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Blank Checks for War: Congress Has Abdicated Its Power From Tonkin to Gaza

As the 60th anniversary of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution approaches, it’s time to reflect on how Congress solidified its long-standing deference to the presidency on foreign policy and how the people can make their voices heard.

Christian Appy Aug 01, 2024, Common Dreams

With the U.S.- backed carnage in Gaza continuing and the threat of growing violence looming throughout the region (in Lebanon, Iran, and who knows where else), we need to think more deeply than ever about how the American people have historically been excluded from foreign policy decision-making. An upcoming anniversary should remind us of what sent us down this undemocratic path.

Sixty years ago, on August 7, 1964, U.S. Congress handed President Lyndon B. Johnson the power to wage a major war in Vietnam, solidifying its long-standing deference to the presidency on foreign policy. Not once since World War II has Congress exercised its constitutional responsibility to vote on declarations to decide if, when, and where the United States goes to war.

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964 flew through Congress, in part because most members trusted the president’s assurance that he sought “no wider war.” Their trust was misplaced. The Johnson administration kept secret and lied about its plans for future military escalation in Vietnam. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Congress, for its part, continues to enable an ever more imperial presidency that decides when and where the U.S. goes to war. It almost never uses the power of the purse to reduce U.S. militarism or to cut funding for unpopular wars. The nearly trillion-dollar Pentagon budget is rubber-stamped every year……………………………………………

We have seen, in the last 10 months, an unprecedented outpouring of American protest in support of Palestinian rights. For good reason. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, and many of them children, have been killed by the Israeli military’s indiscriminate and disproportionate response to the Hamas killing of some 1,100 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Around 1.7% of the Gazan population (2.3 million) have been killed and at least 90% displaced from their homes (many have had to flee multiple times). A recent study by the medical journal The Lancet, estimates that the death toll in Gaza could reach 186,000 even if there is a cease-fire today.

For most Americans, this level of suffering is unimaginable. Yet we must try to imagine it. If we were Gaza, at least 5.7 million of us would be dead, the vast majority women, children, and other civilians. Many millions more would be among the uncounted dead and dying—buried, lost, sick, starving. More than 300 million of us would be forced from our homes, on the road seeking shelter, food, and water under ongoing military attacks and perils beyond description.

That is the reality in Gaza.

In the end, only a mass democratic movement has the potential to dramatically change U.S. foreign policy. The first challenge is to overthrow the baseless claim that the United States is the greatest force for good in the world, the “indispensable nation” that stands for the rule of law, freedom, and democracy. Our record does not warrant such a delusion. Only when that ideology and naïve faith is broadly undermined can we hope to chip away at the long-standing infrastructure of U.S. militarism—the over 750 military bases on foreign soil, the annual military exercises in two-thirds of the world’s nations, and the “defense” budget that equals the next nine most militarized nations combined.

Ellsberg and Morse were right. The people must know the truth. But we have long had more than enough evidence to demand fundamental changes in U.S. foreign policy. We can’t wait for Congress to represent us faithfully. The people’s voice must be heard.  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-blank-checks-war

August 3, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA