Irrelevant. From John Dean’s article on the subject:

“Later, one of McFarlane’s lawyers, Peter W. Morgan, wrote a law journal article about using the false statements statute to prosecute executive officials appearing before Congress. Morgan was troubled by the breadth of the law. It does not require a specific intent to deceive the Congress. It does not require that statements be written, or that they be sworn. Congress is aware of the law’s breadth and has chosen not to change it.

“Maybe presciently, Morgan noted that the false statements statute even reaches ‘misrepresentations in a president’s state of the union address.’”

Short of that, this has been a rather pointless discussion .

Perhaps if you had a better point to make it wouldn’t have been?

YOur larger issue is ‘why’. I don’t know if I agree with it 100%, because like Functional my reasons for support had nothing to do with WMD, but that’s beside the point.
But, this is why I think you made a mistake in post 20 and continue to do so: when, with what, and how long to take doing it are all operational issues. Destroying the enemy is a tactical and operational concern—just good, common sense in a war zone—in that you have to worry about blue force security(good guys are blue, bad guys are red). That’s a concern no matter what the political objectives are. Becuase of that concern all assault forces seek to destroy/incapitate opponents quickly. It’s totally divorced from political goals.
Having the ‘second half team’, the public affairs/reconstruction units is, and that’s what you’re really talking about(though you might wish to be a bit more careful when talking about this). It’s really the second paragraph of post #20 that’s giving me fits. I’m having trouble juxtaposing it with what is written in post #95.

Even the post conflict part isn’t that cut and dry. Look at the way NATO is structured. Stealing from TOm Barnett, since he’s written about it in a very accesable manner, the US was the LEviathan first half team with the rest of NATO being geared toward post conflict matters and specific specialites(like the Brits having the speciality of anti-sub/ant-mine warfare, Norway being really good at public affairs). The US military is built to fight and win wars. The Euros were the ones to wage and win peace. This fact is why you’re simultaneously right and wrong John. Right in that the decision to go forward garaunteed that those forces really good at post conflict work weren’t available, but wrong that any real planning at any level would’ve altered the case, except if it was forestalle for 20 years to allow the US mil to reorganize itself entirely.

Al Eaton was all set to toss Dan Lungren’s letter in the trash when he noticed something that amazed him. The Rio Vista resident already had no idea why Sacramento’s Republican congressman would be sending him a “reply” for “contacting” his office, given that Eaton had never written to him in the first place. But apparently, Lungren had something to say to the retired high-school teacher and liberal Democrat.

The letter, dated April 4, 2005, starts off by defending the Republican Congress’ push of House Resolution 6, energy legislation that allows drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). While critics say the oil in ANWR would last only six months, Lungren argues that it could last 25 years by being used to “supplement rather than replace our need for foreign oil.” (Congress passed the bill on April 21.)

But it’s what comes next that caught Eaton’s attention. While discussing the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, Lungren writes, “I feel quite strongly that as long as we have our military in the Middle East fighting so that we can continue to purchase oil from that region, we have an obligation to find alternatives to foreign oil. It is difficult to justify the death of even one soldier when we are not doing everything in our power to explore options for oil within our country.”

“I had to read it two or three more times before I actually believed what I read,” said Eaton. “I kept saying to myself, ‘Am I making a mistake here?’”

Being a consistent donator to political organizations, Eaton discards a lot of political solicitations. But this time, Eaton “read the whole damn thing.”

As it turns out, Lungren’s letter is a mass-mailer response to a petition that Eaton signed from the Natural Resources Defense Council. According to Lungren’s staff, Lungren received around 600 letters on the topic of the ANWR, including the petition. A staff aide, Sandra Wiseman, prepared the response that would be sent to all 600 of these concerned citizens. Before Wiseman sent off the letter, Lungren reviewed it while he was on a trip to China and OK’d it.

Last week, when questioned by phone about the letter, Wiseman asked to have the part about soldiers fighting for oil read to her. Afterward, she told SN&R that “[Lungren] does feel this way.”

Asked if Lungren really feels that U.S. forces are over in Iraq fighting for oil, Wiseman denied that the letter actually says that. While admitting that the paragraph could be taken that way, Wiseman said Lungren’s position is that soldiers weren’t sent to the Middle East to secure oil for the United States, but to oust Saddam Hussein. Having done that, they now need to protect the oil supplies.

“As long as this political unrest is [in the Middle East], and [the insurgents] continue to manipulate the oil, there is a problem,” said Wiseman.

