Congress has wanted nothing to do with conflicts in an official capacity for the last 50-60 years. They want sound bytes in unofficial interviews for grandstanding and to be able to blame everyone else.
This is actually a result of those decades of congress, regardless of party in control, abdicating their constitutional duty. For a recent example, check out post 9/11 and congress.
This. A thousand times this.
Both Obama and Biden have been more than willing to sign a repeal or massive overhaul of the AUMF, but both chambers of Congress and members of both parties therein are cowards who would rather cheer or criticize in front of a camera and microphone than perform their Constitutional duties of checking the power of the Commander in Chief.
If they were willing to sign a repeal of it, nothing stopped them from simply not using it. The AUMF didn’t make them start wars.
- Not a war.
- They have a responsibility to carry out such actions in the presence of Congressional inaction and cowardice.
- As long as the AUMF exists and is in effect, it is both legally and effectively the role of the President to act under its grant of authority in accordance with its purpose.
“The law says we have to kill whoever we want! You wouldn’t us to break the law would you??”
Given that actual US Navy ships have been getting attacked and this is largely in retaliation of that, I think it stretches the imagination a bit to say that the US started this.
From where did you get this opinion? None of the articles I’ve read about the US attack have mentioned an attack on the US Navy. The closest I could find in a search was missiles that landed 10 nautical miles away from a Navy ship in November. Which, at the scale of the ocean is sorta close, but it’s a stretch to call it an attack in need of immediate retribution. All the direct justifications presented by the US are that this is in response to and designed to deter their attacks on commercial shipping.
Here’s a report from Axios but you can find countless others
The Houthi’s have been launching missiles at our ships and hijacking cargo ships basically since thw October 7th attacks. This is just the first time the US has done more than a warning, which is why you’re hearing about it now.
This doesn’t seem to be in response to the thread. The Axios link doesn’t say anything about an attack on the US Navy. The second link has a mention by Biden of “US ships” (not Navy) as targets, but the linked story only says a British navy ship may have been targeted, but they weren’t sure. I’m well aware they’ve been attacking shipping, that’s not in question and not what I’m responding to.
At the same time, we shouldn’t be defeatist when it comes to ethics and holding our government branches accountable. If they are arguing in good faith, we should support efforts for more transparency and secure processes.
Remember the Republican reaction when Obama did the same thing in Libya?
Reeeeeee! 72 hours to get our approval or we’ll impeach you! Reeeeeee! Not authorized! Not funded!
Then when our embassy there… in Benghazi… was attacked… it was years of “Reeeee! Why didn’t you DO something!!!”
After they stripped embassy security funding for it, naturally.
Is Ben Gazi the talented buttery male I hear so much about?
All part of Hillary’s plan to whip up support for war.
Another terrorist group fucks around and finds out.
War is not something to glorify. It’s unfortunate that the situation with Israel/Palestine, Saudis/Iran, and Houthis/US escalated to this point.
Another terrorist group fuck around and innocent people find out.
Don’t think any civilian deaths have been reported so far, just 10 Houthi soldiers according to the Houthis themselves. We’ll see how that shakes out as more information emerges, but we also aren’t Israel - civilian casualties are something we try to avoid.
😂😂 except in the countries we invade…
Source: old enough to remember Iraq and Afghanistan as an adult and have a parent that went to Vietnam.
Yeah, I remember Iraq and Afghanistan too. I followed both very closely. Our civilian casualty ratios were far from Israel’s currently claimed 50-50 (as opposed to what it actually probably is, ie 80%+ civilians).
Fuck, even in Vietnam the ratio wasn’t 50 fucking 50.
Iraq may have had a civilian casualty ratio of up to 77%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio#Iraq_War
A Pentagon leak for 2004-2009 put the number at 66,000 civilians out of 109,000 total fatalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak#Civilian_casualties
The Wikipedia source on the first link doesn’t say what the citation claims it does, if you follow it.
On the second, that count would require, what, 80% of civilian deaths to be caused by the US? Assuming the extrapolations it reaches are correct. For a 50-50 combatant-civilian split.
If you want to argue that as a matter of moral responsibility, fine, but the point raised above is quite clearly about military efforts to distinguish civilians from combatants in operations.
The Wikipedia source on the first link doesn’t say what the citation claims it does, if you follow it.
I followed the link to the report and it’s not clear whether the 39k number is total combatant casualties, but you can just calculate from the civilian deaths where the estimate is at least 112k-122k civilian casualties out of 174k total, which is ~70%. You’re acting like that 7% difference is a big gotcha.
