Let's have it out about the AUMF, once and for all

[lwcon]

Many Democrats who will play key roles in the new administration voted for the AUMF.

In another thread, someone posted this scathing view of the Clintons' history re: Iraq, from Scott Ritter who was outspokenly correct about the lack of justification for the war.

Biden's history of hawkishness on Iraq is described here.

John Kerry, Evan Bayh, and others who voted for the AUMF have been suggested for possible roles in the Obama administration.

Obama, spoke out against the war, but acknowledged that he doesn't know how he would have voted if he were in the shoes of those Senators:

...I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices.

Questions that might be illuminating to share thoughts about include...

How did it look to you at the time?

How does it look to you in hindsight (not whether the vote was a good idea, obviously, but whether their rationales were reasonable, forgivable, etc.?)

When all is said and done, what should we think about those who supported it?

What are the best explanations you've heard from these Senators and others for their votes? I recall that John Edwards was just plain contrite about it, but were any of the others?

Why did so many of us know that handing Bush the authorization to start a war would be abused, but these folks who represented us didn't?

Did any of these Senators say "hey, wait a minute, I gave Bush the big stick to enforce inspections, but why is he kicking out inspectors now... especially when they're not finding anything"?

Any and all thoughtful thoughts and links to illuminating source material would be welcome.

[glowing]

1. I thought it was a bad idea the entire time.

It was obvious that Bush wanted war.. and there was NO reason for war in Iraq.. other than greed and people thinking they would have really cheap oil... because they thought it was a right in driving really big monsterous vehicles.

[lwcon]

3. Well, there were other reasons for the war

Like Dubya's Oedipus Complex.

I'm of two minds about the Senators who voted for it.

On the one hand, I absolutely knew that Bush couldn't be trusted with those powers. That even if the inspections were successful (which they were).

On the other hand, it was hard to quantify that. They were fed bullshit intelligence briefings and felt it was in America's interest to circle the wagons and ensure better inspections (not so fucked up) and/or fight a pre-emptive war (fucked up).

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. "Once and for all"? Bwhahahaha!

more like today's installment.

[abumbyanyothername]

4. Breaking Arm Patting Self on Back

On 9-11-2001 at approximately 6 pm Eastern time (around 3 pm local here in CA) wifey sez to me, "Well I guess I am glad it's George Bush and not Gore who won after all."

I responded immediately and forcefully, "I'm not. These guys will use this as an excuse to start an expensive and unjustified war somewhere in the world."

Recall the build-up to the war? I was doing amateur stand-up at the time. "They're running fucking promos for the war on CNN?" How the fuck does a "news" channel run promotional spots on a war that hasn't started yet?

I wish Powell would have resigned.

[lwcon]

11. Impressive! I wasn't quite that specific quite *that* early.

Here's what I kept sending to a Republican friend during the run-up to the war:

1. In your opinion, what good evidence did Bush or Powell provide that Saddam has WMD?
2. How can one justify a pre-emptive war absent strong evidence of either a clear and present threat or a violation of UN sanctions?
3. If evidence doesn't matter, why did we urge the UN to resume the inspection regimes?
4. What justified our trumping the UN's inspection efforts (which, again, were resumed at our urging), at a substantial cost to us in international good will?
5. Why are we optimistic that regime change will be effective, given the tragic history of blowback and no U.S. good deed going unpunished in the Middle East?

None of that, though, is necessarily damning to those who voted for the AUMF. Heck, Hans Blix wanted the U.S. to wave a big stick, so he could get good inspections... and it worked!

I am thus especially curious about the history of the last few weeks before Shock and Awe. I wonder how many Democrats, AUMF voters or not, spoke out and said "the inspections are working, WTF!?"

It's a bit hard to pinpoint that stuff by googlin', so any specific recollections would be helpful for those who are trying to put that vote and that phase in perspective. In the meantime, I'll keep spelunking.

[Fire1]

5. What??????????????????

[Catchawave]

6. My 2 cents....

Obama was against it, but he's choosing his staff and cabinet that were for it?

Gobama!

[karynnj]

13. Obama will be the person who sets the foreign policy decisions

He will be, in some of Bush's few true words, the decider.

