War, democracy and the US Constitution

Warrigal

Warrigal

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I found this piece interesting and wondered what the reaction of Americans would be to it's basic premise that America is paying a heavy price for being enmeshed in conflicts all around the world. The cost is to openness in government, the common welfare of the people and to democracy itself.

Your reactions and opinions please.

Being the ‘indispensable nation’ is killing American democracy
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-deba...mocracy-by-waging-an-empires-continuous-wars/

By Robert L. Borosage
October 20, 2014

America — proudly dubbed the “indispensable nation” by its national-security managers — is now the entangled nation enmeshed in conflicts across the globe.

The indispensable nation is permanently engaged across the globe. But endless war undermines the Constitution. Democracy requires openness; war justifies secrecy. Democracy forces attention be paid to the common welfare; war demands attention and resources be spent on distant conflicts. Democracy involves forging coalitions to get action in the Congress; war is waged on executive order. The Constitution restrains the executive in times of peace; constitutional strictures are trampled in times of war.

When the founders wrote the Constitution, they worried about the tendency of kings, or presidents, to make war for personal aggrandizement or national glory. So they gave Congress the power to declare war, intent on “clogging, not facilitating” the rush to war. For the Republic, peace would be the normal state of affairs. War was a disruption — entered into only with prior debate and consideration by Congress, the elected body whose members best reflected the attitudes of their constituents.

The United States, in the words of conservative John Quincy Adams, would provide a shining example of liberty as long as “she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

But now the pursuit of monsters to destroy is unrelenting. Almost inevitably, it seems, the restraints of the Constitution are being trampled. With little debate, U.S. leaders have chosen permanent global intervention even at the cost of undermining the Republic.

For the cost of war can be measured in dollars not spent here at home.

An educated citizenry is the foundation of a robust democracy. Yet from the absence of free, full-day pre-K to affordable colleges to advanced training, the United States is skimping on investment in educating its citizens. A modern infrastructure is also essential to a competitive, high-wage economy. But while Washington spends $3 trillion on Iraq, there hasn’t been a serious discussion about bringing America’s aged infrastructure, including our roads, bridges and airports, up to standard — which would cost about the same.

Instead of this funding, the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies spend more on their militaries than the rest of the world combined. Washington maintains more than 1,000 bases, called “military sites,” across the globe, plus 11 aircraft-carrier task forces that are essentially moveable bases. U.S. conventional and nuclear forces are unrivaled — yet Washington plans to spend another trillion dollars over the next 30 years modernizing nuclear weapons that the United States aims never to use. U.S. intelligence and covert forces are permanently engaged, often secretly creating the implicit commitments that will force the next intervention.

It is only America, as the president said in a speech announcing his intention to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State, which he refers to as ISIL, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, that “has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorism … against Russian aggression … to contain … Ebola and more.”

This president, more than his predecessors, understands the perils of being the “indispensable nation.” Elected in large part to get the United States out of the seemingly endless wars in the Middle East, he now finds himself forced into another open-ended commitment.

In his speech to the National Defense University in 2013, Obama argued, “We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison’s warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ ” Obama warned specifically about this. “The choice we make about war,” the president said, “can impact — in sometimes unintended ways — the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends.”

Yet even with this awareness, and no reelection race facing him, Obama could not escape the imperatives of America’s role as the indispensable nation. The commitments are too many, the engagement too permanent, the capacity unrivalled — seemingly making all things possible. As a result, this former professor of constitutional law has governed over the greatest assertion of executive authority — claiming the power to make war, to surveil, arrest, detain and even kill Americans without prior judicial review or due process.

His Justice Department has used espionage laws against reporters and whistleblowers. The secrecy shields massive waste, fraud and abuse, as the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against consumes the bulk of the national budget, aside from payments on the national debt and the insurance programs of Social Security and Medicare.
When President George W. Bush was about to launch the war in Iraq, millions of Americans – as well as many people around the globe — marched in protest. The large demonstrations against war led the New York Times to dub world public opinion a second superpower. Bush sought authority from Congress and a dramatic congressional debate took place, with strong dissent against the war.

When Obama committed the United States to the fight against Islamic State, he claimed the authority to act without Congress, though adding he would “welcome” congressional support. Yet with the midterm elections then a few months away, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress chose to postpone the debate and the vote.

The bombing began on presidential order. Americans accepted their role as spectators, registering no significant objection to this presidential war-making. The indispensable nation is not only spending lives and resources on endless wars abroad, it is shredding its Constitution at home.

