Archive for the ‘Foreign Policy’ Category

The President of Afghanistan, the man we installed and the leader of a land that is a nation in name only recently accused the United States of colluding with the Taliban to keep the war going. According to his spokesman, “The people of Afghanistan ask NATO to define the purpose and aim of the so-called war on terror… (They) consider this war as aimless and unwise to continue.”

I am a supporter of our troops.  I believe they are patriots and America’s best.  It is not the bravery or skill of our troops that I question; it is the imperial foreign policy which sends them as sacrifices on the altar of political ambition that I question.  The cruel calculations of political elites using our service men and women as pawns on their partisan game board are shameful.  The most shocking example of this is President Obama’s announcing a surge in troops at the same time he announced the exit strategy for leaving the country.  What could be more counterproductive than telling an asymmetrical partisan enemy that if they hang on long enough we leave and you win?

Look at Iraq.  We went to war to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction which even President Bush eventually admitted were never there.  We went to war because our leaders intimated that Iraq had a hand in the sneak attacks of 9-11 based on a rumored meeting between an Iraqi agent and Mohamed Atta another claim that has since been repudiated.  Did we go to war to correct the partial victory we gained in Gulf War I under George I?  Did we go to war as George II later claimed to make the Mideast safe for democracy?  Whatever the reason for invading Iraq, a nation we supported for years, a nation which had not and was not planning to attack us, what did we accomplish and what do we have now that we are gone?

What about Afghanistan?  After the sneak attacks on 9-11 we had every legal and moral right to attack the nation that harbored and protected Al-Qaeda.  However, to keep faith with the Constitution a declaration of war should have been obtained.  Our armed forces waged a brilliant campaign that dismantled the Taliban regime in short order.  Then instead of saying, if it happens again we will come back again, and leaving we have stayed for more than ten years squandering hundreds of billions building a nation for people who don’t see themselves as a nation.  They are a collection of tribes grouped together by the necessities of international politics surrounded by a porous border and a history of ungovernable conflict.

Does anyone doubt that after we leave Kabul the Taliban will return?  Does anyone doubt that the training and weapons that we have given to our Afghan allies which are turned against us on a regular basis will form the bedrock of future Taliban strength?

The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive right to declare war.  This limitation on the prerogative of our chief executive to commit America to war without the consent of the citizens was considered one of the most important strengths of the document.  The founders of our nation came from a society in which autocratic kings had often plunged their nations into wars based on their own desires, whims, and political machinations.  Those who wrote the Constitution to be the framework for a new type of nation were determined that we should never go to war unless it was the expression of the people through their elected representatives.

There hasn’t been a declared war since World War II and yet our sons and daughters have fought and died in countless battles around the world.  With the war in Afghanistan set to wind down the Neocons and Progressives are beating the war drums daily for intervention in Syria and war with Iran.

I believe once the truth is known America, in keeping with the Obama Administration’s on-going policy of supporting Islamic Radicals, has been supplying weapons to the Al-Qaeda led Syrian rebels for years.  I contend that the Mission in Benghazi and its satellite CIA Safe-House was in reality a conduit for transferring untraceable weapons from the captured Libyan arsenal through Turkey to the rebels.  So when it comes to Syria we are already there, and now our Neo-con cheerleaders want us to directly intervene.

The same goes for Iran.  There is a shadow war that has been raging for years between Israel with American support and Iran.  This shadow war consists of assassinations of nuclear scientists, bombing nuclear facilities and uploading computer viruses into computers used to control the cyclotrons used to enrich uranium on the part of the allies.  The response has
been attacks against Israeli citizens around the world and even a bombing attempt in WashingtonD.C.

This is not enough.  America has been goaded into imposing draconian sanctions against Iran.  Sanctions which if imposed on us we would be consider acts of war.  Once again this is not enough.  The Neocons are working day and night to get us to deliver some shock and awe all over Iran all in the name of peace.

Iran has not attacked another country in the memory of anyone who is alive today.  Or in the lives of the ancestors going back hundreds of years.  America’s intelligence agencies unanimously tell us, Congress, and the Administration that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.  Iran is a signer of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and as a part of that treaty it is guaranteed the right to develop nuclear power for peaceful means.

