Pimping USA: Tulsi Whacks Trump for Indicating War with Iran

Via Gumshoe News

This is a most interesting presidential race. There is a candidate who is also a major in the US Army (by way of the National Guard) and who is well-versed in — are you sitting down?  — the Constitution’s allocation of the power to make war.

Which is to say that she, Rep Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, knows that the Constitution does not allocate any war-making power to the President. None. Zilch. Cipher. Prez ain’t got the right to declare war against Nation A, Nation B, or Nation C.

Huh? Isn’t he the commander in chief of the armed forces? Yup.  He can command them in war all he likes, but only after Congress (both Houses, by majority) agree that that we want war. For the record, the legal rule about war-making is located in Article I, sec 8, clause 1 of the parchment.

Pimp Me Twice

The current argument, however, between the White House and The House (as personified by “Miss Hawaii”) is not only about the power to declare war. It is about a president’s right to delegate his (non-existent) war-making power to the leader of another nation.

WHAT? Who would do that? Trump, according to Tulsi, has told the Saudi king that he can use American soldiers in accordance with his kingly desire du jour.  Trump said (honest, he said this in plain English):

“Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed.”

Note that the president said “We are waiting to hear who they believe was the cause of the attack” [Iran] — as if it would not be our duty to determine that extremely important matter. And, stunningly, we are waiting for foreign direction to “proceed.”

Tulsi has reduced this to a word — Trump is pimping US soldiers. Shades of Deborah Palfrey!

Rep Gabbard was born in 1981 — ten years before the US’s Operation Desert Storm to help Kuwait. So she may or may not know about the uproar among troops that occurred in 1991, when a Kuwaiti guy arrogantly said: “We don’t have to fight because our American slaves are doing it for us.”

Pimp me once, shame on me, pimp me twice, shame on you — as the saying goes.  No Congressperson put a up a fuss when the Kuwaiti guy called us his slaves (as far as I remember), but this particular female legislator went ballistic yesterday.

As well she might. Warring against Iran could be the death of us all. I will get back to Trump’s “locked and loaded” statement later. Let me run down the situation generally.

Our Middle East Wars, An Overview

Americans have come to think that we somehow have chores to perform in the Middle East. Actually, we don’t.  So let’s see why people think we do.  Some think it is related to Muslim attacks on our soil (New York, Boston, etc.)
9-11  and the AUMF

On September 11, 2001, a force attacked New York City. Within hours, Paul Bremmer of the McLellan Marsh Insurance Company (he owner of Kroll Associates, a CIA proprietary) was on TV saying it was done by Osama Bin Laden. Note: he should have been in his office at that moment which was on the 93rd floor of the North Tower just where the explosion occurred.

Islamic blame having been thus established, it took a mere seventy-two hours for Congress to pass, on  September 14th, a joint resolution known as AUMF:

“Whereas, on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens; and

“Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad; and

“Whereas… blah blah — (three more Whereas’s).  Now, therefore, be it  Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled …

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons….”

The name AUMF means Authorization to Use Military Force.  Rep Barbara Lee, alone, voted against it. I say: All hail, Barbara — queen of common sense and decency!

Getting Afghanistan

On October 8, 2001 we invaded Afghanistan.  That was a war that had been planned for months, without regard to 9-11, but with regard to a pipeline deal.  Americans, though, were propagandized to think  is was to get the man who did the WTC attack (by way of hijacked planes) and who was now hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. That is, Osama bin Laden, who is not an Afghani but is a Saudi national. His brother Salim bin Laden is on the board of the Carlyle group along with the older George Bush, funnily enough.

That Afghanistan war is still happening after 18 years. Rep Tulsi Gabbard quotes a figure of $4 billion per month in taxpayer money to keep it going. ($6  trillion for all these adventures since 9-11).

A real possibility is that troops are “needed” to guard the poppy fields, from which heroin is produced.  See my discussion of Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan here.

Iraq Had Three Wars

1. The Iran-Iraq war

From 1981 to 1989 Ronald Reagan was president and it appears to me that his vice president, George Bush, who had formerly been a CIA Director, really ran the White House. In the years 1980 to 1988 there was a bloody war between Iraq and Iran. We supplied both sides with weapons — which is kind of lousy when you think of it. Which side did we hope would win? Neither. (So that’s even lousier, right?) It was a war to wear the people down. US troops did not take part.

2. The Kuwait Invasion by Saddam

By 1990 (with Poppy Bush now president), Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, our ally, complained that neighboring Kuwait, was diagonal drilling to scoop oil from under Iraqi land.  So he invaded Kuwait in August 1990. A transcript furnished by Iraq shows  US Ambassador, April Glaspie telling Saddam “Do as you please.” Nevertheless, our troops  assisted the Kuwaiti’s (allegedly as their slaves) and attacked Iraq from the air, killing around 100,000 people.

Congress did not vote for that war. When Bush said he was planning an “offensive military operation,” fifty-four members of Congress, led by Ron Dellums, marched down to the DC federal courthouse to seek  an injunction.  District Court Judge Harold Greene, denied their request on December 13, 1990, on the basis of “ripeness” — not enough Congressmen had joined in, and there was still time for war to be avoided diplomatically, he said.

The invasion began in January 1991 with a “shock and awe” display over Baghdad.  Recall that the alleged cause of the war was to help Kuwait against Saddam. Thus it is not surprising that the US was able to get many countries to contribute to this war effort — including Arab countries, such as Syria and the UAE (where I happened to be living at the time).

