In October of 2002, I shocked many in my Congressional District and beyond by voting against giving President George W. Bush authorization to use military force in Iraq.
The night before that vote, my older sister told me a Knoxville television station had conducted a poll which found that in its viewing area 74 percent were for the war, 9 percent were against, and 17 percent were undecided.
When I pushed the button at about 3:00 the next day to cast that vote, I wondered if I might be ending my political career. My vote was so highly publicized that it was clearly the most unpopular thing I had ever done.
However, after three or four years and much to my amazement, that vote became the most popular of the more than 16,000 I cast during my 30 years in the U.S. House.
Unfortunately, the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that the Congress passed then is once again relevant because President Trump and his advisers seem to think it gives them authority to go to war in Venezuela without the declaration by Congress called for in our Constitution.
When we went to war in Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein’s total military budget was about 2/10 of one percent of ours. Venezuela’s is even less. Neither of those two countries were or are capable of attacking us in any serious way. Neither has even threatened to do so.
Two polls in late November by CBS News/YouGov and Reuters/Ipsos both showed that about 70 percent of the American people were opposed to going to war in Venezuela, and probably most of the other 30 percent did not really want such a war but just did not want to oppose President Trump.
While the overwhelming majority of the American people do not want more dangerous illegal drugs coming into this Country, far more drugs are coming from China and Mexico and various other places. If we take action against Venezuela, which country is next?
Just before we went to war against Iraq, U.S. News & World Report had a story headlined “Why The Rush To War?” We should be asking the same thing today.
I believe it is because most leaders around the world, and especially U. S. Presidents, realize they can’t really control the economy, but they have much more power over foreign policy and gravitate to it. They, their closest advisers, and military leaders seem to feel much more powerful and important if they can be seen as preparing for, threatening or even being involved in some war.
They all want to think of themselves or be seen as modern day Winston Churchills. Remember President Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, who famously said “What’s the point of having this superb military if you can’t use it?”
Too many of our leaders are far too eager to go to war. Some have been so eager they have even lied about it. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt both promised in their campaigns of 1916 and 1940 that they would not be sending American boys to fight on foreign battlefields.
And all leaders seem to believe and promise that their wars will be quick and victorious. Remember the promises about the “cakewalk” in Iraq?
They always greatly exaggerate the threats and vastly underestimate the costs. Both Presidents Bush made Saddam Hussein sound like the second coming of Hitler and talked about his “elite” troops. Then those same troops sometimes were shown surrendering to American camera crews or even empty tanks. Netanyahu has been crying for more than 30 years that Iran would have nuclear weapons within months.
In 2002, Lawrence Lindsey, a Harvard Professor who was President Bush’s main economic advisor, told the Wall Street Journal that a war with Iraq would cost $200 billion or more. He was fired a short time later.
When the Administration found that I was one of the very few Republicans who might oppose that war, I was called to the White House and put into a small secure room with then National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and the Director and Deputy Director of the CIA. Among several questions that I asked that day was how much it would cost.
Dr. Rice said it would cost about 50 or 60 billion, and “we will get some of that back from our allies.” Now, all these very unnecessary wars have cost us many trillions that we did not have. The creation of all this money has caused almost everything to cost about 10 times more than they would have if we had stayed home. Think about pickup trucks that have now reached $100,000 and average size homes that now reach $1,000,000 or more.
And thinking about eagerness to go to war, I doubt we have ever had a Secretary of Defense who has done less in the military but is more eager to use it than Pete Hegseth. He seems to always be trying to prove that he is super jock, macho man, gung-ho patriot, great warrior.
He makes me think about what President Eisenhower, who spent his career in the Army, once told his Chief of Staff, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster: “God help the Nation when it has a President who doesn’t know as much about the military as I do.” (or Secretary of War). quoted in the book “Ike’s Bluff” by Evan Thomas.
Eisenhower also said in a radio address from London sometime after World War II: “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
Finally, I wish President Trump would occasionally re-read these great words from his own Inaugural Address: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars we end, or perhaps more importantly, the wars we never get into.”