And I don’t know why you’re acting like the US being responsible for 80% of casualties in Iraq is a wild idea. We massively overpowered the limited Iraqi capabilities. They had much fewer combatants and didn’t even have the ability to drop bombs. The CCR isn’t about a particular side though, since you’ll always get into muddy questions of who was responsible for a particular death. It certainly wasn’t the case that we were mostly just killing terrorists.
USA killed plenty civilianscin Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh look a whataboutism in the wild. Maybe this definition will help you.
Lol what a pathetic taunt.
Edit for the ultra daft downvote crew: the fact the US killed civilians is directly relevant to the blub i responded to, the one claiming the US was bettter than Israel because it did not kill civilians.
For the extra determined ignoramouses ive provided this as an example :
Mhhhmm. Didn’t read the definition I see.
Your link to the definition of ‘avoid’?
I avoided nothing. I addressed the issue directly.
The USA kills civilians.
Israel does at a much faster rate. A genocidal one in fact.
But that does not give any creedence to the notion the USA is innocent.
QED JFC
Oh, sorry. I thought this was related to the genocide in Gaza. Completely unrelated and just trade related in the seas adjacent. Obviously we should protect profits at all costs.
I mean, considering the Houthis aren’t targeting Israeli ships specifically, it’s not really particularly related to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, despite the Houthi claims? It’s terrorists showboating to burnish their own credentials.
Obviously we should protect profits at all costs.
… and what about the human lives threatened by literal terrorists attacking unarmed civilian ships with drones and rockets? Fuck 'em, huh? The people who will suffer from the economic disruption, fuck them too, right? Fucking poors, who cares about them? It’s not like there’s an ongoing global crisis with rising food prices from prior disruptions to supply lines.
Let’s not blow it out of proportion. I disagree with attacking trade routes, but there have been no casualties.
However 12000+ Palestinians have died.
As a civilian, I don’t want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, let’s not pretend it’s not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
I don’t own any kind f those ships, but if I did, I’d find a different route. It started with just protests against ships stopping at Israel. I wish it stayed there. How many ships can stop at Gaza with humanitarian supplies?
Let’s not blow it out of proportion. I disagree with attacking trade routes, but there have been no casualties.
Because Western military ships have been busy intercepting drones and rockets. This is just the first time we’ve hit back.
However 12000+ Palestinians have died.
Okay, how is that the fault of civilian ships going through international waters?
As a civilian, I don’t want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, let’s not pretend it’s not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
Until the Houthis starting firing, it wasn’t a warzone or a disputed route. The route isn’t in Israeli territorial waters. It’s nowhere near Gaza or Israel.
I don’t own any kind f those ships, but if I did, I’d find a different route.
The only other route is all the way around Africa.
As a civilian, I don’t want to enter a warzone or a disputed route. These people are choosing to and should be protected. However, let’s not pretend it’s not a one sided conflict, based on genocide, which Israeli government ministers have advocated for.
You do understand that the ship attacks we’re talking about in this thread are happening 1000 miles away from Israel at the clear other end of the Red Sea, right? It’s nowhere near the Gaza warzone (which borders a different sea entirely – the Mediterranean), nor is it even “disputed” by anybody legitimate.
Literally nothing about this, except the Houthi terrorists’ choice of timing, has anything to do with Israel.
It’s a tough situation, but attacking civilians is not a valid way of protesting Israels’ attacks on civilians.
Some progressives need to put down the flowers and smoke some bad guys now and then. Conservatives need to cram their sabers up their own asses and die.
I’ll take soft progressives over the other any day of the week, but demanding Congressional approval is fucking absurd right now. It’ll take 8 months and be filled with unrelated laws, financial packages for Ohio and Texas, and pro-oil deregulation.
Not to mention, having foreseen exactly this problem previous representatives passed the War Powers Act. Biden absolutely has the authority to blow shit up. He can do it without any reason or other authority for 60 days. Then he has 30 days to remove American troops from that area. (Or return force levels to where they were)
So you want more executive power? … almost like that the president can do things without Congress?
… boom dictatorship.
There’s a line, idk what it should be but it should be.
No, but have the power to make quick action against small threats via airstrike and missile strikes shouldn’t need the end endless hem and haw from a bunch of clowns.
Jesus fucking Christ, Congress is peak dysfunction.
Republicans: “Hold my MAGA hat!”
So are they going to repeal the War Powers Act? Are we going back to needing a Declaration of War to deal with every pissant pirate?
Not the pirates of pissants? Have they try singing to distract them?
Houthi and the Blowfish
It would be a good start, yes.
No, it wouldn’t. A straight repeal of the War Powers Act also opens us up to another Vietnam. And amending it such that any use of force requires congressional approval would put us in an international straight jacket. From defending our shipping interests to protecting allies. In the event of China deciding it would rather just take existing islands to make it’s “nine dashed line” a reality, we’d be arguing about immigration instead of deploying the Navy. And we would instantly lose the trade access we have to the entirety of the SEA region.
We tried isolationism. It didn’t work.
No one is saying let the planet go to hell
Yes, yes they are. Maybe not you, but there are billionaires saying exactly that.
Asking Congress is a surefire way to get nothing done.
Maybe that’s a good default stance when the topic is war.
Limited war is always a tricky topic. Where do you draw the line between a full on war and making the seas safe for trade,
Luckily, the aftermath of the Vietnam War gave us an answer. The War Powers Act. Which gives the president authority to use the military in situations exactly like this. If he tries to turn it into a big thing, then it has to go in front of Congress.
Humanitarian aid and addressing the reason they are taking up arms.
The Houthis took up arms because of Iranian backing and Yemeni local politics. The Western countries aren’t solving that any time soon. And they’re already receiving HA.
Making the seas safe for trade = shutting down trade sanctions on a genocide
That’s not what they’re doing. They’re firing at any ship they believe even has a Western financial stake in it. No matter where it’s going or what it’s carrying. It could be taking Italian tractors to Somalia to encourage local farming as part of an aid program and they would fire at it.
Isn’t fighting piracy like legal for everyone? Like a private citizen or any country’s military could go out there and hunt pirates. I remember that from when the somali pirates got yeeted.
The AUMF probably also actually has given him the right to do this.
No AUMF required to bonk pirates. It’s the national version of self defense.
None of these representatives objected to us sinking boats involved in piracy operations. They’re objecting to attacks on land against a group that is pretty close to a government. There’s some point at which on-land operations turn from being defending against piracy to regime change. Which may be warranted, but should be decided by Congress.
I’m pretty sure you can attack the pirates when they get back on land too.
Not if they have one foot on home base. No backsies!
I think that’s a baseball reference I’m too european to get
Ha I see why you might think so but I was referring to “neighborhood rules” for kids’ games like Tag. We’d often designate a light pole or a car as “home base” and you couldn’t be tagged as “It” if you were touching it.
I hope you play tag in Europe or else this didn’t make sense either lol
Ah instead a game I’m either too old to remember or too woman to have played. It does sound vaguely familiar though.
Then Congress needs to add that to the War Powers Act.
There are no laws in international waters.
You underestimate the reach of US law. Also, the “Law of the Sea” clearly applies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_the_Law_of_the_Sea
There are laws that govern Antarctica, Outer Space, the Moon, etc. International waters are just less regulated, but there are definitely laws.
Oh yeah the infighting is getting bad. Get ready for an absolute terrible election season for the Democrats.
I’m seeing “leftists” using the same vocabulary as Q-anon style crazy morons. The vitriol is being spat like no matter what their isn’t a right answer and it’s not made better by the fact that we as a country are still basically pushing for all the worse aspects of ourselves because it’s what feels normal.
People are all gonna join in to help burn it down and think they will be the kings of the ashes but largest organized group is gonna be the real victor and it’s for sure as hell not the self hating left.
Maybe I will be wrong and the vote against method will work again but if it does we need to make some hard turns to get things actually getting better and get some companionship happening or it will just be a bloodbath between factions that wanted their scoop of the ashes.
It’s because these “leftists” are right wing trolls. Full stop. This “Genocide Joe” shit in particular is so fucking transparently a trump-style attack it’s laughable. Leftist spaces on the internet are so far up their own reactionary assholes they are now actively protecting far right propagandists and calling it left unity.
Yeah I actually got banned from a “leftist” sub (r/latestagecapitalism on Reddit) because I called out a literal right wing propaganda post from a literal maga mouthpiece that was a lie.
And the mod responded with:
We don’t work with the Demo-kkk-rats
Like a literal fascist response because it makes their dick hard to feel like they are standing up to the bad guys while supporting the end of democracy. Neat. Not a leftist.
It is interesting/sad just how hard Biden is sticking to the old ways of doing things even though most people seem to have moved on from that way of thinking.
*“Most people” applies only to lemmygrad, lemmy.ml and some college campuses.
Seriously - people dramatically overestimate how much has changed.
The legislative branch has been busted for so long that they literally ceded power to go to war to the executive for the good of the nation. Y’all can feel free to undo that at any time once you’re not completely broken.
Last I heard, the AUMFs were still active. Assuming that was used to justify this legally.
No need. The War Powers Act 30 Day emergency powers clearly apply.
Are they suggesting to allow US Navy ships to be attacked without retaliation? It’s been going on for like 2 months now. Are they willing to have that on their voting record?
Did they send a strongly worded letter, that they later retracted, again…?
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