The Senate has passed legislation ordering troops to begin coming home Oct. 1...

[Apocalypse]

Mike Gravel was fairly clear how to do it in the debate tonight.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Not terribly.

I think Beserkers reply is correct. That BY means that the Senate says "psst, by the way, end this war."

1) I have Berz on ignore. Thank you for not quoting him.

You have Berz on Ignore? hahahahahahaha Nice one, Berz.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

2) Give me evidence of the Senate ever ratifying a treaty not submitted to them by the President (or the Secretary of State, etc.) and I'll happily concede the point.

Lets put it simply:

A war ends with a treaty, unless one side declares unconditional surrender. The Constitution may give the President the power to present a treaty for the Senates approval...But the treaty only becomes law if THE SENATE approves it by 2/3 majority. In short, THE SENATE decides whether a war ends by signing on to an agreement.

And as I have said twice, if ever some president for some arcane or insane reason refused to submit a treaty to the Senate, which for some reason you seem to think is where the "power" residesin this case, then Congress, if united, would just impeach the President until it got someone more willing.

[Kuciwalker]

Lets put it simply:

Let's: the Senate cannot ratify a treaty that hasn't been submitted to them. Therefore the President ultimately has the power to preclude some treaties from ever being ratified.

A war ends with a treaty, unless one side declares unconditional surrender. The Constitution may give the President the power to present a treaty for the Senates approval...But the treaty only becomes law if THE SENATE approves it by 2/3 majority. In short, THE SENATE decides whether a war ends by signing on to an agreement.

THE SENATE consents to the treaty. And while we're on this tangent, if the Senate refused to ratify a peace treaty they'd have a real hard time getting the President to order troops to the war, both practically and Constitutionally. Yes, they can impeach, ultimately - but that's still a huge limitation on their power.

And as I have said twice, if ever some president for some arcane or insane reason refused to submit a treaty to the Senate, which for some reason you seem to think is where the "power" residesin this case, then Congress, if united, would just impeach the President until it got someone more willing.

Perhaps. Congress seems to be fairly unwilling to impeach presidents for actual misconduct.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
You have Berz on Ignore? hahahahahahaha Nice one, Berz.

I got tired of reading his quackery in science threads.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Lets put it simply:

Let's: the Senate cannot ratify a treaty that hasn't been submitted to them. Therefore the President ultimately has the power to preclude some treaties from ever being ratified.

THE SENATE consents to the treaty. And while we're on this tangent, if the Senate refused to ratify a peace treaty they'd have a real hard time getting the President to order troops to the war, both practically and Constitutionally. Yes, they can impeach, ultimately - but that's still a huge limitation on their power.

Perhaps. Congress seems to be fairly unwilling to impeach presidents for actual misconduct.

Obviously Berz doesn't have you on ignore, but he should, since in some ways you are worse than he is...Christ....

The Senate does not "consent", it Ratifies. It is an act of Congress that makes a treaty binding federal law.

As for impeachment, it is an inherently political act. You seem incapable of grasping the notion of a hypothetical situation.

I alreay laid out the precondition of Congress having it gotten into it's head to end a war. That assume then that the political consideration of ending this war would be paramount. UNder said conditions (which have no relation to any historical event, and therefore historical arguments are meaningless) all Congress needs is 51% of the House, and two thirds of the Senate to remove any President it felt was endangering the Republic.

The case you decided to add, that of a President refusing to carry out a war Congress wanted to continue is even more clear cut politically. Said president would clearly be committing treason, so why wouldn't a Congress boot their ass and find someone more ammenable to their wishes.

I won't argue this "point" any further, since it's not possible to lay out the point any more clearly. Get it through your silly little head that this is a HYPOTHETICAL issue, and certainly one that we have never seen, and are also highly unlikely to ever see.

[Kuciwalker]

The Senate does not "consent", it Ratifies.

I love those quote marks around "consent," because, well, that's a direct quote of the wording of the Constitution.

It is an act of Congress that makes a treaty binding federal law.

Not if by "act" you mean "law," since treaties are very different from ordinary laws and may or may not be self-executing.