But was this really a slip in judgment or a sign that Republican leaders are shifting the rhetoric on Iraq one more time? …

This is quibbling over a grammatical point, I know, but you are just wrong. You think my reasoning is “self-serving.” Yes. Fine. But YOU are the one who is “cynical” [i.e., distrustful, suspicious, etc] about my reasoning. I am NOT the one who is “cynical” [i.e., distrustful, suspicious] here.

Use the word correctly, is all I’m saying.

John Poindexter, Elliot Abrams, Robert McFarlane and Oliver North all learned that it is. And it doesn’t have to be prior to a vote; it’s illegal at any time.

Heh. Well, to be perfectly frank I rather doubt that “misleading” the US Congress prior to a War Powers vote (or any other kind of vote) is “illegal under US law”. Congressmen “mislead” each other virtually every time they take the floor to bloviate about the necessity or evilness of some bill; politicians in general “mislead” people with virtually every speech. Why/how would it be “illegal” for the President to do it? (Unless he were under oath or something.)

Now, certainly if they believe they were “misled” by a President, on anything, Congress could get mad about it and, as Dean says, decide to impeach the President over it. But that’s not saying very much. If they believe the President has an ugly tie and were mad enough about it they could decide to impeach him over it. An “impeachable” offense is whatever Congress decides it is. But like you said, it isn’t going to happen, probably not even if Dems were to have an amazing 2006 election-wise.

I also have very little sympathy for Congressmen/Senators who claim they were “misled” in the first place. Members of the general public feeling misled? Sure, I don’t blame them at all.

But don’t tell me that John Kerry or Hillary Clinton voted for War Powers “because” they Believed The Things That George Bush Was Saying (and thus were “misled” into voting how they did). I don’t believe that for a millisecond. They voted War Powers because (regardless of the truth of whatever Bush said at any given time, or whether they “believed” it) they believed the vote necessary to their political survival/ambitions.

I doubt that very many pro-war powers Dem senators at all “believed” a single thing Bush was saying in the first place. Do you know otherwise?

There’s one more thing left to try: don’t install and prop murderers and don’t be a murderer yourself. Maybe this one will work.

Learn from these guys:

At the age of fifteen Doug and Dinsdale started attending the Ernest Pythagoras Primary School in Clerkenwell.When the Piranhas left school they were called up but were found by an Army Board to be too unstable even for National Service. Denied the opportunity to use their talents in the service of their country, they began to operate what they called ‘The Operation’… They would select a victim and then threaten to beat him up if he paid the so-called protection money. Four months later they started another operation which the called ‘The Other Operation’. In this racket they selected another victim and threatened not to beat him up if he didn’t pay them. One month later they hit upon ‘The Other Other Operation’. In this the victim was threatened that if he didn’t pay them, they would beat him up. This for the Piranha brothers was the turning point.

Blixa,

IANAL, but if misleading Congress in order to win support for war isn’t illegal then US law is even more of an ass than I had supposed. Of course that’s entirely possible and in any case the only remedy is impeachment, which isn’t going to happen. I don’t know if John Dean counts as a serious observer in your eyes, but I believe he knows a bit about what’s legal. He believes Bush committed an impeachable offence or two while selling the war.

But as his former boss memorably remarked, “legal schmegal.”

Hmm, show me where 1441 said “no war”.

Meanwhile, the US War Powers resolution (which is what matters, remember?) gave Bush broad powers to “war”. Which he did.

Your implicit position in this type of complaint, if it means anything, still amounts to an assertion that Bush’s action was in fact illegal under US law, which is an interesting charge but a non-starter in reality. It’s also a charge made by no serious observer that I have seen. Why didn’t John Kerry complain that the way Bush used the War Powers resolution Kerry voted for, was illegal?

Alternatively, if you’re not asserting that Bush’s action was illegal under US law, then your complaint is meaningless. You can call 1441 “lubricant” all you want but if it meets the War Powers resolution’s requirements then that’s all that matters. And, evidently, it did.

(But again, I don’t know about “international law”, if that’s what you’re thinking of. I don’t know what “international law” is, exactly.)

For the next one, i propose bush declares iran not respecting the european directives on the size and curvature of bananas, do the rubberstamp congress thing, and proceed. As someone above noted : it’s all a matter of lubricant anyways. So why not add bananas?

Look, let me explain why I don’t care about your analogy, however humorous.

Suppose (for whatever reason) I were in favor of a US invasion of Iran. If Bush were too (for whatever reason – not nec. the same as mine), and if he asked the US Congress to give him authorization to do so, I’d want the US Congress to authorize a US invasion of Iran. (This should neither surprise nor shock you. People generally want the policies they favor, to be implemented.)