As part of the big push to get us into another war we are told “Containment is off the table.”  Usually soon after we are told “All options are on the table.”  Why is containment off the table?  It worked during the Cold war when we faced off with an enemy many times larger with thousands of nuclear weapons on delivery systems aimed at our cities.  Why won’t it work against a nation that at this point has no nuclear weapons?

Why is it acceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons but not Iran?  Does anyone think the Ayatollahs are crazier than the new boy dictator of the Kim dynasty?  There is no doubt that the United States military has the ability to destroy Iran’s conventional defensive and offensive resources within a short time.  It is obvious we could, “Bomb them back to the stone age” as the saying goes.  However that wouldn’t necessarily mean that some of the stones thrown later in the contest might not hurt.  Iran has an unknown asymmetrical war capability.

It is believed that their allies in Gaza and Lebanon would immediately attack Israel.  The Iranians would also do all they could to interrupt the supply of the oil upon which we continue to allow ourselves to need.  They would attempt to attack the oil fields of their neighbors, to close the Straits of Hormuz, attack nearby American bases, and possible stir up rebellions in Sunni ruled countries with either sizable Shiite minorities or in some cases majorities.  We might even face terrorist attacks here in the Homeland.  This war would not be a cake walk.  The military and economic consequences would be immediate and they would be dire.

However, as dire as these consequences would be these are not potentially the most troubling. War opens the door for domestic changes that would not be possible during normal times.  While we have been and are engaged in a multi-generational seemingly endless series of wars this war might be different.  While all our other wars have been fought over there the civilian population continued to live as if Americans were not in harm’s way even though they were.  In other words we managed to have both guns and butter, war overseas and peace at home.  In the case of a war with Iran we might face a situation that could bring the war home to America in multiple ways.

Economically gas could skyrocket causing dislocation in our fragile economy.  On the military front terror sleeper cells could be activated in America or terrorists could come in through our porous southern border.  Both the economic impact and terrorist activities would open the door for drastic government action which could well negatively impact our lives.  Rights are often curtailed in times of emergency.   The cost of war is often seen in the growth of government power and the loss of freedom at home.

Our worldwide military presence is not keeping us safe and in many ways it is provocative.  Peace and equitable trade with all is the course recommended by our founders.  It was the foreign policy of every administration until McKinley and the default position until FDR.  Let us return to our traditions and reject these endless wars for peace.  Let us quit supporting other economies with our foreign bases.  Let us end the many entangling agreements that bind us to fight for others who should instead fight for themselves.

With real peace we could perhaps deal with the domestic issues that are tearing us apart and driving us into bankruptcy.  Every patriot should recognize the danger new fronts in our never-ending war will have on our current battle to maintain personal liberty, individual freedom, and economic opportunity here at home.  Consequently patriots should do everything in their power to stop the stampede to war.  Stand up for real peace and not for more wars for a peace that never comes.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

 

By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown

It’s even worse than we previously thought. A retired four-star admiral is now claiming that Barack Obama intentionally conspired with America’s enemies to stage a bogus attack and the kidnapping of an American ambassador so he could “negotiate” the release of a “hostage” and bolster his mediocre approval ratings just prior to the election?

The Washington Examiner, quoting retired Four-Star Admiral James Lyons, writes: “the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi… was the result of a bungled abduction attempt…. the first stage of an international prisoner exchange… that would have ensured the release of Omar Abdel Rahman, the ‘Blind Sheik’…”

But something went horribly wrong with Obama’s “October Surprise.” Although the Obama Administration intentionally gutted security at the consulate prior to the staged kidnapping, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty disobeyed direct orders to stand down, saved American lives, single-handedly killed scores of attackers…and the attackers, believing that the Obama had betrayed them, tortured Ambassador Chris Stevens and dragged his body through the streets.

Some will say that Admiral Lyons’ accusation is not a smoking gun. We agree, that’s exactly why Congress must investigate Benghazi-gate.

Moreover, we firmly believe the problem with Admiral Lyons’ assertion is that he is only scratching the surface the full and complete truth may be much, much worse.