3. The “WMD” Excuse for 2003 Invasion of Iraq

In March 2003, Iraq was jointly invaded by US, UK, and Australian forces. The reason? (I mean the stated reason?) It was to make sure Saddam did not use WMD — weapons of mass destruction.  US Secretary of State Colin Powell, aided by John Negroponte, shame on the pair of them, reported to the United Nations that Iraq had obtained yellow cake from Nigeria for the making of nuclear weapons. Powell also said anthrax was on the menu.

Most Americans believe Iraq had something to do with 9-11, even though Bush, Jr actually stated explicitly that there was no connection. Millions of people around the world protested the US’s aggression in Iraq.  France, normally our ally, would not participate. (So we had to rename French fries “Freedom fries.” Very mature, huh?)

The Department of Defense calculated in 2016 that 4,400 US military died from the 2003 invasion of Iraq and 32,000 were wounded.  Australia had sent 2,000 soldiers; none were killed in combat but 6 died in accidents.

General Wesley Clark’s List

In 2007, US Army General Wesley Clark (b 1944) went on TV, to Amy Goodman’s show, and reported that he had seen a memo in late 2001 at the Pentagon.  It said that we would wipe out 7 nations: Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, “finishing off with Iran.” Most of those are shown on the above map, except the two African nations: Sudan is south of Egypt, and Somalia is on the eastern horn, near Ethiopia.

(Afghanistan did not need to appear on Clark’s late-2001 list of planned invasions, as the US already had boots on the ground there.)

You may wonder how the plan worked out. We did indeed wreck Somalia and Libya. Sudan fell apart but I do not know if we were involved there. We have attacked Lebanon, and Syria sporadically.

The usual excuse for our military action is that a brutal dictator in the targeted nation is “cruel to his own people.” or they are Islamic terrorists. For Lebanon or Iran, the reason is that they threaten the survival of Israel, “our best ally.”

Congress did not authorize the above invasions, as the AUMF was considered sufficient. (Translate: legislators do not want to discuss war.) Please cast your eyes back to the Resolution above. The AUMF is only for nations that caused the 9-11 deaths — which is to say, ourselves.

Locked and Loaded for a Strike on Iran

And now we come to the biggie.  Tulsi Gabbard cleverly expended her anger on the outrageous statement by Trump that he’ll let Saudi have a say in our war decision. Thus the young Army major was able express the problem as a soldier issue — Trump is “pimping” American soldiers. But her real fear is about the locked and loaded comment. She senses war.

I must not pretend that I understand what weapons are on site in Iran, or for that matter, Russia or Israel. I do you no good as an advisor, regarding  the winnability of a war.  Tulsi says it would bring far more horror than we have seen so far. I say flat-out we should not proceed.

Maybe there is good reason to attack? Fine. Let it all be discussed and let us have our Congressman vote based on the real factors. Let’s insist on transparency. Enough of the Freedom fries mentality.

The Constitution must prevail. I have sued in court twice to make a president follow the rules,  but the judiciary — as in the case of Judge Greene above — will not protect the Constitution.  The Great Nine are taking their cue from someone above them, which is pretty frightening.

Note: only one war-powers case ever made it to the Supreme Court. In Massachusetts v Laird, the state of Massachusetts sued the feds over the Vietnam call-up, but SCOTUS was not moved.

Who is going to save us from a reckless shootout with Iran, leading potentially to Russia getting involved?

You are.

Have some responsibility, will you please? If you are American, look how you let others carry the can — to your detriment.  Australians, too, were stooges in the Vietnam tragedy and the destruction, wholesale, of Iraq.

Get clear on this — Trump’s boys are locked and loaded. You don’t want them to be locked and loaded.  You don’t want an attack on Saudi to be interpreted as having come from Iran, when it’s far more likely that it is a false flag.

We in the US have been making war on the basis of a false flags since the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898 (if not the firing on Fort Sumpter in 1863!). The Baby Boomer generation is familiar with the Gulf of Tonkin false flag — 50,000 US men died in Vietnam as a result. (Not to mention two million Vietnamese.)

And as with Saddam, the Iranians today are said to be making WMD, weapons of mass destruction, notably nukes.  In 1898, Randolph Hearst, media mogul of his day, authored the slogan “Remember the Maine!”  How about “Remember Colin Powell!”

Fool me into war once, shame on you.  Fool me into war twice, shame on me.

Who Is the Trouble-maker?

May I take you back again to General Wesley Clark spilling the beans, for whatever reason, in 2007, about the Pentagon memo. That piece of paper calmly announced that the US — you and I — would WIPE OUT SEVEN COUNTRIES — REPEAT: WIPE OUT SEVEN COUNTRIES — “finishing off with Iran.”  Almost said as cavalierly as one would say “We’ll finish off  the dinner with lemon pie.”

In her speech yesterday, September 17, 2016, Tulsi Gabbard said that, as an officer in the Army, she took an oath to defend the American people and the Constitution.  That is not strictly correct. Defending the people is not mentioned. I’d like you to pay close attention to the oath that all officers take:

I ______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.

We have domestic enemies galore and it is they who will draw us into the hell of a lifetime.  Sure, it’s embarrassing to talk about that. The polite thing is to look the other way or gloss over it.  OK then, the solution must be: get over your embarrassment problem. Enough with the politeness already!

Stop the world, for pity’s sake. Call a spade a spade.   Don’t start a war with Iran!

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