Fear, Power, and Politics by Cardaras Mary;

Author:Cardaras, Mary;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

We are not dealing with a conventional war. We cannot respond in a conventional manner. I do not want to see this spiral out of control. This crisis involves issues of national security, foreign policy, public safety, intelligence gathering, economics and murder. Our response must be equally multifaceted.[36]

As Congresswoman Lee concluded her remarks, she reminded the chamber of another time in American history when Congress gave President Lyndon Johnson the power in 1964 to authorize further and deeper military involvement in Vietnam. She harkened back to Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, a Republican turned Democrat, who stood with democratic Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, mavericks in their time, voting in opposition to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Morse said the vote was a mistake because the president alone could not be in charge of America’s foreign policy, certainly not when sending troops to fight without an official declaration of war by Congress.[37] Lee agreed with those sentiments expressed thirty-seven years earlier, saying we should heed the lessons of history, and concluded, “as we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.’”

The same day, the president issued this brief two-line statement regarding the vote: “I am gratified that the Congress has united so powerfully by taking this action. It sends a clear message—our people are together, and we will prevail.”[38] Would this vote set a tone for a future military engagement in Iraq? Was the authority granted to the president too broad, too sweeping? Just days later the New York Times published an article reporting that the resolution was broad and cautioned that it could not limit the president in any significant way. The article quoted Professor Harold H. Koh of Yale Law School: “I think it is extremely broad because no nations are named, the nations are to be determined by the president and the president could theoretically name lots of nations. There is also no time limit.”[39]

The newspaper also reported that Congress “seemed eager to show unity in the face of the attacks” and that discussions with members of Congress “were largely over whether to include a reference to the War Powers Resolution (it was retained) and whether to delete a reference authorizing the president to deter ‘future acts’ of terrorism (it remained).” Representative Peter A DeFazio, a Democrat of Oregon, was quoted in the same article, expressing concerns that “earlier drafts ‘authorized the use of force in an unprecedented open-ended manner,’” but that he was ultimately satisfied that the authority of Congress would be recognized and respected.[40]

On October 7, 2001, the president addressed the nation in a televised address to announce “Operation Enduring Freedom.” The initiative would target “al Qaeda training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime” in Afghanistan. The president said in part:

Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves.

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