Benghazi-gate is not about a bogus YouTube video series of lies. It’s not about the Obama Administration’s foreign policy ineptitude. We are dealing with something much more sinister… something potentially treasonous… and the following questions, posed in an article in The New American, go to the heart of the matter:

1. “What was the Obama administration’s full role in helping violent Jihadists, self-styled al Qaeda terrorists, and Western-backed “revolutionaries” take over Libya in the first place?

2. Did that half-baked scheme to arm Jihadist leaders, who… had previously fought U.S. troops in Iraq, contribute to the attack, as countless experts and officials have suggested?

3. What was actually going on at the compound in Benghazi, which as the report states, was never a “consulate” despite establishment media claims?

4. Was Ambassador Stevens recruiting and arming Jihadists and terrorists to wage war on the Syrian regime after what Obama called the “success” in Libya, as a growing body of credible evidence suggests?

5. Why did the administration claim for so long that the attack was just a “protest” over a YouTube video gone awry, even when it knew definitively that was not the case?

6. Was the lack of security at the compound a political ploy to conceal the extent of the lawlessness and utter chaos left in the wake of Obama’s unconstitutional “regime change” war on Libya, as even members of Congress have alleged?”

It’s clear. Benghazi-Gate is only a small piece of a much larger operation, an attempt to conceal what The New American calls; “the Obama administration’s full role in helping violent Jihadists and self-styled al Qaeda terrorists.”

Prior to the election Barack Obama continually told us that “Osama bin-Laden is dead and GM is alive,” but the sad truth is that Osama bin-Laden’s organization is alive and well and the Obama Regime may be giving aid and comfort to this terrorist network.

And prior to the election, Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera pontificated that Republicans shouldn’t “politicize” Benghazi-gate. Swaggering onto the set of Fox and Friends Rivera bloviated: “I think we have to stop this politicizing” and Rivera issued the following veiled warning to Republicans: “Do we want to try and influence the election with a tragedy that happened in North Africa?”

Ironic, isn’t it? Barack Obama played politics with the lives of Americans, like Rivera, the media covered Obama’s rear and threatened to accuse anyone and everyone who mentioned it of “playing politics.”

Weak-willed Republicans apparently took Rivera’s threat to heart as Rivera also said that Republican Senators John Barrasso, James Inhofe and Bob Corker, who all sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee “all agree that the supercharged atmosphere around the story — prudence dictates that these hearings be postponed until” after the election.

Well, the election has come and gone. Congress now has no excuse. The American people needed the truth before the election, but now that Obama is back in the White House real conservatives must demand answers.

The American people deserve to have those questions answered and moreover the American people deserve justice.

—

© 2013, Floyd and Mary Beth Brown. The Browns are bestselling authors and speakers. Together they write a national weekly column distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Floyd’s latest book is “Obama’s Enemies List, How Barack Obama Intimidated America and Stole the Election.” See more of their writings at www.WesternJournalism.com.

Posted By Josh Rogin
The White House announced its opposition to a new round of Iran sanctions that the Senate unanimously approved Friday, in the latest instance of Congress pushing for more aggressive punitive measures on Iran than the administration deems prudent.

On Thursday, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate passed 94-0. The new legislative language would blacklist Iran’s energy, port, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors, while also placing new restrictions on Iran’s ability to get insurance for all these industries. The legislation would also vastly expand U.S. support for human rights inside Iran and impose new sanctions on Iranians who divert humanitarian assistance from its intended purpose.

“The window is closing. The time for the waiting game is over,” Menendez said on the Senate floor Thursday night. “Yes, our sanctions are having a demonstrable effect on the Iranian economy, but Iran is still working just as hard to develop nuclear weapons.”

But the White House told several Senate offices Thursday evening that the administration was opposed to the amendment. National Security Spokesman Tommy Vietor sent The Cable the administration’s official position, explaining the White House’s view the sanctions aren’t needed and aren’t helpful at this time.

“As we focus with our partners on effectively implementing these efforts, we believe additional authorities now threaten to undercut these efforts,” he said. “We also have concerns with some of the formulations as currently drafted in the text and want to work through them with our congressional partners to make the law more effective and consistent with the current sanctions law to ensure we don’t undercut our success to date.”

