As a blog committed to transpartisanship, TFL enjoys exchanging ideas, even with those with whom we disagree. Adam Baney, whose latest comments use terms that are associated with great frequency with “neoconservative” thinkers, seems to bristle a bit at the label. I retract the use of the label in his case.

Still, when an author uses the term “get us all killed,” that is rhetoric that neocons use, frequently so. It is, in my opinion, noxious, overstated rhetoric, designed to incite fear and a sense of vengeance among the American people. Baney himself has not countered my point that the US is, at this stage in history, “non-conquestable.” Other members of the nuclear club could inflict grave damage, but the US nuclear-weapon stockpile makes such an attack unfathomable, as the US response would be cataclysmic. Hundreds of millions of Islamic jihadists or, say, Chinese infantry landing, say, in Baltimore or San Francisco and fanning out across the 50 states is equally unfathomable.

In and of itself, that is a remarkable historic achievement. We live in the first nation in history that seems utterly immune from foreign military takeover. (I suppose the “Martians” could do it, but let’s put that one aside where it should be: On the science fiction shelves.)

This “get us killed” rhetoric sickens me in its overstatement. I can’t know, but the neocons that popularized it in recent years are dealing in the basest form of manipulative demonization in many, many years. It’s the worst sort of “chaff”; we here at TFL prefer to deal in “wheat.”

Some specific responses seem in order:

Should the leaders of our government consult with Robert Capozzi every time they feel there is a threat to national security?

No. While I’d be happy to serve in that capacity, it’s not at all what I’m suggesting, nor is this silly thought remotely likely.

My point is that our government must be able to do the job it's intended to do.

Yes! Yes! Yes! The intention is what “our government” should do, and, equally important, what it should NOT do. Baney may need a basic civics lesson, but one senses he’s at least read – at some point – the US Constitution. There, the intention of what the government’s job is laid out reasonably clearly. Relevant here is Article I, Section 8, which states: “The Congress shall have power to…declare war.”

Why is so hard to understand that it is impossible to have a framework of "adequate responses" to every world event. You write as if we should enact laws and guidelines for every conceivable event, then respond by the book.

It’s not at all hard to understand, but thank you. We can talk about exigent circumstances and give many examples of situations where it seems reasonable that the executive branch could use force to repel an invasion of the US, and even its embassies, or possibly even its allies. Does anyone disagree, however, that the US Constitution is the law of the land? Or that this is a nation of laws, not men, and certainly not autocrats? Or that the President has had ample time to ask Congress for a FORMAL declaration of war, and that Congress has had ample time to vote on it?

This country is not where it is today because we measured and calculated our response and took everyone's feelings in mind, we are the greatest nation because we ha(d) the wisdom to elect those willing to protect us.

Interesting way of putting it. Mine’s different. The US is a great nation by historical standards for entirely different reasons. Here are some of MY favorites:

• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
• “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Notice that powers are “derived” from the “governed.” Perhaps I missed something, but a constitutional republic is supposed to work whereby representatives of the people vote on matters of state, checked by the laws and, in the US’s case, the Constitution itself. A hardy and generally visionary bunch came up with this formula in the 18th century, and while I might personally quibble with some of the specifics, it seems to have worked pretty well. It certainly works far better than a monarchy.

The “blessings of liberty” are at stake here. Americans are waking up from the fearful fog of 9/11, and connecting the dots that the premise for the Iraq War was a pernicious fabrication, based on a range of miscalculations, misstatements, and mis-application of our own laws. It was not an act of “protection”; instead, it was the latest in a series of executive usurpations of powers that are, at best, extra-legal.

It’s time to get back to the basics.

-Robert Capozzi