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A question for people about the use of military

Cordelier said:
Treaty commitments are on an equal footing with the Constitution itself as the supreme law of the land.
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No, they are on an equal footing with federal statutes (laws) as the supreme law of the land - i.e., overriding state laws - but only in certain circumstances, the Supreme Court has ruled.
 
Glitch said:
No, it is not a different kettle of fish. Any time the President uses military force - anywhere, for any reason - it requires the prior approval of Congress. No treaty supersedes that constitutional requirement. The only exception to that is the National Guard, which may be deployed anywhere within the US without prior congressional approval. However, if it involves the use of military force outside of the US, then prior congressional approval is required.

I have absolutely no doubt that if a fellow NATO member were to be attacked, Congress would immediately give the President the authority he requires to uphold our NATO obligations. However, it is Congress that must decide whether or not to honor that obligation, not the President.

What Truman did in Korea, Clinton in Kosovo, and Obama in Libya, Syria, and Yemen violated the US Constitution, while Congress looked the other way.
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I disagree... to refer back to my earlier post in this thread (#45) and Justice Jackson's three levels of Presidential authority laid out in Youngstown Sheet & Tube, obtaining Congressional approval, while advisable, isn't technically necessary when the President is acting to enforce Treaty requirements. What Congressional approval does do is put the President's actions on the highest level of authority - that being said, the President is still empowered to use force at the second level of authority. Where the going gets trickier is on the lowest level of authority when Congress specifically votes against the actions of the President.
 
PersianCavalry said:
So true. But at the same time, I think people do care (now, although it's arguably too late). For example, let's just ask them

Guys/girls in this thread, do you care that 206,107 Iraqi civilians were killed due to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003?
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Sure I care.... the same way I care that 1.5-3 million German civilians and 550-800 thousand Japanese civilians were killed during World War II. Doesn't change the fact that the war had to happen.
 
Craig234 said:
No, they are on an equal footing with federal statutes (laws) as the supreme law of the land - i.e., overriding state laws - but only in certain circumstances, the Supreme Court has ruled.
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If we're going to talk about Supreme Court rulings, I figure it's usually good form to cite the case.

For me, I think the operative case would be Goldwater v. Carter, 444 US 996 (1979) where a bunch of Republican Senators and Congressman filed suit against President Carter over his unilateral nullification of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty, maintaining that such an action would require Congressional approval. The Court ruled that the question was a nonjusticiable political question and thus outside of Judicial purview absent Congress issuing a formal opposition.
 
Cordelier said:
Sure I care.... the same way I care that 1.5-3 million German civilians and 550-800 thousand Japanese civilians were killed during World War II. Doesn't change the fact that the war had to happen.
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In other words, you don't care. (Hint: the Vietnam war did not 'have to happen').
 
Craig234 said:
In other words, you don't care. (Hint: the Vietnam war did not 'have to happen').
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All due respect, you have no idea about how I feel... just like I have no idea how you feel. War is the about the worst endeavor that mankind can embark on. It brings out the worst in everything it touches. But life isn't all sunshine and roses - sometimes you have to get down in the muck and corruption too. I don't have the luxury to dwell on things I have no power to change - but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect me. This just isn't the time for that.

I think Vietnam did have to happen.... it didn't have to happen in Vietnam, though. It could have happened in Laos or Thailand or Indonesia.... but somewhere in SEA we would have been pulled into a conflict. Vietnam was as good a place as any for it.
 
Cordelier said:
All due respect, you have no idea about how I feel... just like I have no idea how you feel. War is the about the worst endeavor that mankind can embark on. It brings out the worst in everything it touches. But life isn't all sunshine and roses - sometimes you have to get down in the muck and corruption too. I don't have the luxury to dwell on things I have no power to change - but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect me. This just isn't the time for that.

I think Vietnam did have to happen.... it didn't have to happen in Vietnam, though. It could have happened in Laos or Thailand or Indonesia.... but somewhere in SEA we would have been pulled into a conflict. Vietnam was as good a place as any for it.
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I'm stating my opinion about what your words say. In my opinion, your words show you do not care much about the Vietnamese casualties in the Vietnam war. You are welcome to state your opinion, including saying you disagree if you want.

I disagree with you about the Vietnam war. It didn't 'need' to happen anywhere. The issues in the Vietnam war weren't about those other countries, either. There was no 'worldwide communist surge domino theory' we 'had to stop' in the region. It's notable how Americans still accept that myth.
 
