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February 02, 2007
| The Great War Powers Flip-Flop | Iraq Politics |
This post by Glenn Greenwald is fascinating.
The wingnuts love to say that President Clinton "emboldened" terrorists by "cutting and running" from Somalia after the Black Hawk Down incident in 1993. Something I didn't realize, pardon my ignorance, was that it was Republican senators who forced Clinton to withdraw by setting troop withdrawal deadlines and threatening further restrictions. The same Republican senators who today say Congress lacks the power to limit troop deployments to Iraq.
Leading the way, the great flip-flopper himself, John McCain, who in 1993 said:
Dates certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What is the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long — longer than necessary — then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home quickly and safely as possible. [Emphasis added]
As Glenn Greenwald says, the Constitution hasn't changed since 1993.
[Thanks, Ken]
Posted by Jonathan at February 2, 2007 10:09 AM
