Crafty Obama Gives Congress What It Wants

There's an old adage: Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

The U.S. Congress has been fluttering its feathers and making noises about how Obama needs to “consult” with them before launching a military attack on the Assad regime in Syria, how he had to abide by the War Powers Act, etc. 140 Congressmen even signed a letter to Obama demanding a vote by Congress. [1]

Obama's obliged them. He says Congress will have to vote on a military attack.

Which means, of course, that if Obama does eventually attack, and things go badly, Congress will co-own the policy along with Obama.

Clever fellow.

Obama long ago proved he was a shrewd politician (and a totally amoral person, and cynical manipulator who is willing to make numerous false promises he never intended to keep in order to get elected).

I think he did the right thing here anyway, aside from the cynical, calculated, self-protective motive. The very same (GOP) politicians demanding an attack would be the first to criticize if things go badly. (They would have done things differently, of course, is what they'd say.)

But some people are never satisfied. Already Representative Peter King is complaining that Obama should NOT ask Congress to vote, because that undermines future Presidents. He couldn't even wait one day to attack Obama. (Oh, did I mention that King is a Republican? Is it even necessary to state something so obvious?) Needless to say, King would be criticizing Obama if Obama took action “unilaterally.” You can't win with some people- namely fanatical partisans of one's rival party. [2] But King can't be totally dismissed in this case. He says he's going to vote for the Congressional authorization Obama seeks, yet “I strongly believe that the commander in chief has the absolute right to take military action.” Furthermore, “The president seems like he's weak at every level.” (Well, not at the level of creating a super secret police state, for example.)

One of Assad's flunkies says the fact that Obama is going to Congress proves there's no evidence and it's all “a big lie.” Uh-huh, right, Bub.

“We have a President who does, what he says he's going to do,” says Sec. of State John Kerry, defending his boss. Well, sometimes.

Congress is sharply divided, and the division doesn't break down along partisan lines. Perversely, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, who have been loudly beating the drums for military action against Assad's regime for a long time now, both say they'll vote AGAINST Obama's permission slip, because it's too weak and they want more robust (i.e. more violent) U.S. military action. They should take the half loaf and keep pushing for a meaningful attack. At a minimum, Assad's air power must be largely destroyed, and key nerve centers of regime command and control degraded.

Unfortunately Obama is already signaling a weak and largely symbolic strike, stressing over and over how “limited” the putatively planned strike will be, how short in duration, even saying on the government-controlled TV network PBS (Thursday August 29^th) that it would be a “shot across the bow,” i.e. a warning shot! The time for that was back in April, after the first chemical weapons attack!

Earlier in the week it looked like Biden was elbowing Obama to attack, declaring that Assad had used chemical weapons, without a doubt. (This is similar to how Biden nudged Obama to declare for gay marriage rights, forcing his hand by doing it first.) Then Kerry gave a speech midweek blasting the Assad regime for the sarin attack and making it clear military retaliation would follow.

But then it wasn't so clear, because Obama suddenly pulled the rug out from under them. He announced that he would go to Congress, which isn't even in session, for a vote on the matter. The New York Times reports that Obama's top political and “national security” advisers opposed this.

But Kerry is a loyal trooper, just as when he was in the Navy in Vietnam, commanding a river patrol boat. He put the best face he could on this abrupt move by Obama.

Kerry made the rounds of the Sunday morning TV gab shows which function as platforms for the Washington D.C. political elite to discuss issues. Kerry had an obviously rehearsed line which it felt like he uttered fifty times in his various appearances on TV. For example, on ABC, in defense of Obama's decision to get a permission slip from Congress instead of ordering Bombs Away, he said “The United States is much stronger when we act in unity,” “and America is stronger when we act in unity.” Yeah, true, but probably the vote in Congress will be sharply divided, which will underline disunity. But Kerry is making the best of a bad situation. His boss, Obama, pulled the rug out from under him without warning. Asked why the Obama regime was “waiting,” he flatly asserted “we aren't waiting,” even though Congress doesn't come back into session until Sept. 9^th, and Obama did not call it back. (Just as well, since currently he would lose the vote.)

On Murdoch's reactionary Fox News Sunday TV elite politics show, Kerry insisted that the curveball Obama suddenly threw, announcing he's kicking the ball to Congress, is “a smart decision by the President, it's a courageous decision.” (Actually it's more like ducking and covering, covering his ass.)

Kerry also denied that he was blindsided by Obama's sudden pivot to Congress. “The Vice President a whole group of people believe it is a courageous decision,” he reiterated in his denial of what the media is reporting about Obama pulling a fast one on his own underlings.