Cordelier said:
If we're going to talk about Supreme Court rulings, I figure it's usually good form to cite the case.
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I'll just refer you to googling the topic, the law is pretty clear.
 
Craig234 said:
I'm stating my opinion about what your words say. In my opinion, your words show you do not care much about the Vietnamese casualties in the Vietnam war. You are welcome to state your opinion, including saying you disagree if you want.

I disagree with you about the Vietnam war. It didn't 'need' to happen anywhere. The issues in the Vietnam war weren't about those other countries, either. There was no 'worldwide communist surge domino theory' we 'had to stop' in the region. It's notable how Americans still accept that myth.
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If the US didn't stand by it's commitments in Vietnam, then how much credibility do you think it would have carried with the military in Jakarta? Indonesia came within a hair's breadth of having a communist takeover in 1965. Once the PKI assumes power there, then it's in a position to cut off the oil routes to Japan and South Korea from the Middle East. Meanwhile, China is left to operate with a relatively free hand to support anti-government forces in Thailand. People forget about Thailand because it was overshadowed by Vietnam and Cambodia... but there was a lot of unrest boiling under the surface (note the 1973 Thai Popular Uprising). Given an extra momentum of a perceived US withdrawal from the region, an easy North Vietnamese conquest of Saigon, and a PKI Government in Indonesia, an overthrow of the Thai Government becomes increasingly likely.

I know you're going to respond with something along the lines of "that wouldn't have happened" or some other piece of 20/20 hindsight.... well, I'd say it didn't happen in large measure because we drew the line in Vietnam - and if we didn't, we just would have been pulled in somewhere else down the line.
 
Craig234 said:
There was no 'worldwide communist surge domino theory' we 'had to stop' in the region. It's notable how Americans still accept that myth.
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You are very much mistaken.

This is a brief list of those nations that became communist after WW II:

  • Poland (1945)
  • North Vietnam (1945)
  • Albania (1946)
  • Bulgaria (1946)
  • Romania (1947)
  • Czechoslovakia (1948)
  • North Korea (1948)
  • Hungary (1949)
  • East Germany (1949)
  • Cuba (1959)
  • South Yemen (1967)
  • Republic of Congo (1970)
  • Ethiopia (1974)
  • Somalia (1976)
  • Angola (1975)
  • Mozambique (1975)
The ideology being propagated by communist leaders in those countries listed above was aimed to infiltrate the US and undermine the government. The communist countries recognized it would be difficult to launch a military attack against the US, so they chose to attempt to inspire rebellion among the US citizens against their government.
 
Glitch said:
The ideology being propagated by communist leaders in those countries listed above was aimed to infiltrate the US and undermine the government. The communist countries recognized it would be difficult to launch a military attack against the US, so they chose to attempt to inspire rebellion among the US citizens against their government.
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Joe McCarthy was a bloated windbag.
 
Glitch said:
Aren't all politicians? Nevertheless, he was right.
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No he wasn't... not in the slightest. He destroyed the careers of scores of good people by using his office to smear their reputations. And for what? How many "Communist Agents" did he find? Not a one.
 
Cordelier said:
No he wasn't... not in the slightest. He destroyed the careers of scores of good people by using his office to smear their reputations. And for what? How many "Communist Agents" did he find? Not a one.
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You are mistaken. Senator Joseph McCarthy had absolutely nothing to do with the Democrat-controlled House Un-American Activities Committee that destroyed the careers of people. Sen. McCarthy confined his investigations to the Department of State and the Department of Defense. It was the 1951 conviction of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage that inspired Sen. McCarthy to begin his investigations. It was actually Hollywood's blacklisting that destroyed the most people's careers, which had absolutely nothing to do with government. Hollywood behaved then much like Facebook, Twitter, and Google behave now.
 
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Glitch said:
You are mistaken. Senator Joseph McCarthy had absolutely nothing to do with the Democrat-controlled House Un-American Activities Committee that destroyed the careers of people. Sen. McCarthy confined his investigations to the Department of State and the Department of Defense. It was the 1951 conviction of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage that inspired Sen. McCarthy to begin his investigations. It was actually Hollywood's blacklisting that destroyed the most people's careers, which had absolutely nothing to do with government. Hollywood behaved then much like Facebook, Twitter, and Google behave now.
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His investigations of the State and Defense Departments are my main problem. Don't get me wrong - HUAC was bad enough and caused damage as well, but it didn't cost lives. What McCarthy did in his investigations - I'm thinking here about his going after the so-called "China Hands" - men like John Paton Davies or Owen Lattimore - intelligent, capable men with years of experience in the field - essentially purged the State Department of anyone who had any first-hand experience about Asian affairs. This crippled our awareness of what was actually happening on the ground right when Vietnam was just starting to come to a boil. The experience and knowledge these men possessed would have been an invaluable asset in helping us navigate those troubled waters during the 60's.
 
