceed in Iraq because it is an undeclared war. Congress may have precluded this route when it passed a resolution authorizing the President to use force in Iraq. Under the plain language of the Constitution, however, the power to declare war necessarily includes the power to undeclare war; the power to grant authorization to use force necessarily includes the power to rescind that authorization. One act Congress can take is to rescind the President's authorization to use force in Iraq or place limits on it, such as not sending more troops before a vote of the majority of the both Houses of Congress. Sirota notes that Nancy Pelosi, Jack Murtha and Ted Kennedy are all currently trying to impose such a limitation.
Third, contrary to assertions that Congress lacks the power to control what is actually done with the troops once they are raised and funded, the Constitution gives Congress the power to "make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." While this power surely falls short of ordering specific troop movements and the like, it does not appear to prevent other means of troop regulation. For example, nothing appears to preclude Congress making rules that tightly regulate the time troops can spend in combat overseas, or the number of rotations into combat each soldier can be subjected to over a defined period of time. Congress could at least assert their power and let the President refuse to comply and take the issue to the Federal Courts.
Fourth, of course, there is the well-known power of the purse. Congress can easily cut off all funding for Iraq. Again, think power, not wisdom or political sense. Congress can certainly refuse to fund any extra troops, or condition release of funds on limiting or reducing troop numbers. The President obviously intends to make this politically difficult by sending the troops right away and then casting any proposed reduction in funds as endangering troops already in battle.
Congress's final power rests over the Commander In Chief himself (hopefully, someday, herself): the power to impeach. Surely a President who ignores or violates Congressional denial of authorization to wage war or rules placed on the use of troops, is potentially guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors." Congress should let the President know that ignoring their enactments on war and the military will subject him to impeachment proceedings.
In creating the brilliant divisions and balances of governmental power in our Constitution, our founders were trying to prevent the accumulation of excessive power in any one branch of government, but especially in the executive branch. In one of today's many inconsistencies rendering irony a futile art, our founders agreed with what modern conservatives who support unfettered executive prerogative still claim to believe: excessive governmental power is the greatest threat to liberty in civilized nations.
One of the founders' biggest fears was a military unaccountable to the people and controlled by unchecked executive power. To prevent this, they gave Congress first powers over the military-the powers to create, govern and regulate, fund, and declare war-and the elected Executive derivative power-to serve as commander of the troops.
Now you know. Don't let your Representatives and Senators shirk their Constitutional duties in military matters by claiming they don't have the power.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
First Post: The Pain of War
For my first post, I thought I would offer a poem, though this will not be a typical post. I wrote this in February 2003, anticipating the horror of what everyone then thought would be a long seige and battle of Baghdad. Of course it has now turned out to be just such a horror, even if it occured in slow-motion. With the specter of an additional 20,000 or more United States troops, and who knows how much urban fire-bombing, surging in to support Shi'ite militias in their ethnic cleansing of that ancient city, the poem suddenly has a new immediacy. I altered the title ("seige' to "surge") and the opening line a little to fit the "surge"
Fair notice: it is a very sad and graphic war poem, but we must grapple with the pain we are causing as a nation. If we cannot face it even in print, we can never generate the empathy needed to put an immediate stop to this and all war. And the end, consistent with all real theology, offers hope.
LETTER FROM A FAMILY UNDER SURGE
Only one of them died, Mr. Bush, the night our recovering enclave
Exploded again under the newest American killing scheme.
A jagged chunk of concrete crashed through our window
And cracked her little skull.
But she stayed conscious a long time
Shrieking and wailing from the splitting pain of mortal injury
But even more from the dizzying disbelief and soul-wounding
Knowledge that a grown-up did this to her on purpose
She looked at me with pleading, prayerful, black Arab eyes
Wanting desperately for me to make this all better
Like I had always done before
But somehow knowing I could not
I felt I was betraying my own baby as she bled out on my bosom
Do you know the pain, Mr Bush of watching your child die
And being powerless to stop it?
Do you know the unholy torment of the look in your others children’s eyes
As they realize their own mother cannot protect them?
My second little girl lived two more weeks
She had a cold, just a little cold
Before the lights went out, the water stopped
The sewage and garbage began to pile up, the bodies to rot
All the medicine ran out
The doctors could not move, nor could we.
You did not count on our resolve to fight you in the streets
You thought we would accept your purge
Your conquer and plunder of our ancestral lands
You are both foolish and arrogant to believe that only you know the truth
That only smart bombs and titanium armor breed courage
She got a cough, then a fever, then the fluid began to take her
She gasped for days, determined to outlive this horror
But the bubbling hot, fire-stoked, thick mud in her lungs was too much
Two dollars worth of penicillin would have saved her
Just after her last breath, my oldest son, a sweet, smart 16-year old,
Burst out the door in a terrifying bloodlusted rage
So lost in hatred and vengeance he flung himself wildly at your guns
Futilely and insanely
AND WITH MORE COURAGE AND
PURE BEAUTY THAN I HAD EVER SEEN
He pathetically hurled rocks and broken glass against your bullets
For a flashing instant I was so proud of him
But then I realized he too was about to die in front of me
Shredded by a close-quarters, urbanized-warfare, anti-personnel unit,
By which you mean a slaughtering machine
My oldest daughter, barely Fourteen, I swear, Mr. Bush, she just died of grief
She simply could not live in a world where
Human beings actually do this to each other
She wanted to be a mother one day
To labor to create and nurture life herself
She had no place in a world of men who could destroy it so causally
I watched my second oldest boy, a proud, but half-starved Twelve-year old
Say a Prayer for my soul just before I closed my eyes for the last time
Can you imagine the pain, Mr. Bush, of watching your young child
Watch you die?