Ironically, America’s democracy is still strong enough to render it less than competent as a global policeman. Our military is the finest in the world, but still finds it hard to win a war. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate that while presidents can commit the nation virtually anywhere, Americans sour on long, costly interventions on the other side of the world.

This leads to strategies like “no boots on the ground” — designed not to rouse public opposition but almost certain to fail. Polls show that Americans have no interest in policing the globe. If the Constitution no longer constrains the president from making war, the public still limits his ability to wage it.
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There has always been a struggle between the isolationists and the expansionists which dances around the powers provided by the Constitution...
 
Do you think America can extricate herself from foreign bases and perpetual conflicts overseas?
 

No, there might be some tweaking but there are too many interests at work here from employment opportunities of host countries, to military suppliers and global strageic considerations that will be there with old threats and new ones such as Isis...
 
Ralphy1 said:
No, there might be some tweaking but there are too many interests at work here from employment opportunities of host countries, to military suppliers and global strageic considerations that will be there with old threats and new ones such as Isis...
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Not to mention, whenever there is a threat... conflict.... concern....humanitarian crisis..etc... the entire world looks to the USA to solve it...... In just the last few months.. ISIS...and now Ebola.. the world is crying and wringing it's hands over these.... and the USA is stepping in to try to help. I think what pee's off so many Americans is that when we do..... we are criticized and denegrated for it.. My opinion... Don't call us... and if you do?? Shut the heck up about our response... or YOU handle it. Spend YOUR blood and treasure...or stop complaining about the USA. It's happened all through recent history.. I for one don't give a rat's patoot if this ruffles the feathers of some here.. I'm completely done being asked to hang my head in shame for being born in the richest and greatest country on earth.
 
Looking on from the outside (and just for the record Australia has never invoked the ANZUS treaty to ask the USA to come to our aid but John Howard did invoke it to come to your aid in the war against terror after 911. Ridiculous, but true) I assume that all the foreign engagements that America has undertaken have been to protect your important foreign interests - either strategic or material, resources etc. There are a lot of crises that do not warrant interest from the USA. Three off the top of my head would be the Suez crisis when British interests were at stake (the US backed Nasser), the annexation of West Papua by Indonesia and the later annexation of East Timor and subsequent atrocities inflicted on the Timorese people by Indonesian backed militias.

I don't think it is really true that America is always there when there is some kind of crisis. We handled the Solomon Island crisis on our own. It was a small affiair by US standards. I doubt that the average US citizen is at all aware of Irian Jaya (West Papua), Timor Leste or the Solomons.

The whole world knows what the US is doing all of the time but most of the time Americans are blissfully unaware what happens in the rest of the world. For example, how many know that Australia lost a significant former prime minister today? If I said that it was Gough Whitlam, how many would have ever heard of him ?
 
Are you aware of who Scott Brown is? Scott Walker?.... How about Ben Carson? I could go on and on. Don't tell me that the whole world knows everything going on in the States... Everyone is much more intuned to what is happening in their own counrty and with their own politics. NO... I don't know who Gough Whitlam is.. AND I don't care.. Not any more than YOU know who Pat Quin is. ok... go ahead and google the names so you can pretend.
 
Dame Warrigal said:
Do you think America can extricate herself from foreign bases and perpetual conflicts overseas?
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It's pretty hard for Sam to stop being the world's policeman. A small town in the area had one policeman, by the name of Dave. Because of economic reasons, they had to let Dave go and instead rely on the regional police force. There was a vocal drive to "Save Dave", but it came to nothing. Most of the world is still crying"Save Sam"!
 
QuickSilver said:
Are you aware of who Scott Brown is? Scott Walker?.... How about Ben Carson? I could go on and on. Don't tell me that the whole world knows everything going on in the States... Everyone is much more intuned to what is happening in their own counrty and with their own politics. NO... I don't know who Gough Whitlam is.. AND I don't care.. Not any more than YOU know who Pat Quin is. ok... go ahead and google the names so you can pretend.
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I don't think any of those men have been presidents. I will now look them up to see how significant they are on the world stage.

I now have to amend my earlier statement to add in an extra phrase for clarity.