As for impeachment, it is an inherently political act. You seem incapable of grasping the notion of a hypothetical situation.

You seem incapable of grasping my point. Impeachment is a theoretical power that has been used twice in as many centuries. Just because Congress can use it as a final recourse doesn't mean they're likely to.

The case you decided to add, that of a President refusing to carry out a war Congress wanted to continue is even more clear cut politically. Said president would clearly be committing treason

in any constitutional debate this almost automatically disqualifies you. Have you ever read the thing?

so why wouldn't a Congress boot their ass and find someone more ammenable to their wishes.

Because Congress is composed of 435 distinct individuals, and impeaching presidents is really hard.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by MrFun

Imagine if Bush signed this

Bush would be too stupid to sign a reasonable bill like this.

Ouch, a broken sense of humor and sense of imagination.

[Arrian]

In sum, you can't have it both ways. You can't withdraw combat troops from Iraq and still fight Al Qaeda there. If you believe there is no hope of winning in Iraq, or that the costs of victory there are not worth it, then you should be for complete withdrawal as soon as possible.

Quite so.

**** Joe Lieberman gently with a chainsaw... but he's right here.

-Arrian

[Ramo]

Not really. By the withdrawal of combat troops, most people exclude special forces, trainers, etc.. AQ remains a relatively insignificant part of Sunni insurgency (foreign fighters make up a miniscule portion of the folks we have detained there, and that's always been the case), and no one there particularly likes them (though there are alliances of convenience given our presence), so it's not exactly a huge committment. A reasonable case could be made that for precisely that reason, the extra effort needn't be made, but that's certainly not one Lieberman is going to make. 'Course the real reason why the Dems aren't advocating a complete withdrawal is to be able to intervene whenever the civil war goes too far, i.e. set piece battles (probably still on the side of the Shia).

Violence in Iraq is back to pre-"surge" levels, and Maliki's gov't is unable to get de-Ba'athification, the oil deal, etc. through Parliament, and is tottering on collapse after the Sadr defection. There is neither a breathing space nor diplomacy, so the apparent logic of our strategy is a bit lacking. Petraeus has said that he'd have an opinion about the "surge" by August, and only afterwards (soon afterwards, according to the Douchebag of Liberty) would we see Republican defections significant enough to override a veto. Until then, Congress'll probably pass a "clean" bill lasting a few months.

Regarding the Constitutionality of this legislation, as I said in the other thread, the cases arising from the quasi-war in France say that Congress has jurisdiction over specifying the geographic terms of a military action (and other details), precisely what this legislation does.

[Kuciwalker]

Violence in Iraq is back to pre-"surge" levels

Inside or outside of Baghdad?

[Ramo]

Exactly what I wrote (specifically, last month was deadlier than January). In all of Iraq

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Ramo
Not really. By the withdrawal of combat troops, most people exclude special forces,..

I don't see the basis for the distinction. Perhaps you could elaborate on what distinguishes someone in special forces from what you would call combat troops?

[Berzerker]

1) I have Berz on ignore. Thank you for not quoting him.

Actually he was quoting me as I was quoting the Constitution, the Prez shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties. His power comes from the Senate... Same as his power to be CinC comes from Congress exercising its power to declare war.

I love those quote marks around "consent," because, well, that's a direct quote of the wording of the Constitution.

We're quoting the Constitution, you aren't. What does "consent" mean if not permission to act? His power is triggered by the Senate's power to ratify treaties, he merely negotiates them.

2) Give me evidence of the Senate ever ratifying a treaty not submitted to them by the President (or the Secretary of State, etc.) and I'll happily concede the point.

Why? They're supposed to work together. You're going to use evidence of them working together as instructed by the Constitution as proof the Prez can ignore the Senate's wishes for a treaty? Thats illogical...

I got tired of reading his quackery in science threads.

Ironic, after all the insults I put up with from you it was a combination of my scientific "quackery" and your enlightened search for the truth that did the trick

[Ramo]

I don't see the basis for the distinction. Perhaps you could elaborate on what distinguishes someone in special forces from what you would call combat troops?

Don't really know, don't care, but that's a typical distinction made.