EmperorIng wrote:Congress is actually the only branch that can declare war.
Ahh, right. Embarrassing! Apologies to quash for the ill-aimed attack too. (Dyslexia manifests in strange ways, doesn't it?)
Still it's important to understand that in practice that's not how it works, though like you say - the Tonkin resolution was a step in the slide of the real power to declare war away from Congress, just as the Iraq Resolution was another move away from the power. It's similar to the situation in place now with the budget, which was handed over to the Administration by Congress in the early 20th century.
quash wrote:Don't assume for a moment I don't have a response for every last thing presented in this thread; I just want to focus on what's most important.
What really matters in this election are insane
conspiracy theories and pinning the blame for decade-old wars on the Democrats? Oh, okay.
Again, I'm not dropping the obvious rebuttal because maybe somebody else will notice it: You're not bringing any argument against what I said, mostly egotistically trying to redirect the conversation into obsessions that are mostly irrelevant to the current situation, as if what you think really matters, especially since you've tried to strip away all the context that allows history to be informative. Nevertheless I suppose it might be worthwhile to look at the mostly misunderstood history behind many of your beliefs, so I'll take a moment to look at that.
quash wrote:I don't believe anyone can fix the economy. Not Trump, not Hillary, not anyone. All we're doing is delaying the inevitable with the dollar, the ECB, etc.
This shows up one real weakness of the US election cycle: The Congressional system means that a President doesn't have the power, like a Prime Minster would, to actually enact policies to bring about those economic good times. You've admitted Trump has no economic benefit here, but I think you're also ignoring the strong plans the Democrats have. Clinton has signed on to enough of Bernie's planks to make me interested.
I can't write in much more depth about this if you don't agree that Obama has ensured that the country got back on track and also added many jobs - which is the real, unvarnished truth - and a pretty impressive job considering he has had very little support from Congress. And no, I'm not going to have a back and forth on this so that you can try to piss all over that legacy, just like I'm not going to get into an argument about Obamacare. This abuse of the facts reminds me of the "malaise" attack against Carter - a catchy phrase seen to capture the truth when the truth is rather different.
At the same time I agree there's some very important structural flaws in the economy. Good news: The Democratic platform actually is serious about fixing those! It might not get 100% of the way there, but as they say, perfection is the enemy of the good.
quash wrote:You linked the results of the resolution that showed over half of senate Democrats voted for the war to support your claim that they didn't.
Speaking of ancient history, I remember having to fight over that a while ago because some people still insist on misrepresenting what really happened. I don't remember more of it than what you've sketched out, so if you're volunteering to dredge it up I'd be interested to look at it again.
But there's probably a better way to understand that vote, which you still clearly don't understand. That the Resolution was not a typical declaration of war. It stipulated that Bush had to take certain steps proving diplomacy had failed before he could go to war. Of course, Bush didn't do that, and didn't let the arms inspectors finish their job; perhaps the drafting of the bill in this way was stupid, but the Administration still didn't adhere to the intent of the law.
You then claimed that Obama didn't play an instrumental role in Syria and that it wasn't going to escalate, mere weeks before Obama announced that ground forces were being sent there.
It's been a long time since this also, but I'd not be surprised if what actually was written went like this: People claimed that the US was about to launch a full-scale war. What actually happened, and what I probably was clear about as I am today, is that those forces were limited in scope, mostly training and supporting opposition fighters.
Let's not forget that the war started all the way back in 2011, Obama got roundly criticized from many sides for not doing more in the war including by most all Republicans like John McCain, there was Obama's embarrassing,
supposedly failed "red line" policy which actually resulted in the destruction of tons of chemical weapons, and finally that there is a strong proxy war element with Russia gleeful to keep Al-Assad in power. In short, we got rid of one of the world's most densely packed stockpiles of chemical weapons because Putin and Al-Assad were afraid of us. Ultimately Putin and Al-Assad share most of the blame as they were the ones who resisted a political solution to what was initially a political situation, until it became an uncontained open war.
Since we're talking about Clinton, we can go back to her statement after that Iraq resolution you misunderstand so poorly to see what she thought about intervention and regime change:
My vote is not a vote for any new doctrine of preemption or for unilateralism or for the arrogance of American power or purpose, all of which carry grave dangers for our Nation, the rule of international law, and the peace and security of people throughout the world.
HuffPost has some important context behind all this.
You are having fun, like any armchair politician or general criticizing decisions people made in the fog of war, without the benefit of a decade of hindsight, I'm sure. Since you're fond of pointing out areas where I'm wrong, I would point out that personally I always was afraid that a Bush Administration would be bad, based mainly off the lack of understanding or reasoning behind many of his famous malapropisms. But soon after 9/11 I also voiced a concern that programs to create patriotism could be setting up a modern-day "Hitler Youth," which immediately after seemed a bit extreme, but here we are. In any case, I more or less instinctively understood that wars of choice were not a good thing, and that's probably how I viewed the Iraq War, as I remember my lack of enthusiasm and feeling of dislocation as I watched the CNN live coverage in March 2003.