With my last conscious act I prayed that he would live through this
That one day he would come to your country
Show up on your door step
And drop to his knees to wash your feet in his tears
So that for at least one moment in your life
You will be able to feel
What all the Christs of all the ages have meant
By the word Love.
OK, back to commentary:
You see, true divinity appears mad in world of pride and vengeance. Washing the feet of the man who ordered the killing of your entire family? Who would do such a thing? The answer most relevant to Twenty-First Century America: Jesus.
The mother's final prayer for true love looks like weakness in our world; looks like pure fiction from a Muslim, whom we are taught understand only force and violence. This is precisely the problem. Until we can imagine a world in which hatred is met with love, until we are able to meet hatred with love, we will never live in peace and love ourselves. That's what I mean when I say that divinity and true love are highly radical, even dangerous today.
I cannot claim to have the courage to live true to these teachings always, or even most of the time. I can only do my best. All of us can only do our best, but we must at least make the attempt. For who else is there?
OK, enough sermoning for today.
I will be back very soon with posts on war and peace, the economy, politics and equality, with some poetry occassionally interspersed.
Fair notice: it is a very sad and graphic war poem, but we must grapple with the pain we are causing as a nation. If we cannot face it even in print, we can never generate the empathy needed to put an immediate stop to this and all war. And the end, consistent with all real theology, offers hope.
LETTER FROM A FAMILY UNDER SURGE
Only one of them died, Mr. Bush, the night our recovering enclave
Exploded again under the newest American killing scheme.
A jagged chunk of concrete crashed through our window
And cracked her little skull.
But she stayed conscious a long time
Shrieking and wailing from the splitting pain of mortal injury
But even more from the dizzying disbelief and soul-wounding
Knowledge that a grown-up did this to her on purpose
She looked at me with pleading, prayerful, black Arab eyes
Wanting desperately for me to make this all better
Like I had always done before
But somehow knowing I could not
I felt I was betraying my own baby as she bled out on my bosom
Do you know the pain, Mr Bush of watching your child die
And being powerless to stop it?
Do you know the unholy torment of the look in your others children’s eyes
As they realize their own mother cannot protect them?
My second little girl lived two more weeks
She had a cold, just a little cold
Before the lights went out, the water stopped
The sewage and garbage began to pile up, the bodies to rot
All the medicine ran out
The doctors could not move, nor could we.
You did not count on our resolve to fight you in the streets
You thought we would accept your purge
Your conquer and plunder of our ancestral lands
You are both foolish and arrogant to believe that only you know the truth
That only smart bombs and titanium armor breed courage
She got a cough, then a fever, then the fluid began to take her
She gasped for days, determined to outlive this horror
But the bubbling hot, fire-stoked, thick mud in her lungs was too much
Two dollars worth of penicillin would have saved her
Just after her last breath, my oldest son, a sweet, smart 16-year old,
Burst out the door in a terrifying bloodlusted rage
So lost in hatred and vengeance he flung himself wildly at your guns
Futilely and insanely
AND WITH MORE COURAGE AND
PURE BEAUTY THAN I HAD EVER SEEN
He pathetically hurled rocks and broken glass against your bullets
For a flashing instant I was so proud of him
But then I realized he too was about to die in front of me
Shredded by a close-quarters, urbanized-warfare, anti-personnel unit,
By which you mean a slaughtering machine
My oldest daughter, barely Fourteen, I swear, Mr. Bush, she just died of grief
She simply could not live in a world where
Human beings actually do this to each other
She wanted to be a mother one day
To labor to create and nurture life herself
She had no place in a world of men who could destroy it so causally
I watched my second oldest boy, a proud, but half-starved Twelve-year old
Say a Prayer for my soul just before I closed my eyes for the last time
Can you imagine the pain, Mr. Bush, of watching your young child
Watch you die?
With my last conscious act I prayed that he would live through this
That one day he would come to your country
Show up on your door step
And drop to his knees to wash your feet in his tears
So that for at least one moment in your life
You will be able to feel
What all the Christs of all the ages have meant
By the word Love.
OK, back to commentary:
You see, true divinity appears mad in world of pride and vengeance. Washing the feet of the man who ordered the killing of your entire family? Who would do such a thing? The answer most relevant to Twenty-First Century America: Jesus.
The mother's final prayer for true love looks like weakness in our world; looks like pure fiction from a Muslim, whom we are taught understand only force and violence. This is precisely the problem. Until we can imagine a world in which hatred is met with love, until we are able to meet hatred with love, we will never live in peace and love ourselves. That's what I mean when I say that divinity and true love are highly radical, even dangerous today.
I cannot claim to have the courage to live true to these teachings always, or even most of the time. I can only do my best. All of us can only do our best, but we must at least make the attempt. For who else is there?
OK, enough sermoning for today.
I will be back very soon with posts on war and peace, the economy, politics and equality, with some poetry occassionally interspersed.
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