The mini-wars in Panama and Grenada were turkey shoots, finished within the 60 days. White House lawyers are no doubt preparing various arguments. They might assert that because Campbell s resolution to terminate the bombing was rejected, the House didn t not tell the President to stop. They might point to congressional approval of spending for the Kosovo operation as all the permission that is needed. Or the Clinton mouthpieces might challenge the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a measure previous administrations have tried to wiggle around.
War is the most extreme action of government.
That question may soon be answered. In railing above about the right s narrow conception of the culture of death, I noted that cons who preach values politics don t get riled by U.S. weapons sales to thuggish and violent governments abroad. And more than a third of the 208 combat exercises conducted by the Pentagon with foreign troops involved training forces in countries that are not democracies. In Algeria, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, and in the Kurdish areas of Turkey, the study says, recipients of U.S. military support used U.S. arms and training in internal conflicts and repression. The fellow in the White House signing orders for bombing raids to stop ethnic cleansing doesn t do so with clean hands.