The Levin Resolution would not have subordinated U.S. policy on Iraq to the UN

[flpoljunkie]

AT DEMOCRATIC DEBATE, CLINTON STUMBLES ON IRAQ...

Things were going swimmingly for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at tonight's Democratic debate in California until the subject of Iraq came up midway through.

When asked to explain for her vote to approve the war, Clinton began to stumble. She was queried specifically about why, during the debate about whether to invade Iraq in the fall of '02, she voted against a resolution, sponsored by Michigan Senator Carl Levin, that would've asked the United Nations to approve a use of force authorization against Saddam Hussein before the US Congress did. Clinton responded that she didn't want to "subordinate" US policy to the UN.

But that's not what the resolution would have done. Instead, it recognized that a UN-resolution would have given the US far greater legitimacy and was the preferable course of action and perhaps the only means of getting Saddam Hussein to peacefully disarm. "This resolution doesn't determine that we won't go alone if the United Nations does not promptly act to authorize force," Levin said on the Senate floor on October 4, 2002. "It withholds judgment on that very different and difficult issue. It does provide that the President can convene us quickly to authorize going it alone should the U.N. fail to act."

Here's how the New York Times described it:

The amendment called, first, for the U.N. to pass a new resolution explicitly approving the use of force against Iraq. It also required the president to return to Congress if his U.N. efforts failed and, in Senator Levin's words, ''urge us to authorize a going-it-alone, unilateral resolution.'' That resolution would allow the president to wage war as a last option.

<>...Clinton has still not accounted for her vote against the Levin amendment, which she failed to debate on the floor of the Senate. A day later, she voted to authorize the war. At tonight's debate, Clinton said she was voting to keep UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. But Obama made the correct point that everyone in the Senate knew what they were voting for at the time. After all, Obama noted, the war resolution was titled, "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=278569

[GalleryGod]

1. "Stumbles" is putting it nicely; she walked in to a "tunnel of further confusion" last night.

HERE'S the SHORT HAND for DUERS:

LEVIN AMENDMENT : WRONG on DAY #1

IWR VOTE : WRONG on DAY #1



:nopity: :argh:

[lapfog_1]

2. The Carl Levin resolution was a trap for Bush.

There wasn't any way that the UN was going to vote for use of force against Saddam. Too many countries with veto power would have opposed it.

Bush NEEDED the cover of the existing UN resolutions to build the flimsy coalition that he did, because he needed to sell the war HERE as something similar to Gulf War I. Dozens of allies, over quickly, minimum casualties, shared costs. Going to the UN and failing to get a UN resolution specifically approving the use of force and THEN coming back to sell a preemptive unilateral war of aggression was going to be harder than selling it as a consequence of Saddam failing to comply with previous UN resolutions.

Bush didn't want the Carl Levin resolution.

Hillary didn't vote for Carl's version. Hillary wanted to appear "tough" and was being pressured by some of her strongest supporters in NY... namely members of AIPAC. Hillary enabled Bush by voting for the White House version and not Levin's.

To be fair, she wasn't the only Dem to do so.

But, I think the vote, and her tortured explanations about it, show a lack of judgment on her part. And she should not be President because of it.

The Iraq war may be the single largest disaster to hit the US. Our economy is in trouble mostly due to the Iraq war, the value of our currency is depressed because of the Iraq war, our standing in the world community has suffered tremendous damage because of the Iraq war. Our military is blunted and broken because of the Iraq war. Iraq is NOT Vietnam, it may be far WORSE. Our moral authority as a country that does not engage in wars of aggression is gone. I don't think we get it back anytime soon.

And while I hold Bush and his neocons mostly responsible, it's time we held up a mirror and looked at ourselves too. Plenty of people went along with it. And people in a position of power, like Hillary and the other Senators that voted for the IWR, should be held accountable as well. It would not bother me in the least to have every last Senator that voted for it resign. Even though we would lose some very good and decent Democratic Senators in the process.

[KittyWampus]

3. AIPAC sadly has influenced far too many of our policies. They don't have the US's best interests atr

heart. Nor Israel's.

Self-serving, power hungry bullies and greedy, callous warmongers.

[BootinUp]

4. I get it

the Levin amendment was just a refusal to give authority, a refusal to force Sadaams hand, just like the repukes wanted the Dems to do 2 weeks before an election. Would have worked out great, I doubt after the election slaughter that would have ensued that Bush would still want to invade Iraq. /sarcasm

[stillcool]

5. I suppose that rationale..

could be (is) used for every single thing the Democrats have allowed to happen over the last 7 years.

[BootinUp]

6. I suppose your rationale could be used to blame

Democrats for everything that has happend in the last 7 years. :puke:

[stillcool]

7. I did not post a 'rationale'...

for Democrats folding. You did. Or are you replying to the wrong post?

[BootinUp]

8. Lets talk about folding

Folding is what you do when you do not have a superior hand to win the pot in your estimation, or because the other side has bluffed you into thinking their hand is stronger, or because you do not think you can bluff the other side.

The pot would have gone to the repukes regardless whether the Dems folded. We would still have invaded.

There is nothing wrong with folding if it allows you to play the next hand instead of going home early.

[stillcool]

9. Thanks for the explanation

I understand your position. You are obviously content with the Democrats in Congress.

[UALRBSofL]

10. Just my belief

I don't know what went on in the back rooms but my belief is the Bush/Rove/Chaney et al manipulated the american people into believing there were WMD's and that Saddam was using them as a means to promote his dictatorship and was harboring terrorists that were responsible for 9/11. There was tons of documentation of "yellow cake in niger", "plutonium rods for nuclear reactors that could be converted into nuclear bombs etc", and, anyone that crossed there paths were put on a hit list(Valery Plame outing), and because they produced so much glaring evidence that this existed, people had to make a decision based on false information. The inspectors were there for months unable to find anything and Bush made the decision to attack Iraq without the actual proof and warned the inspectors to get out of Iraq, but continued with his false documentation/information. Hillary among a lot of democrats did vote for this but I distinctly remember Clinton arguing in senate to let the inspectors finish. Actually all the democrats argued this point but Bush et al turned an ear. So, yes, she voted wrong, I agree, but, I'm not going to hold that up as a means to say I don't think she would make a good president.