Berkeley City Council Doing Its Anti-Democracy Bit

[Radar]

I'm not sure I understand what you're attempting to ask.

If a we are at war with a country, they are by definition at war with us. Generally speaking a war is over when either we, or the country we are at war with concedes defeat and surrenders.

Assuming we are in a legitimate and legal war... meaning we were attacked first and the country we are at war with is the country that attacked us...and congress has made a formal declaration of war (not granting "authority" to the president to make war or granting the government to use force because another country violated a UN resolution)...

If they surrender the war is over. We pack up our stuff and go home, or if the war happened here, we send them packing.

[Undertoad]

They surrender and then there is a negotiation of terms. In some cases the enemy is not permitted to have a standing army after the war. Partly because it is not real terms of surrender if they only mean to call time for a while, reconstitute and re-attack. It is a period during which there can either be terms that will lead to lasting peace, or terms that will lead to continuance of fighting.

There is a period during which the enemy has "given up" and no longer considers itself at war. According to your definition, we are still at war at that point.

At what point are we not at war?

[Radar]

We don't get to decide if a fallen enemy gets to have a standing army before, during, or after a war. Surrender terms do not mean giving up sovereignty unless the losing country is being acquired as part of an empire. Unless this is the case, we do not have the authority to build permanent military bases within their country. In fact we don't have the authority to have a military base there when the war is concluded.

We are not at war when we are at peace. When a country has surrendered and we have accepted their surrender, we are no longer at war.

When is a boxing match over? When someone either gives up, get's knocked out, or time runs out. With war, time is also an issue. The longer you are at war, the fewer resources you have to fight one.

We never had legitimate justification to invade Iraq in 1991 or at any time since then. Every soldier who went there did so in violation of the Constitution. Every bullet fired, ship prevented from taking in good, no fly zone, or bomb dropped was done so illegally.

[Undertoad]

Either the defeated country is absorbed or they get to have a standard army back immediately following surrender.

Just checking, is that in the Constitution?

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Either the defeated country is absorbed or they get to have a standard army back immediately following surrender.

Just checking, is that in the Constitution?

No, the Constitution just says the only valid use of the U.S. military is for defending America. That doesn't mean defending defeated enemies. That doesn't mean starting unprovoked wars like the one in Iraq. It doesn't mean provoking others into war either. It doesn't include anything other than defending America.

America was created to escape the tyranny of imperialism, not to practice it. This means the option of absorbing other nations into an empire is out. Therefore the only valid option for a DEFENSIVE military is to leave the defeated country and let them figure out how to defend themselves after we're gone.

Actually, unless another country attacks ours and then retreats home, our army should never fight any wars outside the borders of America and we should never have any military bases outside of our own borders unless such an extremely unlikely event actually occurs.

[deadbeater]

Originally Posted by Radar

No, the Constitution just says the only valid use of the U.S. military is for defending America. That doesn't mean defending defeated enemies. That doesn't mean starting unprovoked wars like the one in Iraq. It doesn't mean provoking others into war either. It doesn't include anything other than defending America.

America was created to escape the tyranny of imperialism, not to practice it. This means the option of absorbing other nations into an empire is out. Therefore the only valid option for a DEFENSIVE military is to leave the defeated country and let them figure out how to defend themselves after we're gone. That's how some countries view America.

An example of how good ideas get fucked up. America may not control a country per se but it does more or less control the country's GDP and the means of production. Imagine a Warren Buffett-type replacing Uncle Sam as the icon.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Radar

No, the Constitution just says the only valid use of the U.S. military is for defending America.

No it doesn't. While the Constitution mentions the common defense, defensive warfighting was not a shibboleth of the Founders. Indeed, the Constitution says essentially nothing about how foreign policy shall be conducted -- and a moment's thought will show you it shouldn't.

Lying in the service of antiimperialism, radar, is just plain ridiculous. Especially when we are the premier nonimperialist great power. It becomes ridiculous through lack of necessity.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

No it doesn't. While the Constitution mentions the common defense, defensive warfighting was not a shibboleth of the Founders. Indeed, the Constitution says essentially nothing about how foreign policy shall be conducted -- and a moment's thought will show you it shouldn't.

Lying in the service of antiimperialism, radar, is just plain ridiculous. Especially when we are the premier nonimperialist great power. It becomes ridiculous through lack of necessity.

Yes it does way that and I haven't lied. The phrase "Common defense" is repeated twice; once in the preamble describing one of the purposes of creating the Constitution and another in Article 1, section 8 when describing the limited powers of Congress. The phrase "Common Defense" defines and limits the role and scope of our military as being solely for the defense of America and for nothing else. It limits the war making powers of congress to being solely for the defense of America.

This isn't a lie. The liars are those who deny it. Also, your claim that America isn't an imperialist nation is laughable. America's government has saught to control other nations through bribes (foreign aid), threats, coercion, "nation building" (aka launching an illegal invasion and propping up leaders or dictators that are friendly toward the goals of the American government), using the U.N. as a tool, etc..

Neither America's military, nor it's wealth were created to "fill in the gaps" in places around the world that are lacking these things. America's military has one and only one purpose and that is to defend America from being attacked or invaded by hostile foreign armies. End of story. Anything else is a lie. Any use of America's military for any other purpose including peace keeping missions, humanitarian aid missions, enforcing UN resolutions, and any pre-emptive actions are 100% unconstitutional and illegal. They are a gross misuse of the military and anyone who orders or takes part in such actions is guilty of treason.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Radar

Yes it does way that and I haven't lied. The phrase "Common defense" is repeated twice; once in the preamble describing one of the purposes of creating the Constitution and another in Article 1, section 8 when describing the limited powers of Congress. The phrase "Common Defense" defines and limits the role and scope of our military as being solely for the defense of America and for nothing else. It limits the war making powers of congress to being solely for the defense of America.