An e-mail from the NSC’s legislative affairs office to some Senate Democrats late Thursday evening, obtained by The Cable, went into extensive detail about the administration’s concerns about the new sanctions legislation, including that it might get in the way of the administration’s efforts to implement the last round of Iran sanctions, the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (TRA), to which it flatly objected at the time.

“We do not believe additional authority to apply more sanctions on Iran is necessary at this time,” read the e-mail, which the NSC legislative affairs office said represented the entire administration’s view. “At the same time, we are concerned that this amendment is duplicative and threatens to confuse and undermine some of the TRA provisions.”

One of the White House’s chief concerns is that Congress is not providing the administration enough waivers, which would give the United States the option of negating or postponing applications of the sanctions on a case-by-case basis.

The White House also said that secondary sanctions should apply only to those Iranian persons and entities that are guilty of aiding Iran’s nulear and missile programs. The new legislative language would designate entire categories of Iranian government entities to be sanctioned — whether or not each person or entity is directly involved in such activities.

The new sanctions too broadly punish companies that supply materials, such as certain metals, that could be used in Iran’s nuclear, military, or ballistic missile programs, the White House worries. The bill allows those materials to be sold to Iranian entities that intend to use them for non-military or nuclear-related purposes, but the administration said that the ambiguity in that part of the legislation will make it hard to implement.

Finally, the White House doesn’t want to implement the part of the new legislation that would require reports to Congress on the thousands of boats that dock at Iranian ports and the dozens of Iranian planes that make stops at airports around the world. Those reporting requirements “will impose serious time burdens on the Intelligence Community and sanctions officers,” the White House said in the e-mail.

The Obama administration often touts the Iran sanctions it once opposed. In the final presidential debate Oct. 22, President Barack Obama said his administration had “organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy.”

The new Iran sanctions still must survive a House-Senate conference over the defense authorization bill, during which conferees may try to change certain portions of the new sanctions regime. Hill aides predict the White House will try to alter the new sanctions during that process, in what they would likely see as an effort to water them down.

“The truth is that the U.S. Congress continues to lead a comprehensive and unrelenting international sanctions program against the Iranian regime despite a comprehensive and unrelenting campaign by this administration to block or water down those sanctions at every move,” a senior GOP Senate aide told The Cable. “We beat them 100-0 last year and while they tried to kill this amendment more quietly this time, we beat them again 94-0. Hopefully House and Senate negotiators will stay strong and resist the administration’s strategy to dilute these sanctions in conference.”

On the eve of his first visit to the United States as Egypt’s president, Islamist Mohammed Morsi said he will demonstrate more independence from the U.S. in decision-making than his predecessor Hosni Mubarak and told Washington not to expect Egypt to live by its rules.
Morsi sent that message in an interview with the New York Times after a wave of violence erupted across the Muslim world over an amateur film produced in the U.S. that was deemed offensive to Islam and its prophet Muhammed. The film raised news tensions between Washington and Egypt.
Morsi criticized U.S. dealings with the Arab world, saying it is not possible to judge Egyptian behavior and decision-making by American cultural standards. He said Washington earned ill will in the region in the past by backing dictators and taking “a very clear” biased approach against the Palestinians and for Israel.
“Successive American administrations essentially purchased with American taxpayer money the dislike, if not the hatred, of the peoples of the region,” he told the paper in the interview published late Saturday, drawing a clear distinction between the American government and the American people. Those administrations “have taken a very clear biased approach against something that (has) very strong emotional ties to the people of the region that is the issue of Palestine.”
He stressed that unlike his predecessor, Mubarak, he will behave “according to the Egyptian people’s choice and will, nothing else.”
Morsi, who was sworn in on June 30 after the first democratic elections in Egypt’s modern history, has been cautious not to sharply depart from Mubarak’s foreign policy path, particularly the longstanding alliance with the United States.
But with an Islamist president at the helm of the Arab world’s most populous country, there are already differences and changes of focus. Morsi has been expected to distance himself from what many Egyptians saw as Mubarak’s compliance with Washington’s agenda in the Middle East, especially because his Muslim Brotherhood group has been a vocal critic of U.S. policy in the region and in the Muslim world.
In the interview, Morsi dismissed criticism that he responded too slowly when protesters managed to scale the walls of the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Sept. 11. The demonstrators replaced the American flag with a banner carrying the Islamic declaration of faith.
Morsi said he needed to deal with the situation “wisely” and took time to avoid a backlash from an angry but small crowd of protesters.
While he praised President Barack Obama for moving “decisively and quickly” to support Arab Spring uprisings against longtime authoritarian leaders, he said Arabs like Americans want to live “free in their own land, according to their customs and values, in a fair and democratic fashion.”
To this end, Morsi urged the U.S. to live up to its commitments to support an independent Palestinian state.
Since taking office, Morsi, 61, has been immersed in largely foreign policy issues. He has strongly criticized the Syria regime for violently repressing the uprising there, tried to warm relations with the Palestinians, and has dealt with tensions between the Middle East and the West over the anti-Islam film.
Reflecting the tension with Washington over the protests, Obama was asked about Egypt a day after anti-U.S. protests broke out in Egypt on Sept. 11 and he said he does not consider it an ally or an enemy.
The Times asked Morsi if the U.S. was an ally, to which he replied with a laugh by saying: “That depends on your definition of ally.”
But he quickly followed by saying he wants a real friendship with the U.S.
“I think what I am trying seriously (is to) look into the future and to see that we are real friends.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09/23/morsi-dont-expect-egypt-to-live-by-america-rules/#ixzz27PplPlg8