Kerry repeated over and over the “we're stronger this way” line he trotted out in all his appearances. “I think we are stronger” by going to Congress, “America will show the face of our democracy and great strength,” and the delay is actually a good thing because “we can fine tune our strategy” (assuming you have one) and “find a unity of purpose here that makes us much stronger and is much more damaging for Assad.” (If only. In Syria, the regime's propaganda apparatus is crowing, calling it a “U.S. retreat.” I hope that's just bravado, but it's probably renewed confidence. This is a gangster regime, and gangsters are good at taking the measure of others.)

When someone has to assert so obsessively how “strong” they are, you have to wonder what weakness they're trying so desperately to cover up.

So going to Congress puts us in “a much stronger position,” Kerry insisted. He also denied, on TV show after show, that Obama would lose the vote in Congress. Pressed on “but what if you do, what will Obama do?” in every appearance he waffled, saying Obama still has the ability to order a strike, but carefully avoiding saying Obama would order an attack, even when he was asked directly on the programs that exact question. The hosts couldn't get Kerry to say Obama will order an attack if he loses the Congressional vote. (For that matter, can we even assume Obama will attack if he gets Congressional approval? Probably, I guess, but I wouldn't bet money on it.)

That gives me a sinking feeling. That is dangerously squishy. Obama obviously still isn't committed to making Assad pay a price for his latest atrocity.

It looks like Biden and Kerry were pushing a reluctant Obama. If he had made the Assad regime pay a price after the first use of chemical weapons, perhaps the regime would have been deterred from this much worse attack. Certainly not exacting a price only encourages more nerve agent attacks.

If the threats from Iran and Syria to attack Israel, for example, deter the U.S., while U.S. threats do nothing, than who is the more powerful? That turns the U.S. into a “pitiful, helpless giant” in Nixon's morbidly insecure words. Fear of unintended consequences is paralyzing if dwelled upon. To be sure, it is prudent to make careful calculations. Seems like Obama has done plenty enough of that already. It's time to act. The French, whom Americans habitually smear as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys,” seem to be harboring no Hamlet-like indecisiveness about this.(“To strike or not to strike, that is the question...”)

Congress might have to impeach Obama and let Biden do it, to avoid a disastrous loss of U.S. credibility and influence. (That was a joke, for you political unsophisticates out there.)

The worst of it is, where Obama should have spine, he doesn't and where he shouldn't, he's relentless and aggressive: persecuting whistleblowers, unauthorized exposers of state crimes, dissidents; crushing the Occupy Movement and others; creating a massive police state super-surveillance system, which he refuses to back off of one iota in the face of strong objections even from sections of the establishment; spying on and moving to criminalize journalists (AP, Fox News, the New York Times, and of course Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald and documentarian Laura Poitras) and even murdering at least one, Michael Hastings, or at least overlooking his murder. With Obama, you get the worst of both worlds. Weakness and vacillation where strength is required, and steely, remorseless resolve when it comes to repression and making repressive changes permanent. Obama is destroying investigative journalism, which alone radically changes American society. The permanent omnisurveillance state (NSA unleashed to collect and store all messages without limits in time or extent; cameras everywhere with face recognition, license plate recording and other technology; domestic drones, and god knows what else) whose creation Obama is overseeing will be irreversible, as it will be impossible to organize opposition or resistance. And this isn't just my opinion- cf. Chris Hedges, for example.

1] The War Powers Act “requires” the President to “notify” Congress after he launches a military attack. (See, Congressmen don't get news from TV, newspapers, radio, etc. like the rest of us do, so they need the President to tell them.) It was a face-saving maneuver by Congress to put a figleaf over the fact that they long ago ceded their war-making power to the President. (The U.S. Constitution, a Holy Document that is allegedly the fundamental law of the land, grants Congress the sole power to declare war. Yet for centuries presidents have waged military actions, including full-fledged wars as in Korea and Vietnam, without any such declaration of war by Congress.) For his own inscrutable reasons, Obama refused to obey even the pro forma requirements of the War Powers Act during the U.S. air campaign in support of the Libyan uprising against Qaddafi.

2] King is a vicious cretin who thinks Glenn Greenwald should be prosecuted for informing the public about the suffocating police state the NSA-FBI-CIA are putting in place. For good measure King libeled Greenwald on TV, claiming Greenwald “threatened to reveal” CIA officers' identities. Greenwald pointed out that not only did he do no such thing, he does not have such information. Anyone interested in hearing just how ignorant and thuggish this knuckle-dragging brute straight out of the 1950s is can watch news clips of him on youtube.com.