This isn't a lie. The liars are those who deny it. Also, your claim that America isn't an imperialist nation is laughable. America's government has saught to control other nations through bribes (foreign aid), threats, coercion, "nation building" (aka launching an illegal invasion and propping up leaders or dictators that are friendly toward the goals of the American government), using the U.N. as a tool, etc..

Neither America's military, nor it's wealth were created to "fill in the gaps" in places around the world that are lacking these things. America's military has one and only one purpose and that is to defend America from being attacked or invaded by hostile foreign armies. End of story. Anything else is a lie. Any use of America's military for any other purpose including peace keeping missions, humanitarian aid missions, enforcing UN resolutions, and any pre-emptive actions are 100% unconstitutional and illegal. They are a gross misuse of the military and anyone who orders or takes part in such actions is guilty of treason.

False Wacko.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Radar

The phrase "Common defense" is repeated twice; once in the preamble describing one of the purposes of creating the Constitution and another in Article 1, section 8 when describing the limited powers of Congress. The phrase "Common Defense" defines and limits the role and scope of our military as being solely for the defense of America and for nothing else. It limits the war making powers of congress to being solely for the defense of America.

I thought you'd try this one. But you run aground on the question of what the common defense truly is. Who, being an American and having business in foreign parts, would exclude American business interests from inclusion under the common defense rubric regardless of where those American business interests are? American interest has always been more or less global and globalized. In practice there is no definable endpoint to where the common defense of Americans and of American interests lies. This is particularly true in nations where property rights are not secure from official cupidity -- and these nations are numerous. They do not secure property rights well, which leaves it to our government's protective function to cover for our nationals, on the assumption somebody has to or the economy goes to pot and everyone's poor, because no one can do business if his gains are euchred from him. In the fourteenth century, this happened to the Chinese iron smelting industry -- it was wiped out inside of ten years and it never returned. It took the laissez-faire of Europe to make a success, and a general prosperity, of large scale efficient smelters.

Your approach is only workable in the absence of any other nation over the entire Earth -- and for that matter, the complete absence of foreigners, as well. Is this even clinically sane? The vehemence with which you adhere to this suggests intense xenophobia -- your whole "screw the rest of the planet, they don't get to be free or wealthy as far as I'm concerned -- if I'm concerned at all" attitude, that is. One can scour your posts for any interface with other lands, languages, or cultures, and come up with -- zero. Strategically, this is unconscionable, and that calls for reading between your lines, to diagnose what's behind the screen of words. What I'm seeing isn't pretty.

The clauses containing the term common defense do not limit the role and scope of our military -- as the whole, every last syllable, of historical precedent demonstrates. You pointedly avoid acknowledging this reality. What does that say about you? I say you worship the golden calf of bullheadedness. Fortunately, I do not.

They are a gross misuse of the military and anyone who orders or takes part in such actions is guilty of treason.

A bullheaded eccentric who yells "Treason! Traitor!" at every second opportunity is guilty of ranting each time he does so, and can make no defense -- not even a Constitutional one, particularly if you actually are a strict constructionist, at which point you have to confine your definition of treason to the Constitution's: if I haven't made war upon the United States, I am innocent of treason; if I haven't given aid and comfort to America's enemies, I'm innocent of treason. Since I cannot be sanely imagined to have done either, you do the math. You rant, and your narcissistic personality makes you thoroughly unfit to do politics -- it keeps you from exercising judgement. Really, by your reasoning, every government employee anywhere at any time who ever formed or executed policy from 1776 onwards is "guilty of treason." Hard to credit, putting it mildly.

[TheMercenary]

[Undertoad]

Therefore the only valid option for a DEFENSIVE military is to leave the defeated country and let them figure out how to defend themselves after we're gone.

They're taken over by the nearest neighbor. Japan 1945 is taken over by China... and slaughtered. It's not really your ideal outcome.

[Radar]

Nobody said it was ideal. Perhaps after torturing and murdering millions of Chinese, that should have been the fate of Japan. Japan killed more Chinese than the Germans killed Jews or Russians.

Although if we minded our own business and didn't provoke Japan the way we did, we probably wouldn't have had to fight them at all and wouldn't have to worry about China taking over Japan. Japan might have a big part of China though.

[deadbeater]

Er, Radar, the US Gov't eventually would have to fight Japan over Pacific Ocean superiority. They left most of the fighting over China and the Korean Penisula to the USSR and and to the natives.

One of the reasons they hurried the war with Japan in WW2 was because the USSR declared war on Japan a few days before Japan surrendered. Can't have Russia take over the Japanese archipelago.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by deadbeater

Er, Radar, the US Gov't eventually would have to fight Japan over Pacific Ocean superiority. They left most of the fighting over China and the Korean Penisula to the USSR and and to the natives.

One of the reasons they hurried the war with Japan in WW2 was because the USSR declared war on Japan a few days before Japan surrendered. Can't have Russia take over the Japanese archipelago.

Hell we could just split the world up between Russia, China, and us. But of course you know that the rest of the world would not really stand for that and sooner or later Russia or China would want what we had.