Now, if US Congress were to choose to do so by the extremely stupid method of drafting a War Powers resolution stating that Bush is authorized to attack Iran “if Iran doesn’t comply with Euro-banana-curvature”, well heck, that would be better than nothing. So at that point if Iran had the wrong kind of bananas, and Bush were to say “attack”, guess what? Fine by me.

Yes, I would prefer if the US Congress would declare its wars in a more straightforward, less stupid manner, mind you. And, the same was true in the case of Iraq! As I said, I dislike the way Congress kinda-sorta passed the buck to the UN. I think it was a lousy, cowardly way to declare war. But that’s how they chose to do it, like it or not. The fact remains that they gave Bush the authority – or loopholes, if you prefer to think of it that way – he needed to make war. And so, he did.

If you dislike the way that the War Powers resolution combined with 1441 to empower Bush’s War Powers, blame the US Congress for their irresponsibility, like I do! Blame them for not having faced the issue more head-on and declared (or not declared) war in a more straightforward manner.

1441 was kept out of iraq resolution 02 itself,

That can be chalked up to arrow of time and the impossibility of time travel. Resolution 1441 (November 8, 2002) was adopted after the War Powers resolution was passed (October 10-11, 2002), so it would have been a neat trick indeed for the latter to have mentioned the former explicitly.

(You start to lose me after this point with your unparseable English and talk of “lubricants”, so… bye)

Past “iraq was enforcing the un”, past the explanation on art 12, i see we have reached the point of absurdity. I let you there on that matter : the irak war deserves, after all, this kind of tortured (ha, ha, no pun intended, ha, ha) liturgy.

1441 was part of (but not entirely) the basis for that authority. Which is all I was saying.

If your point is that Dear Leader took pretext, to declare war on irak, of u.n. resolutions that said “no war”, fine by me. For the next one, i propose bush declares iran not respecting the european directives on the size and curvature of bananas, do the rubberstamp congress thing, and proceed.

As someone above noted : it’s all a matter of lubricant anyways. So why not add bananas?

Lastly, a few rectifications for the sake of the poor reader who digged till here, and i’ll let you go “u.s. to the rescue of the u.n.” all you want.

Given the choice, I would much rather do the right thing and live with the label of “hypocrite” than be known as a consistent and reliable friend of evil bastards.

abb1 responds:
“Scott, it didn’t work: before, you were already known as both a hypocrite and a friend of evil bastards. Now you’re known as a hypocrite, friend of evil bastards and an evil bastard.”

Ah, so there we have it. The U.S. is damned if we do and damned if we don’t in the court of international liberal opinion. Well, what a suprise.

Given the fact that we will be condemned no matter what we do, why not do the right thing and take down one of the most odious dictators of modern times and try to spread democracy through the middle east?

“The u.s. enforced the u.n. resolution against the will of the u.n.”. One simply can’t say that with a straight face, apart some u.s. war apologists.

Au contraire it is perfectly logical and possible for entity 1 to issue a “resolution” but then not enforce it, and then for entity 2 to enforce it in its stead. There is no contradiction here.

I understand that the UN thought they had written the resolution in such a way that authorized them to declare, for themselves, that “only WE get to decide” whether 1441 had been obeyed or not and thus, whether military force may be used to enforce it.

Evidently, the government of the United States (as well as that of Britain, Australia, etc) disagreed with that.

If we are talking about the u.s. law it doesn’t, i suppose. But if we’re talking about international law,…

I was, indeed, talking about US law. I don’t believe the notion of “international law” has any tenable, coherent meaning to speak of, at least at present. So if that’s what your focus was you’ve been talking to the wrong person because I care not one whit about “international law” per se.

Probably i misread, but some of them looked like you were arguing the case of 1441 being relevant, legally, somehow.

And it was, under US law, which is what is relevant. You’ve implicitly revealed that US law not what you were talking or care about, so we simply had crossed signals. Sorry about that.

1441 “gave” nothing to Bush : it’s mentionned in the “use of force against iraq resolution”, and that’s it. It’s not even a legal veneer, just a war apologist’ empty talking point.

Why can’t it be both? The two are not mutually exclusive ;-)

Bush may have had authority, according to the u.s. law, but for other reasons than the 1441, and not deriving from the u.n.

Correction: He had authority under US law (proof? uh well, the invasion occurred didn’t it?), and (you can’t seriously be denying that) 1441 was part of (but not entirely) the basis for that authority. Which is all I was saying.

Besides, as there was no clear danger, the fact that the “use of force against iraq resolution” expressly places itself under the “war powers resolution” should be a problem for the national law too. The lying part, once again.

Come again? I’m not following you. Since when does Congressional authorizations of force under the War Powers act require “clear danger”, whatever that might mean?

Has this standard ever actually been met when using the War Powers act?

best,