IT is no surprise the fascist drumpf / trump-pence White House with their neo-nazi administration lied about the reasons the warstate cabal had soleimani killed. It is very disturbing the way their political base as well as the majority of republicans in congress are supporting drumpf's / trump's-pence's warmongering as well as actively participating in their attacks on the democratic institutions of our Republic (see top of this post). This is a very dangerous time for America, the tone in their rhetoric foments hatred, bigotry, prejudice and even violence. From the Washington Post.....
Trump’s unhinged rally rant underscores case for reining him in
Jan. 10, 2020 at 10:50 a.m. EST
At his rally, Trump belittled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “not operating with a full deck.” He derided House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as “you little pencil neck.” The crowd roared, demonstrating how heavily Trump’s petty abusiveness figures as a factor in his appeal.
But what Trump really displayed here is that his deranged attacks on the opposition aren’t mere insults. Taken along with Trump’s mockery of congressional demands for input into decisions of war, they demonstrate a profound contempt for the very notion that his most consequential decisions should be subject to oversight and accountability at all.
Delegitimizing the opposition
Respect for the legitimacy of the political opposition is a basic hallmark of accountability in government. You see, the voters who cheered Trump in Ohio aren’t the only voters who matter. Opposition lawmakers — in this case, House Democrats — also represent millions and millions of Americans.
An acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the opposition’s representatives would send the message not just that Trump recognizes some sort of obligation to defer to the role of other branches in acting as a check on his power, but also that in some sense he is accountable to those voters, too, and not only to his own.
Mockery of the opposition is, of course, a constant in politics. But this is different. Trump regularly crosses over into a form of harsh belittling and abuse that is designed to delegitimize the opposition, that is, to tell his voters that the opposition has no legitimate institutional role in our politics at all.
This is sometimes accomplished via dehumanizing residents of parts of the country that don’t support him, such as when Trump exaggeratedly derides the districts of black lawmakers as “rodent-infested.”
Other times it appears deliberately scripted into Trump’s speeches. When Trump claimed that the Democratic impeachment shows hatred for “the American voter,” a phrase Trump probably wouldn’t improvise, he was flatly declaring that only his voters constitute the American electorate.
Indeed, Trump put this into practice by functionally treating the impeachment as illegitimate — refusing any and all lawful subpoenas for witnesses and evidence.
Now Trump is claiming that the House and the Republican-controlled Senate have zero legitimate claim to oversight when it comes to Trump’s warmaking.
“You should get permission from Congress,” Trump scoffed at his rally during a rant about Soleimani, mimicking congressional lawmakers’ demands. “You should tell us what you want to do.”
In saying this, Trump flatly ridiculed the very notion that he should have notified or sought approval from Congress before ordering the assassination of a senior military leader in a sovereign country, and treated the idea that he should seek authorization for future hostilities as beneath contempt. The crowd loudly approved.
The War Powers debate
All this has particular salience amid the war powers debate. The House has passed a bill that would compel Trump to end any military hostilities 30 days after enactment if Congress hasn’t authorized it. The Senate will vote on Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) companion version.
This measure relies on the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which requires the president to seek congressional authorization for hostilities, and also empowers Congress to affirmatively vote by simple majority to constrain a particular unauthorized ongoing military action.
The Constitution designated the president as commander in chief while vesting Congress with the power to declare war, because doing so would avoid vesting absolute warmaking power in the executive. This was deemed necessary, as Alexander Hamilton put it, to ensure that the president’s authority remained “much inferior” to that of a king.
The 1973 law was meant to reinvigorate this role for Congress. As congressional scholar Lou Fisher explains, this was premised on the idea that the clash between multiple institutions of government produces sounder war policy, in a manner more accountable to the people, since their representatives would also debate and vote on it. This is basically what’s at stake in the debate over constraining Trump.
The 1973 law has proven to be a flimsy constraint, and it has been regularly abused by presidents in both parties, including Barack Obama, helped along by Congress’ regular abdication of its authority.
It’s not clear how constraining a new act of Congress might end up being — other, tougher bills are also being considered — but it could very well help, and would constitute a reassertion of congressional authority.
Trump has demanded that all Republicans oppose this measure. All but three in the House followed his decree. It remains to be seen whether four Senate Republicans will defy it, which could allow it to pass, though Trump would likely veto it.
It’s bad enough that all this is coming at a time when Trump’s rationales for his assassination order have collapsed. Even Republicans such as Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) are claiming that the intelligence behind it was a joke, and that behind closed doors, officials won’t acknowledge any hypothetical exercise of warmaking power that would make them feel obliged to seek congressional authorization.
Now Trump is openly mocking the very idea that Congress should have any constraining role at all over his unchecked warmaking authority. If all this isn’t enough to induce Republicans to rein in that authority, what would be?
New details about Soleimani killing further undercut Trump’s lies
Jan. 13, 2020 at 10:04 a.m. EST
President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven months ago if Iran's increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final sign-off on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.That decision explains why assassinating Soleimani was on the menu of options that the military presented to Trump two weeks ago for responding to an attack by Iranian proxies in Iraq, in which a U.S. contractor was killed and four U.S. service members were wounded, the officials said.The timing, however, could undermine the Trump administration’s stated justification for ordering the U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3. Officials have said Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, was planning imminent attacks on Americans and had to be stopped.
One can imagine a theoretical scenario in which Trump authorized the killing in June while only giving the final order when an attack was indeed imminent. But if anything, the claim that the killing was necessary to avert an imminent threat has only gotten more flimsy.
To recap: On Sunday, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper admitted he “didn’t see” specific evidence supporting Trump’s claim that Soleimani was targeting four embassies, while adding that “I share the president’s view” that “probably” they were “going to go after our embassies.”
In other words, Trump made this up. In drawing this distinction between what the evidence showed and what Trump’s “view” was, Esper unwittingly demonstrated the yawning gap between those things, which is of course a reminder of why Trump is so unfit to be making such enormously consequential decisions.
This comes after the New York Times’ weekend report on the tick-tock leading to the assassination, and indeed, it is in the context of this report that the NBC article becomes more significant.
The details look worse and worse
The Times reported that after an Iran-backed militia launched strikes on an Iraqi base that killed an American contractor (which ultimately sparked the current escalation), U.S. intelligence officials determined Iran “had not intended to escalate” the conflict and had instead intended the strikes to be more harmless, solely to keep a sense of “pressure” on the United States.
To be clear, that’s what American intelligence determined. Officials also confided to the Times that the intelligence did not convincingly support the claim of an “imminent” threat. This has been confirmed by at least one Republican senator briefed on the intelligence, along with many Democrats.
So what led Trump to, as it were, pull the trigger?
Note this, from the NBC report:
After Iran shot down a U.S. drone in June, John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser at the time, urged Trump to retaliate by signing off on an operation to kill Soleimani, officials said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also wanted Trump to authorize the assassination, officials said.But Trump rejected the idea, saying he’d take that step only if Iran crossed his red line: killing an American.
So the hyper-hawkish duo of Pompeo and Bolton (who has craved war with Iran since he wore short pants) got Trump to authorize the killing of Soleimani months ago, under certain conditions. NBC reports that this put them at odds with less-hawkish officials who didn’t support a proactive assassination, and have since been purged, which is generally borne out by this Post report.
And so, when the American contractor was killed, the elimination of Soleimani was on the menu of options presented to Trump. So was the elimination of Abdul Reza Shahlai, an Iranian commander in Yemen, the Times reports, but when that went awry, it was not disclosed.
After the contractor was killed, the United States ordered strikes that killed two dozen Iran-backed militia members, which led to protesters storming the embassy in Baghdad.
That’s apparently when Trump, his brain addled by Benghazi-itis — that is, a desire to look tougher than former president Barack Obama did during the Benghazi attacks — ordered the killing of Soleimani, and apparently Shahlai, even though the intelligence indicated that Iran didn’t intend to escalate.
So Soleimani was originally on Trump’s target list in keeping with an agenda that Bolton and Pompeo had been dreaming about for many months. And Trump seems to have ordered a broader operation against Iranian military leaders than anybody knew — and not in response to a genuinely “imminent” threat.
This is nothing like the story we’ve been told. Which raises serious questions about the legality of the killing:
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