Uh, It's Jayvee.
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WASHINGTON POST: The Obama administration is seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war, according to U.S. officials involved in war policy. Now this is better than partying.
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“Of course, while the murders in southern Afghanistan reflect most glaringly upon the men who committed them, the need to revisit these crimes goes beyond questions of culpability and motive in one platoon. As with Abu Ghraib and Haditha and My Lai, it’s hard not to consider how such acts also open a window onto the corroding conflicts themselves. This isn’t to suggest that military personnel are behaving similarly throughout Afghanistan as a result of the conditions there; it is only to say that 10 years into an unconventional war whose end does not appear imminent, the murder of civilians by troops that are supposed to be defending them might reveal more than the deviance of a few young soldiers in a combat zone.” — The NYT Magazine article by Luke Mogelson, “A Beast in the Heart of Every Fighting Man,” on the Fifth Stryker Brigade’s murder of civilians and what this story tells us about the nature of war, is the must-read longform of the week. (via thepoliticalnotebook)(via thepoliticalnotebook)
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HermannView: Six ways the President has expanded beyond his Constitutional base 1. ‘Congress shall have the power…to declare war…to raise and support armies…to provide and maintain a navy…’(Article 2, Section 8) “Congress would be the only part of government that can start a war. However, some people argue the President has certain war powers as possibly mentioned Article 2 Section 2. Nowhere in the passage does it even hint at the power of the President to unilaterally go into war without Congressional authorization.” (http://bit.ly/hh32wf)
2. The ability to sign executive orders that act as laws to bypass Congress. This hasn’t been used much in the past 10 years, but it has been used to bypass approval by Congress.
3. Inherent powers, do certain actions in interest of “national security” including violating the Constitution (PATRIOT Act, listening in on Americans to protect from terrorism even though the Supreme Court said it was illegal).Some say they have the power to suspend laws in “wartime.”
4. The Bush Administration has demanded that presidential wartime powers permit the President to assume complete control over any and all aspects of an international war on terrorism.
5. Presidents have claimed for themselves certain powers that they feel are granted to them under Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
6. Many President have said they have power of immunity from legislative oversight, since the beginning of the Cold War if not eariler, this power has been assertedThe last one is terrifying. A president without such oversight can run the country independently. It’s a situation I hope doesn’t happen with Obama.
