Perpetual War

[Alan Grayson]

Last edited Mon Mar 2, 2015, 11:57 AM - Edit history (1)

A week ago, I was on national TV, discussing President Obama’s draft Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS. Here is what I said:

Thom Hartmann: Joining me now to talk more about the President’s proposed authorization is Congressman Alan Grayson, who represents Florida’s 9th [congressional] district, and does so brilliantly, I might add. Congressman Grayson, it’s always great to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight.

Alan Grayson: Thank you, Thom.

TH: I wanted to get your take on the President’s proposal, but first can you explain something for our audience: If we’re just now getting authorization for the ISIS fight, what authority have we been acting under since August?

AG: Well, the President claims authority as Commander in Chief, which is generally interpreted as defensive -- and also very short-term. And the President has also made it clear that he thinks he has the authority [to attack ISIS], even today, under the 2001 authorization to use military force. That’s counterintuitive, because ISIS didn’t even exist in 2001, or in 2005, or in 2010. But that, in fact, is what the President is claiming as a legal basis. A lot of people like me are skeptical.

TH: And to that, to that new AUMF, the major criticism we’re hearing is that it’s too vague. Do you agree with that criticism? And what do you see as the major problems with the President’s plan?

AG: Well as you said [earlier in the show], this AUMF is a recipe for perpetual war . But I think the problems actually go deeper than that. When I look at something like this, I say to myself, ‘I’m not just voting for a bunch of words here.’ If I vote for an AUMF, I’m voting for war . And there are far deeper questions that we need to address, that seem to have no good answers in this circumstance. The first question is: Is there actually a threat to U.S. people or U.S. property? Does ISIS represent a threat, a substantial threat, to U.S. people and U.S. property ? We could answer that question well [if we] were talking about the Nazis or Soviet Union. I think the answer with regard to ISIS is clear: We have the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans that protect us -- our greatest allies, by the way. And the fact is that ISIS is a very limited force that doesn’t even come close to having the military capability of any actual country in that region, even a weak country like Yemen. So there are actually no direct threats, even to U.S. property, like for instance U.S. embassies that are nearby . And the fact that they have been able to pick off four U.S. citizens, who frankly put themselves in a dangerous place, does not mean that they represent a significant threat to U.S. persons or U.S. properties on any major level. The second question to ask is: If they did – which they don’t – then would our response be commensurate? Would it be proportionate ? And there again, we completely fail that common-sense test. We are going into perpetual war, involving literally thousands and thousands of sorties and air strikes against ISIS, on the basis, frankly, of their having killed four Americans. [They] also committed atrocities, which are unfortunate, and have stunk up our TVs and our Internet access, and it’s offended us on some deep level. But nevertheless, we have to get past the point that every time we see something on our computer screens that we don’t like, we go ahead and bomb it . That is a recipe for national bankruptcy, as well moral bankruptcy. And the third question that I think needs to be asked is this: If this were actually a threat to the United States, and if our response were proportionate, do we have a path to victory? And the answer, here again, is “no.” I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I listen to a lot of briefings, and I will tell you that I haven’t heard the Administration come with anything resembling a sensible proposal to remove ISIS from Syria. Now Iraq is something of a closer case. There are people on both sides of that argument. But I know a bit about that [country] (I prosecuted war profiteers in Iraq), and I don’t think the Administration has a credible war plan to remove ISIS from Iraq either. So on every conceivable basis, every rational basis, this is what a great State Senator 13 years ago referred to as a “dumb war,” (State Sen. Barack Obama – ed.) and we should stay out of it.

TH: Wow. Do you think there are enough restrictions contained in this AUMF to prevent another ground war in the Middle East, to prevent a metastasis of this beyond or outside of ISIL?

AG: Not in the least. In fact I think the AUMF is deliberately — deliberately — drafted in a bad way. It doesn’t give us anything resembling an actual military plan: Who we’re attacking; when we’re attacking them ; how we’re attacking them. It doesn’t have any geographical limitation whatsoever. The President literally could use this AUMF to justify military action within the United States, or Canada, or Belgium, or any number of other places. . . . The only specific limitation is that it says the President won’t employ U.S. ground forces in offensive capacity in an “enduring” manner. Now, to give you an example of how much leeway that gives him: Operation Enduring Freedom is now in its fourteenth year, with no end in sight; so much for “enduring.”

TH: There are some who are suggesting that ISIL was funded by Saudi Arabia, in part anyway, [and it] was created by Saudi Arabia. Bernie Sanders yesterday was saying this is their [Saudi Arabia’s] fight, going back to Prince Bandar: Was it prescient or beyond the pale?

AG: Well it actually is disturbing to me to see how the Administration has botched anything resembling a decent war plan here [involving Saudi Arabian ground forces], because of its obsession to prop up the state of Iraq, the so-called central government of Iraq. Secretary Kerry told me last year that he had not even bothered to ask the other countries in the Middle East to provide ground forces to fight ISIS. So I went ahead and asked. And I found that the answer was ‘yes’ for the UAE. The answer was ‘yes’ for Egypt, if the U.N. authorized it, which it has. And now we find out the answer is also ‘yes’ for Jordan . I think if we wanted to win the war [against ISIS], we would put together an international fighting force, either under U.N. auspices, or under Arab League auspices, which would take advantage of the fact the Saudis spend a fortune on their so-called defense. The Saudis are actually very unhappy with ISIS. I can tell you that for a fact. And what we would do is put together a force that spoke the local language, that looked like the local people, and that understood the local customs – unlike our young men and women, whom we send over there with nothing resembling those advantages, to do the same kind of fighting, and the same kind of dying .

TH: That’s essentially what Dana Rohrabacher said . . . . He said ‘I see no reason why we shouldn’t enlist Assad in the fight against ISIS.’

AG: We don’t need to do that. There is a basic misconception here. As Leader Pelosi often says, ‘ Everyone thinks that one more act of violence will end violence for all time, and it never does. ’ In fact, there is no way to win this that is something that we would regard as even acceptable to us on a moral level. Of course we have the ability to go ahead and destroy ISIS – we could turn Iraq and Syria into molten glass . But that’s something that’s beneath us. That’s something that shows that the terrorists would have won, because at that point, we would be them . So the answer is, are we willing to involve ourselves in a 1,200-year civil war to the point where we win for one side or the other, or do we simply say, ‘It’s not our problem?’

TH: Very well said. Congressman Grayson, you’re brilliant. Thanks you so much for being with us.

AG: Thank you, Thom.

“Perpetual war?” I’m against it.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson

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