Glitch said:
You are very much mistaken.

This is a brief list of those nations that became communist after WW II:

  • Poland (1945)
  • North Vietnam (1945)
  • Albania (1946)
  • Bulgaria (1946)
  • Romania (1947)
  • Czechoslovakia (1948)
  • North Korea (1948)
  • Hungary (1949)
  • East Germany (1949)
  • Cuba (1959)
  • South Yemen (1967)
  • Republic of Congo (1970)
  • Ethiopia (1974)
  • Somalia (1976)
  • Angola (1975)
  • Mozambique (1975)
The ideology being propagated by communist leaders in those countries listed above was aimed to infiltrate the US and undermine the government. The communist countries recognized it would be difficult to launch a military attack against the US, so they chose to attempt to inspire rebellion among the US citizens against their government.
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I'm aware of where communism took hold - primarily in places where the people felt very oppressed, and in 'buffer zone' countries around Russia where they forcefully took power.

There was NO 'domino theory' situation in southeast asia as the US feared where the Vietnam war - or war in the other countries - stopped such a movement. There was paranoia from China's move to communism.

Actually, when Kennedy took office, the primary crisis was in Laos - which he peacefully resolved by softening the US position demanding only a right-wing government to allow communists to share power.

All the Vietnamese wanted was self-rule, which the US denied them for decades, after the French had denied it for long before that. That was was all about American politics, delusion, greed and power, and pointless and murderous.
 
Glitch said:
I agree that his premise concerning Vietnam was wrong. Truman sold France $80 billion in US WW II military surplus from 1950 to 1956 specifically so France could continue to hold their Vietnam colony. However, he does make a good point about abuses of the military.

The US has repeatedly used the military whenever its interests were at stake, even when they had to lie in order to accomplish it. For example, when President Polk declared the US Army was attacked by the Mexican Army in 1848 in order to start the Mexican/American War, the US Army had already invaded Mexico and was more than 100 miles into Mexico before the Mexican Army attacked. Or when President Wilson lied about the manufactured Zimmerman Telegram in 1917 in order to force the US into WW I. Or LBJ's Gulf Of Tonkin lie, or Clinton's Kosovo genocide lie. All of them were Democrat Presidents by the way. Are we beginning to see a pattern?
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What exactly is the "Tonkin lie"?
 
Fledermaus said:
What exactly is the "Tonkin lie"?
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The lie that many want to believe that there was never an altercation in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Even Vietnam today admits that the altercation was real, that they had been tracking the USS Maddox, and that an exchange had happened while the US ship was in International Waters that they claimed was theirs (the ship was 28 miles off the coast, Internationally recognized waters are 12 miles, North Vietnam claimed 30 miles).

So how anybody can say it is a "lie" when even Vietnam admits it was a real incident I have no idea. Now do I admit that the US took advantage of this to escalate the war in Vietnam, yes. Readily. But it did happen. Both sides admit it happened.

Those that refuse to recognize this are the ones believing the lie.
 
Cordelier said:
Yes, but you're a valley person. The way I figure it, there are two types of people in the world... village people and hill people. Those are just figurative labels, not literal ones. You can call them whatever you want.... city people and country people, blue state and red state. Basically, what it boils down to is that some people are more attuned to soft living and some people are more attuned to hard living. Some people grow up in a place where there are abundant resources, highly developed commerce, educational, and cultural opportunities at hand. The other kind of people - the hill people - don't.... and they're just fine with that - they're not into city living and going to opening night at the symphony and all of that. Two different types of mentality and outlook. But each side tends to look down on the other for their own reasons. To the valley people, the hill people are a bunch of illiterate, uncultured hicks. To the hill people, valley people are a bunch of entitled, effete elitists.

The kind of world you're envisioning is a valley person's world... so how far would you be willing to bend to appeal to the hill people?
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The way I figure it there are two kind of people in the world, those who dichotomize and those who don't. You're busy dichotomizing of course. We live meanwhile in a multi polar world of a myriad of cultures, societies, civilizations. So keep at it because I'm confident you'll get it right sooner or later. Still however, as an expert to whatever degree on using the military, you're not it. Keep working at it though. I'll keep you posted.
 
Oozlefinch said:
The lie that many want to believe that there was never an altercation in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Even Vietnam today admits that the altercation was real, that they had been tracking the USS Maddox, and that an exchange had happened while the US ship was in International Waters that they claimed was theirs (the ship was 28 miles off the coast, Internationally recognized waters are 12 miles, North Vietnam claimed 30 miles).

So how anybody can say it is a "lie" when even Vietnam admits it was a real incident I have no idea. Now do I admit that the US took advantage of this to escalate the war in Vietnam, yes. Readily. But it did happen. Both sides admit it happened.

Those that refuse to recognize this are the ones believing the lie.
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Damn.

I was hoping he would respond with some major CT **** before laying out what you said (admittedly more eloquent than I would be)...
 
Tangmo said:
The way I figure it there are two kind of people in the world, those who dichotomize and those who don't. You're busy dichotomizing of course. We live meanwhile in a multi polar world of a myriad of cultures, societies, civilizations. So keep at it because I'm confident you'll get it right sooner or later. Still however, as an expert to whatever degree on using the military, you're not it. Keep working at it though. I'll keep you posted.
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There are two kinds of people. Veterans and those that aren't. The veterans were discussing things before you chimed in.
 
Fledermaus said:
Damn.

I was hoping he would respond with some major CT **** before laying out what you said (admittedly more eloquent than I would be)...
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Well, we will see what he responds with.

Myself, I wish those that are blatantly political would just keep such things in more appropriate places. I often wish there was a forum like this where adults could discuss things reasonably, without dragging in a bunch of nonsense politics or crazy conspiracy theories.
 
Craig234 said:
How do you get people to view a selfish use of military force, harming people, as 'wrong'?

There is a strong bias to do the opposite, to support the selfish use of military that harms others.

It makes people feel powerful, it gives them a sense of pride, they say they 'won' things, it can result in gaining land, money, power, basically, 'the people who were there lost, and you benefit'. Whether you take things, or those people have to become subservient to your interests, etc.

And there a lot of blinders to not see why it's 'wrong'. They include - almost always - finding some sense of grievance to justify the action, or disliking the 'enemy', or many other things.
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And let me then flip this around. When exactly is it not right?

In Iraq over 400,000 bodies have been recovered from mass graves, all victims of the Hussein regime. A single grave site outside of Baghdad had over 60,000 bodies. It is not like he was some beloved benign dictator, Iraqis around the world celebrated when he assumed room temperature.

And I can go on and on and on, but it really does not matter. I am positive that you will vomit up some nonsense about each and every action taken is wrong. And this kind of blindness is something I see as pathological, and simply can not be resolved.

And I am sure that behind every action in the past 70 years, you are going to see some kind of boogie-man behind the scenes pulling the strings in order to get rich. Jews, the MIC, Big Business, it really does not matter.

I remember back to 1990, when so many people were screaming "No war for oil!" Yea, tell that to the thousands of Kuwaiti's killed when Iraq took over their country. Tell that to the families of the almost 400 that are still missing. And that is out of over 600 kidnapped from Kuwait and thrown into Iraqi jails. Despite claiming that Iraq never had them, 236 bodies were recovered from Iraq in 2004.

Kuwait takes case of Gulf War 'disappeared' back to UN - The National

So yes, the US and other nations should absolutely step up and take action in such circumstances. However, there are always going to be incredibly selfish individuals, who care only about themselves and are willing to do absolutely nothing to help others. Even screaming against those who actually are willing to help.

And in all my deployments, I have talked to a great many people in a great many countries. And not one of them was anything other than grateful for the assistance the US has given them.

But please, I want to know about these wars that you are talking about that are so destructive and evil.
 
Fledermaus said:
What exactly is the "Tonkin lie"?
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The August 4, 1964 North Vietnamese attack against the USS Maddox never happened. They claimed to have sunk two North Vietnamese patrol boats, but there was never any evidence. It was MacNamara's way of expanding Vietnam into a full-blown war. How much LBJ actually knew, or whether he was duped by MacNamara, remains an unanswered question, but the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution based upon the August 4, 1964 attack is based upon a lie.
 
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