The President was authorized only to find and use military force against the perpetrators of 9/11. By October 2002, the US had performed operations in Afghanistan, the Philippines (I've been there), and the Horn of Africa. I feel the Horn of Africa operations were the first to target "terrorists," not the people authorized by the AUMF. (The Phils ops were OK, I believe.) Further, Iraq is a member of the UN, and the Secretary General of the UN (the highest ranking official in the UN), Kofi Annan, had this to say about Bush's attack of Iraq:scareduck wrote:The Bush administration has taken the view that we are fighting "terrorism", not a particular country.
Although Operation Iraqi Freedom will (in my opinion) bring great things to Iraq, the US is only cleaning up the mess it made in Iraq starting in 1959 with a covert assasination plot headed by the CIA. Personally, I find black-ops acts of war in foreign countries totally repugnant.Kofi Annan wrote:When pressed on whether he viewed the invasion of Iraq as illegal, he said: "Yes, if you wish. I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."
Sorry, I won't foist my opinions on you any more. I've backed up scareduck's statement with facts. I understand that the situations involved are so complex that we will never know all the relevant and important facts, and thus likely never agree. However, I like rational debate, so I thought I'd throw what I've got into the mix.
President Bush cited al-Qaeda as a primary rationale for war on Iraq: "Throughout late 2001, 2002, and early 2003, the Bush Administration worked to build a case for invading Iraq, culminating in then Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the Security Council." 9 months later, Powell resigned, as evidence mounted that the cited evidence of weapons of mass destruction -- what he had been directed to use in his speech -- was not actually true.
Completely accurate and factual. I agree. The right of habeas corpus was curtailed by the Military Commissions Act.scareduck wrote:This puts the government in the position of demanding a rollback of the constitutional checks until... when? When they say it's safe to. In other words, Congress has abrogated its duty and powers as the sole declarer of war (that's an old story, of course, but it's much, much worse this time around), and the President has decided that he can revoke habeas whenever he feels like it. (Note the section you quoted mentioned "rebellion or invasion", neither of which obtains here!)