Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

argatoga said:
It is the killing outside a war. The legislative branch needs to approve war, the president shouldn't be able to circumvent that.
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I agree with that. Obama has heavily overstepped his powers, military targets cannot exist without a declaration of war.
 
This is moving things a bit elsewhere, but I am a dove at hart and can't resist.

[video=youtube;NU8RUfkf-MQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU8RUfkf-MQ[/video]

Obama has continued this policy.
 
nomix said:
Was he, or was he not a military target?
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Even if you can make the case that he was a military target (I don't think that is realistic), you can not make the case that his teenage son and nephew were. They were also killed by a drone attack while at a family gathering. The tools of the office are being abused and it needs to stop.
 
argatoga said:
This is moving things a bit elsewhere, but I am a dove at hart and can't resist.

[video=youtube;NU8RUfkf-MQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU8RUfkf-MQ[/video]

Obama has continued this policy.
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Did he talk about when he almost started WWIII with the Russians?

He argues that the military should only be used for self defense. I disagree. We are a superpower, our interests are everywhere and anywhere, and the military is but one tool we have to shape the world to better suit our needs.
 
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hajj said:
I agree with that. Obama has heavily overstepped his powers, military targets cannot exist without a declaration of war.
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What was the last war the US actually declared (or the oppent declared on them)?
 
DanRoM said:
What was the last war the US actually declared (or the oppent declared on them)?
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The last time we officially declared war was in World War II. However other conflicts, like the Korean War and Gulf War, were funded by appropriations from Congress. While the War Powers Clause of the Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war it does not prohibit the President from initiating military actions. What the President can and can not do is quite complicated and controversial.
 
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jetsetter said:
The last time we officially declared war was in World War II. However other conflicts, like the Korean War and Gulf War, were funded by appropriations from Congress. While the War Powers Clause of the Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war it does not prohibit the President from initiating military actions. What the President can and can not do is quite complicated and controversial.
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I want to expand on this. Congress has the power to declare war, but it also has the sole power to appropriate funds to the military. The President can only do what he has the funding to do. The Constitutional also does not say what military action can be taken outside of an official war. When the President makes military decisions and takes military action, Congress is giving him their approval by allowing him the money for these actions. Until Congress actually votes AGAINST the President, then the President is working within his powers, despite the War Powers Act (which itself is of questionable constitutionality).

This is not a comment on constitutionality regarding the 4th and 5th Amendments.
 
Er no they did not - Germany declared war on them first.

//Edit "OK Congress did but only following Hitler who'd done it first and the question still exists would America have declared war but for that - possibly".
 
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jetsetter said:
Did he talk about when he almost started WWIII with the Russians?

He argues that the military should only be used for self defense. I disagree. We are a superpower, our interests are everywhere and anywhere, and the military is but one tool we have to shape the world to better suit our needs.
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Over expansion of the military is also dangerous. Rome and Iran fought one another off and on for hundreds of years, in the end all they did was tire themselves out and open the way to Arab invasion in the 7th century.

The Roman army could have repelled the Lombards easily. The problem is the bulk of the army was in the Middle East. Rome wanted to expand East, and Iran wanted to restore their land ownings to that of the first Persian dynasty.
 
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argatoga said:
Over expansion of the military is also dangerous. Rome and Iran fought one another off and on for hundreds of years, in the end all they did was tire themselves out and open the way to Arab invasion in the 7th century.

The Roman army could have repelled the Lombards easily. The problem is the bulk of the army was in the Middle East. Rome wanted to expand East, and Iran wanted to restore their land ownings to that of the first Persian dynasty.
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Not entirely sure what argument you are attempting to make. That we are tiring ourselves out? No, we are not. For our level of wealth and our size our military is still small. There is absolutely no reason why we could not expand it and increase funding.

That we should keep our military at home? Why? Logistically speaking China nor Russia are traditional threats as of yet. They have large armies but not the reach to use then far from home. No, unlike Rome, there are no barbarians at the gates. There are no great hoards ready to overrun the border.

Remember that Rome became "Rome" by being proactive with its military. It began as a small city state and expanded into an empire.
 
And when it became a large empire it fell apart.
 
How about the fact that NASA's entire budget is only about one month of defense spending? Or that we could be out of debt and feed every kid in the US and still have money to spend on defense.
 
jetsetter said:
Not entirely sure what argument you are attempting to make. That we are tiring ourselves out? No, we are not. For our level of wealth and our size our military is still small. There is absolutely no reason why we could not expand it and increase funding.

That we should keep our military at home? Why? Logistically speaking China nor Russia are traditional threats as of yet. They have large armies but not the reach to use then far from home. No, unlike Rome, there are no barbarians at the gates. There are no great hoards ready to overrun the border.

Remember that Rome became "Rome" by being proactive with its military. It began as a small city state and expanded into an empire.
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Well there are Canadians. ... :lol:

British empire was at it's largest at the end of WWII but within about 20 years it was almost completely dismantled. I think that the reasons for the fall are below. ... It did not help that it had been a German thing to destroy our empire since Bismark unified Germany and the Kaiser had seen a Spithead review of British sea power. Major Nazi goal in WWII following being rebuffed when they offered peace on terms.

1. The US did not want us to have one, and we owed shedloads of money to them, and when Suez occurred they threatened a run on the pound. ... and

2. People in this country having fought a mad evil dictator who was acting exactly like an evil empire and felt the possibility of being subjugated though it a good thing to allow emerging countries to have their independance.

Generally speaking it was a bad thing to have done but I was discussing this with an Indian work collegue and the point was made that at the time the options were not:

Freedom of the sub-continent and self determination, but rather

1. Be a member of the British empire (Flag or not)
2. Keep the Mogal (not going to fly that at all) or
3. Join another European empire most probably the French, who all ready were playing fast and loose in India.

It was just one of those times in History.

Empires just do not know when they are going to fail. It could be argued that American power is falling relatively against China ever since 'ping pong' deplomacy. The US military is still great, many excellent and well motivated fighting men and great equipment but they are going to need the financial where with all (See Royal Navy for an example) to maintain it on-going. We will see if this can be done.
 
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Why am I seeing this Garrett Williams on the news? Why did MI6 do such a sloppy job and not clean it up? Why did they do it in the first place?
 
GRtak said:
Why am I seeing this Garrett Williams on the news? Why did MI6 do such a sloppy job and not clean it up? Why did they do it in the first place?
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Gareth Williams was found in a bag (which was padlocked shut) in his flat. The coroner has today ruled that he was "highly unlikely" to manage this himself (no shit) and therefore someone either helped him or stuffed him in there. It has also been ruled that there is "probably" unlawful killing involved (read: someone killed him).

He worked for MI6, and one of the reasons there is trouble is that he went missing from work for a week and MI6 did nothing. It took them a week to bother to find out why one of their employees wasn't showing up.
 
For some reason they never declared war on Finland, and cut the diplomatic ties as late as June 30 1944.
 
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