The fact is that some, such as Biden, did try in Biden/Lugar to put more constraints on Bush - but the fact is that NO resolution would have worked and once Gephardt and Lieberman backed the IWR, there was no question it would not pass. The Senators were working in good faith trading to get concessions on the IWR, but none of those concessions meant anything to Bush, who never intended to actually keep them. There were few who argued that the invasion was justified, though, of those who voted for, Kerry was the most prominent to speak out - because it was not a war of last resort.

(Given that you supported and still support John Edwards - if this is meant to diss Obama, consider that he was more pro-war in all of 2003 than any of the 2004 candidates but Lieberman and maybe, Gephardt. )

[stillcool]

7. I don't know their excuses...

but I know why. I think the rationales are as good as can be expected, seeing as how the truth is just not said in public.

Why Did We Invade Iraq Anyway?
Putting a Country in Your Tank
by Michael Schwartz, TomDispatch
www.zmag.org, October 31, 2007
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Oil_watch/WhyWeInvadedIraq_Oil.html


The Neocons Seize the Unipolar Moment

The key year in the Middle East would be 1979, when Iranians, who had lost their government to an American and British inspired coup in 1953, poured into the streets. The American-backed Shah's brutal regime fell to a popular revolution; American diplomats were taken hostage by Iranian student demonstrators; and Ayatollah Khomeini and the mullahs took power. The Iranian revolution added a combustible new element to an already complex and unstable equation. It was, in a sense, the match lit near the pipeline. A regime hostile to Washington, and not particularly amenable to Saudi pressure, had now become an active member of OPEC, aspiring to use the organization to challenge American economic hegemony.

It was at this moment, not surprisingly, that the militarization of American Middle Eastern policy came out of the shadows. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter -- before his Habitat for Humanity days -- enunciated what would become known as the "Carter Doctrine": that Persian Gulf oil was "vital" to American national interests and that the U.S. would use "any means necessary, including military force" to sustain access to it. To assure that "access," he announced the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, a new military command structure that would be able to deliver personnel from all the armed services, together with state-of-the-art military equipment, to any location in the Middle East at top speed.

Nurtured and expanded by succeeding presidents, this evolved into the United States Central Command (Centcom), which ended up in charge of all U.S. military activity in the Middle East and surrounding regions. It would prove the military foundation for the Gulf War of 1990, which rolled back Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait, and therefore prevented him from gaining control of that country's oil reserves. Though it was not emphasized at the time, that first Gulf War was a crystalline application of the Carter Doctrine -- that "any means necessary, including military force," should be used to guarantee American access to Middle Eastern oil. That war, in turn, convinced a shaky Saudi royal family -- that saw Iraqi troops reach its border -- to accept an ongoing American military presence within the country, a development meant to facilitate future applications of the Carter Doctrine, but which would have devastating unintended consequences.
------------------------------------------------------------
As worldwide demand for hydrocarbons soared, the United States was left with three policy choices: It could try to combine alternative energy sources with rigorous conservation to reduce or eliminate a significant portion of energy imports; it could accept the leverage conferred on OPEC by the energy crunch and attempt to negotiate for an adequate share of what might soon enough become an inadequate supply; or it could use its military power in an effort to coerce Middle East suppliers into satisfying American requirements at the expense of everyone else. Beginning with Jimmy Carter, five U.S. presidents chose the coercive strategy, with George W. Bush finally deciding that violent, preemptive regime change was needed to make it work. The other options remain unexplored.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/oilhistindex.htm

History of Oil in Iraq

Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, denied that oil interests influenced policy in Iraq, but the archives show that the British government rushed troops to Mosul in 1918 to gain control of the northern oil fields. Britain and France clashed over Iraq's oil during the Versailles Conference and after, but Britain eventually took the lion’s share by turning its military victories into colonial rule. The powerful Iraq Petroleum Company, in which US and French firms held minority positions, acted always in the cartel interests of the Anglo-American companies. To the fury of the Iraqis and the French, it held down production to maximize profits elswhere. The company kept a monopoly of Iraq’s oil sector until nationalization in 1972.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/oilhistindex.htm

[IsItJustMe]

9. Damn. You learn something new every day. The "Carter Doctin". Who would of thought?

Kind of reminds me of how the seeds for the second Iraq invasion was sown under Bill Clinton.

[stillcool]

10. Sometimes it seems to me..

that the seeds were planted with the big bang..like the one thing constant in world history is the rise and fall of empires. I often wonder how much people knew, and what they thought about when experiencing life in these times only centuries ago.

