[Peace-discuss] letter in the Washington Post: Sept. 11 authorization not applicable to Mali

[Robert Naiman]

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:

> Of course you're right, Bob, but I doubt the situation will lead our newly
> inaugurated chief magistrate to exclaim, "Damn! I'd really like to help
> kill people in Mali, but I just can't do it because I lack legal
> authorization!"
>

Well. I certainly agree that if the White House really wanted to go in
deeper, they would figure out a way. But I don't think the White House
really wants to do it. I think there is a split between the White House and
the Pentagon. So reported the Los Angeles Times on Friday evening. I think
there is pressure from the Pentagon on the White House for more U.S.
military intervention, and I think the White House is so far substantially
resisting that pressure. If past experience is a guide, it is likely that
the pressure will increase, and the White House could substantially cave to
the pressure, not ground troops, but armed drones. I think outsiders should
weigh in before that happens.

In that context, it's useful for people to remember that there's a law
called the War Powers Resolution requiring Congressional authorization for
a new war. It's a speed bump. We should try to reinforce it.


> In the real world, the French descent on Mali - like the French descent on
> Libya - was clearly coordinated (not to put too fine a point on it) by the
> Pentagon. The US (particularly Democratic presidents) continues to employ
> NATO (including the UK and France, under two different governments) as its
> dogsbody for its Eurasian (and African) imperial advances. The Malian
> advance is part of the long-term US strategy to encourage war in
> resource-rich areas in order to establish US control: force by its own
> military or that of clients is the US comparative advantage. (If peace
> broke out, the US would lose its excuse for imperial control of these
> regions.) The extension of the policy to Africa (in opposition to the
> Chinese) concerns both logistics (approaches to the Mideast, the reason the
> US has been destroying domestic governments in Somalia for a generation)
> and African resources (e.g., Niger uranium, basis of the French nuclear
> industry - and of course the "yellow-cake" propaganda).
>
> Terrorism/Al Qaeda is the US propaganda name for domestic resistance to US
> imperialism. The name used to be Communism, until the Communists went away,
> and the US was left with a serious PR problem, which 9/11 largely solved
> for them, although most people now see that the excuse is getting a bit
> threadbare. The US planners are again facing Colin Powell's enemies-gap
> (JCS Chairman Colin Powell to Army Times in April 1991: “Think hard about
> it, I’m running out of demons. I’m running out of villains ... I’m down to
> Castro and Kim Il Sung"), which they mean to fill with "terrorists"
> throughout the world.
>
> Perhaps the filthiest secret is that the mass killing Obama's doing to
> fight terrorism is in the interest of only his 1% patrons - especially arms
> ("defense") and energy interests - and the geopolitical tactic of control
> of (not just access to) energy resources.  The rest of the world -
> Americans as well as others - simply suffer in varying degrees in this
> international class struggle.
>
> --CGE
>
> On Jan 20, 2013, at 12:29 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
> wrote:
>
> > [Unfortunately, it seems clear from press reports that Panetta still
> hasn't gotten the memo, e.g.  <Still, he said the U.S. would have
> sufficient legal authority to help out because the enemy in Mali is
> al-Qaida "They are a threat to our country, they are a threat to the
> world," Panetta said.>
> >
> http://news.yahoo.com/us-helping-hesitant-mali-intervention-075210491.html
> ]
> >
> > ---
> >
> >
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sept-11-authorization-not-applicable-to-mali/2013/01/18/0611d8be-60c1-11e2-bc4f-1f06fffb7acf_story.html
> >
> > Sept. 11 authorization not applicable to Mali
> > Published: January 18
> >
> > The choices that U.S. officials are reportedly considering for a
> military intervention in Mali have grave implications [“U.S. weighs
> military aid for France in Mali,” news story, Jan. 16]. The Post reported
> that a senior U.S. official said, “Contingency plans for the use of armed
> drones were already in place and are being reevaluated.” Congress has not
> authorized U.S. military action in Mali. Without such authorization, the
> Obama administration cannot send armed drones to Mali under the War Powers
> Resolution.
> >
> > The administration might be tempted to try to invoke Congress’s 2001
> authorization for the use of force after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But
> as a Post editorial noted in November, “The further — in geography, time
> and organizational connection — that the drone war advances from the
> original al-Qaeda target in Afghanistan, the less validity it has under the
> 2001 congressional authorization. . . . [M]ost of the world is unlikely to
> accept an argument that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks justify drone strikes
> more than a decade later in Northern Africa.”
> >
> >
> > As The Post reported, some of the fighters likely to be targeted by
> France have nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the Sept. 11 attacks and are not
> a threat to the United States, so U.S. military action against them cannot
> be justified under the 2001 authorization.
> >
> > Robert Naiman, Urbana, Ill.
> >
> > The writer is policy director for Just Foreign Policy.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Robert Naiman
> > Policy Director
> > Just Foreign Policy
> > www.justforeignpolicy.org
> > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>


-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
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