by Charles Krauthammer
In the week following 9/11/12 something big happened: the collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, the centerpiece of President Obama’s foreign policy. It was to reset the very course of post-9/11 America, creating, after the (allegedly) brutal depredations of the Bush years, a profound rapprochement with the Islamic world.

Never lacking ambition or self-regard, Obama promised in Cairo, June 4, 2009, “a new beginning” offering Muslims “mutual respect,” unsubtly implying previous disrespect. Curious, as over the previous 20 years, America had six times committed its military forces on behalf of oppressed Muslims, three times for reasons of pure humanitarianism (Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo), where no U.S. interests were at stake.

But no matter. Obama had come to remonstrate and restrain the hyperpower that, by his telling, had lost its way after 9/11, creating Guantanamo, practicing torture, imposing its will with arrogance and presumption.

First, he would cleanse by confession. Then he would heal. Why, given the unique sensitivities of his background — “my sister is half-Indonesian,” he proudly told an interviewer in 2007, amplifying on his exquisite appreciation of Islam — his very election would revolutionize relations.

And his policies of accommodation and concession would consolidate the gains: an outstretched hand to Iran’s mullahs, a first-time presidential admission of the U.S. role in a 1953 coup, a studied and stunning turning away from the Green Revolution; withdrawal from Iraq with no residual presence or influence; a fixed timetable for leaving Afghanistan; returning our ambassador to Damascus (with kind words for Bashar al-Assad — “a reformer,” suggested the secretary of state); deliberately creating distance between the United States and Israel.

These measures would raise our standing in the region, restore affection and respect for the United States and elicit new cooperation from Muslim lands.

It’s now three years since the Cairo speech. Look around. The Islamic world is convulsed with an explosion of anti-Americanism. From Tunisiato Lebanon, American schools, businesses and diplomatic facilities set ablaze. A U.S. ambassador and three others murdered in Benghazi. The black flag of Salafism, of which al-Qaeda is a prominent element, raised over our embassies in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Sudan.

The administration, staggered and confused, blames it all on a 14-minute trailer for a film no one has seen and may not even exist.

What else can it say? Admit that its doctrinal premises were supremely naive and its policies deeply corrosive to American influence?

Religious provocations are endless. (Ask Salman Rushdie.) Resentment about the five-century decline of the Islamic world is a constant. What’s new — the crucial variable — is the unmistakable sound of a superpower in retreat. Ever since Henry Kissinger flipped Egypt from the Soviet to the American camp in the early 1970s, the United States had dominated the region. No longer.

“It’s time,” declared Obama to wild applause of his convention, “to do some nation-building right here at home.” He’d already announced a strategic pivot from the Middle East to the Pacific. Made possible because “the tide of war is receding.”

