‘Humanitarian Intervention’ Sen. Webb Challenges Obama War Policy

16 National EIR May 18, 2012
‘Humanitarian Intervention’
Sen. Webb Challenges
Obama War Policy

May 10—Virginia Democrat Sen. Jim Webb today
moved to erect a U.S. Senate barricade against the
British-Obama global war policy carried out under the
guise of “humanitarian intervention” or “right to protect”
(R2P); Lyndon LaRouche commented that
Webb’s move has to be viewed as of a piece with Rep.
Walter Jones’s actions in the House of Representatives
(See Jones’s interview on The LaRouche Show, above.)
A rapid build-up of support for both actions, together
with the strong resistance of military leaders to the
British war policy, could stop the threat of thermonuclear
war.
Webb announced that he will introduce legislation
to require Congressional approval before President
Obama (or any President) could take military action for
so-called “humanitarian interventions.” Webb’s release
says, “The legislation would require the President to
obtain formal approval by the Congress
before using military force; would require
that debate begin within days of
such a request; and that a vote must proceed
in a timely manner.”
A Washington source told EIR that a
bipartisan group of Senators has been
working with Webb on the bill for two
weeks, as a potential war confrontation
with Russia looms over the placement
of a U.S. ballistic missile defense system
in Eastern Europe, and over potential
Mideast “triggers.” The Webb initiative
has the potential to pass the Senate, the
source said.
In the House, Representative Jones
is organizing hard for his HCR 107, introduced
March 7, which declares any
new Presidential war action without
Congressional authorization “an impeachable
high crime and misdemeanor.”
‘A Bridge Too Far’
Webb insisted he was closing a dangerous “loophole
in the interpretation of our Constitution. It will
serve as a necessary safety net to protect the integrity
and the intent of the Constitution itself. It will ensure
that the Congress lives up not only to its prerogatives,
which were so carefully laid out by our founding fathers,
but also to its responsibilties.” Webb further explained
in a floor speech, “One of our strongest adjustments
from the British system was to ensure that no one
person would have the power to commit the nation to
military schemes that could not be justified by the interests
and the security of the citizen.”
While Webb did not name President Obama, he attacked
the British/Obama war on Libya as “potential
harm to our Constitutional system itself.” “This administration
conducted month after month of combat operations
in Libya, with no American interests directly
threatened and no clear treaty provisions in play. . . . The
unprecedented—and quite frankly contorted—Constitutional
logic used by this Administration to intervene
in Libya on the basis of what can most kindly be called
a United Nations standard of humanitarian intervention,
was not even subject to full debate or a vote on the
Senate floor.”
In his floor speech, Webb said, “This Administration’s
argument that it has the authority to decide when
Jack Looney
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) has announced his intention to introduce legislation
requiring that the President seek Congressional approval—as required by the
Constitution—before he orders U.S. forces into war.
May 18, 2012 EIR National 17
and where to use military force without the consent of
Congress, using the fragile logic of ‘humanitarian intervention,’
. . . is gravely dangerous. It is a bridge too far.
It does not fit our history. To give one individual such
discretion ridicules our Constitution.”
Documentation
Webb: Congress Must
Approve Use of Force
Here is Sen. James Webb’s speech on the floor of the
U.S. Senate May 9, annoucing his intention to introduce
legislation requiring Congressional approval
before the President could take military action for socalled
“humanitarian interventions.”1 Subheads have
been added.
I rise today to address perhaps the most important constitutional
challenge facing the balance of power between
the Presidency and the Congress in modern
times, and also to offer a legislative solution that might
finally address this paralysis.
It is an issue that has, for far too long, remained unresolved.
And for the past ten years, the failure of this
body to address it has diminished the respect, the stature,
and the seriousness with which the American
people have viewed the Congress—to the detriment of
our country and our national security.
The question is simple: When should the President
have the unilateral authority to decide to use military
force, and what is the place of the Congress in that process?
What has happened to reduce the role of the Congress
from the body which once clearly decided whether
or not the nation would go to war, to the point that we
are viewed as little more than a rather mindless conduit
that collects taxpayer dollars and dispenses them to the
President for whatever military functions he decides to
undertake?
We know what the Constitution says. Many of us
also know the difficulties that have attended this situation
in the years that followed World War II.
1. A video of the speech is posted at http://webb.senate.gov/
We are aware of the debates that resulted in the War
Powers Resolution of nearly forty years ago, in the
wake of the Vietnam War, where the Congress attempted
to define a proper balance between the President
and this legislative body. I have strong memories
of the policy conflicts of that era, first as a Marine infantry
officer who fought on the unforgiving battlefields of
Vietnam on which more than 100,000 United States
Marines were killed or wounded, and later as an ardent
student of constitutional law during my time at the
Georgetown University Law Center.
But it was in the decades following Vietnam that our
constitutional process seems to have broken apart. Year
by year, skirmish by skirmish, the role of the Congress
in determining where the U.S. military would operate,
and when the awesome power of our weapon systems
would be unleashed, has diminished.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, especially with
the advent of special operations forces and remote
bombing capabilities, the Congress seems to have
faded into operational irrelevance. Congressional consent
is rarely discussed. The strongest debates surround
the rather irrelevant issue of whether Congress
has even been consulted. We have now reached the
point that the unprecedented—and quite frankly contorted—
constitutional logic used by this Administration
to intervene in Libya on the basis of what can most
kindly be called a United Nations standard of “humanitarian
intervention,” was not even subject to full
debate or a vote on the Senate floor. Such an omission,
and the precedent it has set, now requires us to accept
one of two uncomfortable alternatives. Either we as a
legislative body must reject this passivity and live up
to the standards and the expectations regarding Presidential
power that were laid down so carefully by our
Founding Fathers, or we must accept a redefinition of
the very precepts upon which this government was
founded.
This is not a political issue. We would be facing the
exact same constitutional challenges no matter the
party of the President. In fact, unless we resolve this
matter, there is no doubt that we someday will.
What the Constitution Says
The conflict in the balance of power between the
President and the Congress has always been an intrinsic
part of our constitutional makeup. Article I,
Section 8 of the Constitution provides that the Congress
alone has the power to declare war. Article II,
18 National EIR May 18, 2012
Section 2 of the Constitution provides that the President
shall serve as Commander in Chief. In the early
days of our Republic these distinctions were clear,
particularly since we retained no large standing army
during peacetime, and since Article I, Section 8 also
provides that the Congress has the power to “raise and
support armies,” a phrase that expressed the clear
intent of the framers that large ground forces were not
to be kept during peacetime, but instead were to be
raised at the direction of Congress during a time of
war.
Our history confirms this, as our armies demobilized
again and again once wars were completed. Only
after World War II did this change, when our rather reluctant
position as the world’s greatest guarantor of international
stability required that we maintain a large
standing military force, much of it in Europe and in
Asia, ready to respond to crises whose immediacy
could not otherwise allow us to go through the lengthy
process of mobilization in order to raise an army, and
because of that reality made the time-honored process
of asking the Congress for a declaration of war in most
cases obsolescent.
But any logical proposition can be carried to a ridiculous
extreme. The fact that some military situations
have required our Presidents to act immediately, before
then reporting to the Congress, does not in and of itself
give the President a blanket authority to use military
force whenever and wherever he decides to, even where
Americans are not personally at risk, and even where
the vital interests of our country have not been debated
and clearly defined. This is the ridiculous extreme that
we have now reached.
The world is filled with tyrants. Democratic systems
are far and few between. I don’t know exactly what objective
standard should be used before the United States
government decides to conduct a “humanitarian intervention”
by using our military power to address domestic
tensions inside another country, and I don’t believe
anyone else knows, either. But I will say this: No President
should have the unilateral authority to make that
decision, either.
I make this point from the perspective of someone
who grew up in the military, and whose family has participated
as citizen-soldiers in most of our country’s
wars, beginning with the American Revolution. I was
proud to serve as a Marine in Vietnam. I am equally
proud of my son’s service as a Marine infantryman in
Iraq. I am also deeply grateful for having had the opportunity
to serve five years in the Pentagon, one as a
Marine, and four as Assistant Secretary of Defense and
as Secretary of the Navy.
And I have benefited over the years from having
served in many places around the world as a journalist,
including in Beirut during our military engagement
there in 1983, and in Afghanistan as an embedded journalist
in 2004. As most people in this body know, I am
one of the strongest proponents of the refocusing of our
national involvement in East Asia, and was the original
sponsor of the Senate resolution condemning China’s
use of force with respect to sovereignty issues in the
South China Sea.
The point is that I’m not advocating a retreat from
anywhere. But this Administration’s argument that it
has the authority to decide when and where to use military
force without the consent of the Congress, using
the fragile logic of “humanitarian intervention” to ostensibly
redress domestic tensions inside countries
where American interests are not being directly
threatened, is gravely dangerous. It is a bridge too far.