The whole world knows what the US is doing in terms of foreign policy all of the time
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Meanderer said:
It's pretty hard for Sam to stop being the world's policeman. A small town in the area had one policeman, by the name of Dave. Because of economic reasons, they had to let Dave go and instead rely on the regional police force. There was a vocal drive to "Save Dave", but it came to nothing. Most of the world is still crying"Save Sam"!
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Or rather CALL SAM!! Then "That damn Sam"
 
Your question was can America extricate itself from foreign bases and involvement or something to that effect. I don't think they will because corporate and military interests are at stake. Corporations supply the war effort. They provide food and housing and machinery and infrastructure support not to mention the huge dollars involved in weaponry (both for US military and for terrorists in other countries). Corporations also supply mercenaries when it's determined that that kind of intervention is appropriate. Corporations also come in after the fact when a country has been invaded and they became the go-to source for many if not most of what's need to 're-build'. An example of that was Monsanto being give sole seed supply rights in Iraq in the year or two immediately after that country was invaded.

From Global Research: "....U.S. proconsul and head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer issued “100 Orders” to transfer Iraq’s economy and legal ownership of Iraqi resources into the private hands of U.S. corporations....."http://www.globalresearch.ca/biopiracy-and-gmos-the-fate-of-iraq-s-agriculture/1447

And another link: "..."As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds, which include seeds the Iraqis themselves have developed over hundreds of years. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations...."http://www.rense.com/general62/seeds.htm


Huge amounts of money to be made on wars and politicians and the military, well those generals and majors and all the rest of them want to keep their jobs too. And the multiplicity of lobbyists at work on behalf of those corporations also want to remain relevant and employed and so they hand over wads of cash to politicians for their campaigns, who then vote accordingly. An example of this is Gerald Cassidy (apparently a leading lobbyist), who along with his wife handed over $1.3 million dollars for various Congressional campaigns. http://www.economist.com/news/speci...nies-try-influence-governments-grey-eminences


This is another link to an article about the power of lobbyists and how they've 'killed' democracy in America. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/16-credos-for-our-new-lobbyist-nation-2009-09-01 (the article is entitled: Democracy is Dead, Lobbyists Rule America)


"...The three major domestic arms manufacturers, Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOG) and Raytheon (RTN) have delivered record-shattering returns to their investors, CEOs and investment banks during the past decade and a half...The power and influence of the military-industrial complex in promoting serial wars has resulted in extraordinary rates of profit. According to a recent study by Morgan Stanley (cited in Barron’s, 6/9/14, p. 19), shares in the major US arms manufacturers have risen 27,699% over the past fifty years versus 6,777% for the broader market. In the past three years alone, Raytheon has returned 124%, Northrup Grumman 114% and Lockheed Martin 149% to their investors.."
....The arms industry lobbyists pressure Congressional and Pentagon decision-makers to link up with the pro-Israel lobby as it promotes even deeper direct US military involvement in Syria, Iraq and Iran. The growing ties between Israeli and US military industries reinforce their political leverage in Washington..."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-soaring-profits-of-the-military-industrial-complex-the-soaring-costs-of-military-casualties/5388393


As I reread this, I have to point out in case you also didn't notice it first time around, US arms manufacturers share price rising 27,699% in past 50 years. Cash cow indeed!



Those corporations and lobbyists and indeed the politicians are not likely to give up a cash cow that delivers investment returns as shown above. And I would imagine that all of those CEO's who are raking in big bucks see the deaths and maimings and suicides of all those American soldiers who've been involved in these conflicts as on par with 'widgets' which out of necessity were simply discards.

Just a note: a 'widget' is a small gadget or device whose name is unknown or unspecified. Those soldiers only have names to their family's, but to the corporations and lobbyists, unknown and uncared for.
 
Extrication could prove to be just as expensive in economic terms but less expensive in terms of blood.
It all depends what the people decide is the preferred option.

That is putting it rather simplistically but at the core of things, it is a real issue.
 
Until we go broke we will keep as many bases as we feel necessary to protect our interests on a global scale. Technology is helping to cut back on the manpower aspect and carriers are floating bases that can be shifted around to bring the attack where bases are not. And with a volunteer service force the American public is not too concerned when Ebola and football is on many of their minds...
 
Dame Warrigal said:
Extrication could prove to be just as expensive in economic terms but less expensive in terms of blood.
It all depends what the people decide is the preferred option.

That is putting it rather simplistically but at the core of things, it is a real issue.
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The people aren't going to decide anything because they don't know there is a problem and what's more, they would have to organize and send their own POWERFUL lobbyists to the White House to argue/lobby on the peoples behalf. As one of the links in my comment above suggests:

"...Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans will never hear about all the day-to-day shenanigans: The buying, selling and bartering of sweeteners, earmarks, votes and senatorial seats. Most of the behind-the-scenes deals never cross the radar of Middle America.Most voters are destined to live in denial, trapped in mind-numbing illusions replaying over and over as they sit passively, dazed. Or they angrily feed their macho delusions of power at town-hall meetings, carrying AK-47s, convinced that grandma will be sacrificed by one of Obama's death panels. Either way, they aimlessly drift, unaware of how lobbyists rule America, how lobbyists help the "Happy Conspiracy" rob them blind...."
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/16-credos-for-our-new-lobbyist-nation-2009-09-01

When you have a military industrial complex that garners 27,699% returns over 50 years, how can it be possible that miscellaneous citizens from across America, who are either now on food stamps, or working low paying jobs, or have lost their homes as a result of the banking fiasco that affected the world, or even just everyday families trying to get through life and raise children, are going to organize and come up with the kind of money and influence that would be needed to deliver a death blow to the power that corporations have over the government? And especially if they don't understand what is being done 'in their name'.
 
The generals only advise from their perspective but the president has to consider all perspectivess...
 
no advantage for US to win any war. winning means occupation, costs to high, few if any US citizens are going to move and re-settle carrying traditions and values. wars fought today are financial. its easier to control the outcome in a country by making or breaking its currency, trade agreements etc. world policeforce etc. is a media term. How can the rest of world be aware of US foreign policy when the current Administration doesn't even know what it is? US military in world is to protect US interests, economic, nothing else (its about oil, mineral deposits, drug trade routes). If you start with morale stuff, (people's rights, suppression etc) whose moral code you gonna use? the guy in the white hat?
Ironically the current administration has the backing of corporate America, traditionally socialists, are at odds with the capitalists (both terms used very loosely) some of the worlds industrial leaders are aware of what the Yanks are up to, but 99.9% of the world doesn't have a clue.
"Policy is determined by a loose affiliation of Millionaires and Billionaires" ---- Paul Simon
 
Think of it this way....Are Wars Good for the Economy?

The standard "a war gives the economy a boost" argument goes as follows: Let's suppose that the economy is in the low end of the business cycle, so we're in a recession or just a period of low economic growth. The unemployment rate is high, people may be making less purchases than they were a year or two ago, and overall output is flat. But then the country decides to prepare for war! The government needs to equip its soldiers with the extra gear and munitions needed in order to win the war. Corporations win contracts to supply boots, and bombs and vehicles to the army. Many of these companies will have to hire extra workers in order to meet this increased production. If the preparations for war are large enough, large numbers of workers will be hired reducing the unemployment rate. Other workers may need to be hired to cover reservists in private sector jobs who get sent overseas. With the unemployment rate down we have more people spending again and people who had jobs before will be less worried about losing their job in the future so they'll spend more than they did. This extra spending will help the retail sector, who will need to hire extra employees causing unemployment to drop even further. A spiral of positive economic activity is created by the government preparing for war, if you believe the story. The flawed logic of the story is an example of something economists call The Broken Window Fallacy
 
On the other hand, we here in the UK are very glad that the US 'went looking for monsters to destroy' in the last world war, Adolf Hitler certainly fits that bill!
 
Davey Jones said:
Think of it this way....Are Wars Good for the Economy?

The standard "a war gives the economy a boost" argument goes as follows: Let's suppose that the economy is in the low end of the business cycle, so we're in a recession or just a period of low economic growth. The unemployment rate is high, people may be making less purchases than they were a year or two ago, and overall output is flat. But then the country decides to prepare for war! The government needs to equip its soldiers with the extra gear and munitions needed in order to win the war. Corporations win contracts to supply boots, and bombs and vehicles to the army. Many of these companies will have to hire extra workers in order to meet this increased production. If the preparations for war are large enough, large numbers of workers will be hired reducing the unemployment rate. Other workers may need to be hired to cover reservists in private sector jobs who get sent overseas. With the unemployment rate down we have more people spending again and people who had jobs before will be less worried about losing their job in the future so they'll spend more than they did. This extra spending will help the retail sector, who will need to hire extra employees causing unemployment to drop even further. A spiral of positive economic activity is created by the government preparing for war, if you believe the story. The flawed logic of the story is an example of something economists call The Broken Window Fallacy
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There is an old saying, 'It's an ill wind that blows NOBODY any good'.
 

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