Nonsense. From the massacres in Nigeria to the charnel house that is Syria, violence has, if anything, increased. What is receding is Obama’s America.

It’s as axiomatic in statecraft as in physics: Nature abhors a vacuum. Islamists rush in to fill the space and declare their ascendancy. America’s friends are bereft, confused, paralyzed.

Islamists rise across North Africa from Mali to Egypt. Iran repeatedly defies U.S. demands on nuclear enrichment, then, as a measure of its contempt for what America thinks, openly admits that its Revolutionary Guards are deployed in Syria. Russia, after arming Assad, warns America to stay out, while the secretary of state delivers vapid lectures about Assad “meeting” his international “obligations.” The Gulf states beg America to act on Iran; Obama strains mightily to restrain . . . Israel.

Sovereign U.S. territory is breached and U.S. interests are burned. And what is the official response? One administration denunciation after another — of a movie trailer! A request to Google to “review” the trailer’s presence on YouTube. And a sheriff’s deputies’ midnight “voluntary interview” with the suspected filmmaker. This in the land of the First Amendment.

What else can Obama do? At their convention, Democrats endlessly congratulated themselves on their one foreign policy success: killing Osama bin Laden. A week later, the Salafist flag flies over four American embassies, even as the mob chants, “Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas.”
A foreign policy in epic collapse. And, by the way, Vladimir Putin just expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development from Russia. Another thank you from another recipient of another grand Obama “reset.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-collapse-of-the-cairo-doctrine/2012/09/20/72fb7f62-035f-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_story.html

Sometimes the unknown can be turned to good.

In Athens Paul of Tarsus the Apostle to the Gentiles encountered the altar to an unknown god.  In a city of 10,000 with approximately 30,000 alters, temples, and statues to gods this only made sense.  As people obsessed with making sure they didn’t insult their temperamental and vengeful gods they had to cover all their bases just in case they’d left one out.  To a man dedicated to spreading the Good News that the one true God of all creation had come to Earth as a man and paid the price for our sins, this flock of gods and their multitude of altars culminating in an altar to an unknown god could have been the cause of anxiety.

Instead Paul saw it for what it was: the emblem of a people who did not know God. And he used it as a launching pad for a teaching moment.  He stood in the market place of ideas and expounded upon the salvation message, “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.”  Thus an unknown was turned to good.

In ArlingtonNationalCemeterystands the Tomb of the Unknowns.  This monument to heroes holds the remains of American soldiers who gave their lives and the last full measure of those lives, their identity, to protect our nation from foreign enemies.  These unknown sons, brothers, and husbands stand forever as the anonymous symbol of American bravery and self-sacrifice.  In their loss we have gained much: freedom, independence and inspiration.  The unknown heroes still guard and protect the last best hope of man.  Thus the unknown is turned to good.

On December 7, 1941 airplanes from the navy of the Japanese Empire struck without warning against theUnited Statesnaval base atPearl Harbor,Hawaii.  The next day an enragedAmericacheered as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked and received a declaration of war againstJapan.  Please note that he did not ask for a declaration of war against sneak attacks.

On September 11, 2001 theWorldTradeTowersinNew York Citywere hit by two hijacked jets in what has been and will hopefully remain the largest and most deadly attack against the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave by a foreign enemy on American soil.  The next day was there a declaration of war sought by our president?  Was the enemy ever determined?  Has a declaration of war ever been sought by our leaders or passed by our Congress?

President G. W. Bush did not ask for a declaration of war.  Of the 19 hijackers fifteen were citizens ofSaudi Arabia while the rest were one Egyptian, one Lebanese, and two from the Union of Arab Emirates.  All of them were followers of Osama bin Laden the founder of al-Qaeda. All of them were radical fundamentalist Muslims.  No declaration of war was ever sought against al-Qaeda. Instead we were told thatAmerica was no in a War on Terror.

Yes, President Bush did seek and obtain the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) from Congress which was passed on September 14, 2001.  While this gave the president the authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons” it was not a declaration of war.