It does not fit our history. To give one individual such
discretion ridicules our Constitution. It belittles the
role of the Congress. And for anyone in this body to
accept this rationale is also to accept that the Congress
no longer has any direct role in the development,
and particularly in the execution, of foreign
policy.
Clear Boundaries
There are clear and important boundaries that have
always existed when considering a President’s authority
to order our military into action without the immediate
consent of the Congress. To exceed these boundaries—
as the President has already done with the
precedent set in Libya—is to deliberately destroy the
balance of powers that were built so carefully into the
Constitution itself.
These historically acceptable conditions under
which a President can unilaterally order the military
into action are clear. If our country or our military
forces are attacked; if an attack, including one by
international terrorists, is imminent and must be
pre-empted; if treaty commitments specifically
compel us to respond to attacks on our allies; if
American citizens are detained or threatened; if our
sea lanes are interrupted, then—and only then—
May 18, 2012 EIR National 19
should the President order the use of military force
without first gaining the approval of the Congress
[emphasis added].
At least until recent months, the Congress has never
accepted that the President owns the unilateral discretion
to initiate combat activities without direct provocation,
without Americans at risk, without the obligations
of treaty commitments, and without the consent
of the Congress. The recent actions by this Administration,
beginning with the months-long intervention in
Libya, should give us all grounds for concern and
alarm about the potential harm to our constitutional
system itself. We are in no sense compelled—or justified—
in taking action based on a vote in the United
Nations, or as the result of a decision made by a collective
security agreement such as NATO when none
of its members have been attacked. It is not the prerogative
of the President to decide to commit our military
and our prestige into situations that cannot
clearly be determined to flow from vital national interests.
Who should decide that? I can’t personally and conclusively
define the boundaries of what is being called
a “humanitarian intervention.” Most importantly, neither
can anybody else. Where should it apply? Where
should it not? Rwanda? Libya? Syria? Venezuela? Bangladesh?
In the absence of a clear determination by our
time-honored constitutional process, who should
decide where our young men and women, and our national
treasure, should be risked? Some of these endeavors
may be justified, some may not. But the most
important point to be made is that in our system, no one
person should have the power to inject the United States
military, and the prestige of our nation, into such circumstances.
Our Constitution was founded upon this hesitation.
We inherited our system from Great Britain, but we
adapted and changed it for a reason. One of our strongest
adjustments from the British system was to
ensure that no one person would have the power to
commit the nation to military schemes that could not
be justified by the interests and the security of the average
citizen [emphasis added]. President after President,
beginning with George Washington, has emphasized
the importance of this fundamental principle to
the stability of our political system, and to the integrity
of our country in the international community. The fact
that the leadership of our Congress has failed to raise
this historic standard in the past few years, and most
specifically in Libya, is a warning sign to this body
that it must reaffirm one of its most solemn responsibilities.
A Legislative Solution
I have been working for several months to construct
a legislative solution to this paralysis. This legislation
would recognize that modern circumstances require
an adroit approach to the manner in which our
foreign policy is now being implemented. But it would
also put necessary and proper boundaries around a
President’s discretion when it comes to so-called humanitarian
interventions, where we and our people are
not being directly threatened. My legislation requires
that in any situation where American interests are not
directly threatened, the President must obtain formal
approval by the Congress before introducing American
military force. This legislation will also provide that
debate on such a request must begin within days of the
request, and that a vote must proceed in a timely
manner.
I would remind the leadership on both sides of this
body that despite repeated calls from myself and other
Senators, when this Administration conducted month
after month of combat operations in Libya, with no
American interests directly threatened and no clear
treaty provisions in play, the Congress of the United
States, both Democrat and Republican, could not even
bring itself to have a formal debate on whether the use
of military force was appropriate, and this use of military
force went on for months and was never approved.
The Administration, which spent well over a billion
dollars of taxpayer funds, dropped thousands of bombs
on the country, and operated our military offshore for
months, claimed that “combat” was not occurring, and
rejected the notion that the War Powers Act applied to
the situation.
I am not here to debate the War Powers Act. I am
suggesting that other statutory language that covers
these kinds of situations must be enacted. The legislation
that I will be introducing will address this loophole
in the interpretation of our Constitution. It will serve as
a necessary safety net to protect the integrity and the
intent of the Constitution itself. It will ensure that Congress
lives up not only to its prerogatives, which were
so carefully laid out by our Founding Fathers, but also
to its responsibilities.