[IsItJustMe]

12. Well, If you want to look at the big big picture, you are right. It is only in the human mind that

in its endevor to solve problems, it creates more; Usually centered around division, turmoil, and ignorance.

[karynnj]

8. John Kerry did speak out

The most well known time was a speech at Georgetown University, where he spoke of that and said that diplomacy had not been exhausted and it was not a war of last resort. (That phrase, which he and Biden use often - is from St Augustine's definition of a just war) Quoting that speech, Kerry was then singled out by David Frum (a former speech writer) in a National Review op-ed as anti-war - like France and Germany. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3358606

In December 2002, on MTP, when the inspections were proceeding he said:

"I will not support the president to proceed unilaterally if it is simply the president’s effort to try to do regime change without regard to the legitimacy of the inspection process or the legitimacy of the United Nations process itself. And I believe, Tim, very deeply, that that will cost our country in the long term in the war on terror and in many other ways that are going to be extraordinarily complex to undo for years to come. We need to proceed with legitimacy here. I congratulate the president up until now. I think in the last month he has been doing that. He is showing a patience with the inspection process. I think we need to let that run its course and this country will be stronger if we do."

http://www.cfr.org/publication/5438/remarks_on_nbcs_meet_the_press.html

(There were other minor speeches as he campaigned - but January and February, was when Kerry was dealing with finding he had cancer, getting information and having surgery in February. He spoke out enough that he was routinely labeled "anti-war" especially as he called for regime change here after the invasion. (there was a MTP in late 2003, where he speaks of being on teh phone with Koffi Annon the weekend before the invasion.

[lunatica]

14. Like sticking a finger in the air those decisions are politically motivated

Our representatives live in Washington, DC and have lunch and drinks with each other. They socialize with each other. They read the same newspapers and talk the same language. You do this for me and I'll do that for you. They don't have enough people around them to stop their natural tendency to make politics the overwhelming theme. They've always got one hand begging for election funding and every decision they make is weighed mostly for what advantage it may give them come election time.

When actually doing the right thing even comes close to being in conflict with their future political plans, they will vote for what's best for them. It's always a calculation of course, such as with Bush's wars. Do they vote against it and risk appearing to be "appeasers", "weak on terror", yada, yada? Everyone here knows the routine...

They say that we always fight the last war. Well politicians are always fighting the last election's tactics. That's why every once in a while the people actually elect new faces. Political freshness comes only after it's become so stale and cancerous and old that the people actively seek it.

edited to edit a little

[blm]

15. Difference is Kerry STOOD WITH weapon inspectors that force wasn't needed - others sided with Bush

and STAYED SIDED with Bush even opposing Kerry's position when he was the nominee. They even sided against Kerry and Feingold's Iraq withdrawal plan as late as June 2006, yet NOW Kerry's plan is the position of most of the Dem party.

Be FAIR and ACCURATE. Some people DESERVE to have the differences noted because of the integrity of their stance.

[NashVegas]

16. At the Time, It Looked Like Bullshit to Me

How did it look to you at the time?

Unfortunately, DU's archives from pre-2003 seem to have been wiped out, but I knew Iraq was bullshit from the start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d24Q0K3uin4

I thought it was the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz crew I recalled trying to pin Iraq on the 12th, on CNN, but it may well have been Woolsey: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/12/ltm.13.html

I'm pretty sure there were threads about it at the time.


How does it look to you in hindsight (not whether the vote was a good idea, obviously, but whether their rationales were reasonable, forgivable, etc.?)

Still looks like a landgrab, in retrospect.


When all is said and done, what should we think about those who supported it?

I think we should be cautious of those who supported it, but give up trying to hold it against them so much that we can't get anything going; and I think we need to face the fact the "invisible hand" isn't going to allow anyone who would provide a real alternative to get anywhere near the public stage in a decision-making capacity. I'm not saying all is lost, just that direct confrontation is a losing game.



What are the best explanations you've heard from these Senators and others for their votes? I recall that John Edwards was just plain contrite about it, but were any of the others?

There is no best explanation. When Kerry and others tried the "we were duped" crap in 2004, it was too little, way too late.


Why did so many of us know that handing Bush the authorization to start a war would be abused, but these folks who represented us didn't?

These folks don't represent us.


Did any of these Senators say "hey, wait a minute, I gave Bush the big stick to enforce inspections, but why is he kicking out inspectors now... especially when they're not finding anything"?

Not that I recall. I think we all knew which way the wind was blowing.