According to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war.  It also has the power to pass laws and the AUMF is a law and thus it is valid and binding yet after eleven years perhaps we should ask ourselves why hasn’t a war ever been declared?  And if it was who should we declare war upon?

Americahas not declared war since December 8, 1941, and yet we have fought the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the First Gulf War, and now the War on Terror.  We are also fighting a War on Poverty, a War on Drugs, a War on Illiteracy, and even a War on Obesity.   Ask yourself, are we winning any of these wars?

When you fight against a general opposed to a specific enemy it is like trying to herd snakes or nail jello to the wall. You might expend quite a bit of effort and you might feel like your accomplishing something; however, in the end the snakes go where they want and the jello ends up on the floor.

Everyone in Americaknows who attacked us on 9-11, and everyone knows who we are at war with: radical fundamentalist Islam.  Not the religion of Islam but one virulent branch of it that has declared war on us and is straining every resource to bring about our destruction.  Some may say this is a broad-brush statement; however, it can be easily made more specific.  Our perennial negotiation partners, the Islamic Republic of Iran, declared war on America in 1979 and has been at war with us ever since even if we haven’t bothered to notice. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda declared war on America twice, once in 1996 and again in 1998.  And our new friends and allies the Muslim Brotherhood declared war on America in 2010.

If everyone knows who we are at war with why can’t our leaders say so?  Why doesn’t our government declare war and marshal the vast power of theUnited Statesand its people to win?

The Bible tells us “The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is servant to the lender.” America under the rule of the Progressives and their Environmental Religion have decreed that we cannot use our own energy and so we are eternally destined to stand in line for the oil of theMideast. Saudi Arabia is one of our largest suppliers of oil so we couldn’t blame the Saudis just because the founder of al-Qaeda, the majority of the hijackers, and most of their funding are Saudi in origin.  We can’t blame the Afghans even though they harbored bin Laden and provided him with a base to launch his attacks.

President Bush couldn’t bring himself to name our attackers or declare war on our enemies.  Instead he followed in the footsteps of Truman who called the Korean War a police action and Johnson who said we could have guns and butter as he sent hundreds of thousands of America’s finest to fight a war based on a resolution not a declaration.

Then along came Barack Obama.  He began the foreign policy of his administration with a ritual prostration before Islam in his Cairo speech which began the process of our surrender in a war against no one.  He followed up by going to Turkey, an Islamic nation, and declaring America is not a Christian nation.  Then he went to Saudi Arabia where he bowed to their king.   Although this is just one in a series of bows he regularly makes to world leaders it is significant because we are supposedly at war with the very people the Saudis support.

After Navy seals killed Osama bib Laden the Obama Administration did make a declaration.  They declared that the War on Terror is over.  Of course they hadn’t been able to see acts of Islamic Terrorism since arriving in Washington.  His Secretary of Homeland Security wasn’t even able to say the word terrorism instead she replaced the word with man-caused disaster.  And although he calls the murders in Aurora, Colorado terrorism when Army Maj. Nidal Hasan climbs on a table and shouts “Allah Akbar!” as he methodically killed thirteen people and wounded forty three, Mr. Obama instead says Hasan  cracked under stress.  He explained, “everybody understands how outstanding the young men and women in uniform are under the most severe stress. There are going to be instances in which an individual cracks.”  At the memorial speech at Fort Hood he refused to call this obvious terrorist attack what it was saying, instead, “hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy.”

Now the attacks on our embassies and consulates throughout the Islamic world are not terrorism they are instead a vocal movie review.  The preplanned and coordinated attack that killed our Ambassador and three others in Libya is spontaneous.   Iraq has been liberated and it now funnels Iranian men and material to support the Syrian regime.  Afghanistan has also been liberated and hundreds chant anti-American slogans in the street, as theirU. S. trained military use our soldiers for target practice and everyone in the world knows they will kick out the corruptocracy of Kahrzai and welcome back the Taliban the day we leave.

Unless and until you admit you have a problem there is no hope for a solution.  You can’t wrestle the fog.  If we fight a war against no one we expend our most precious treasure: the lives of our heroes chasing rumors and killing time.  And if we aren’t careful, if we don’t call our so-called leaders to account, this might end up as a war no one wins.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens