House Votes Against Attacking Iran

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

A bipartisan House majority (250 - 170) passed an amendment to the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), opposing executive power to attack Iran without congressional authorization.

In late June, a similar Senate amendment was defeated, despite passage by a 50 - 40 majority

Under Senate rules, 60 votes were needed to pass the amendment. Nine of the 10 senators not voting are Republicans. All seven Senate Dem presidential aspirants supported the measure.

Will the House vote make a difference, even if the Senate yields to its action during the reconciliation process to smooth NDAA passage? 

Even with congressional enactment of an anti-war against Iran amendment, it's highly unlikely to deter Trump regime hardliners, including DJT, from attacking the country preemptively if this is their intention.

The US hasn't formally declared war on a nation it attacked, nor done it legally, since December 8, 1941 — following Japan's Pearl Harbor attack, turning pacifist congressional members and the public into raging imperial Japan haters.

Post-WW II, the White House on its own authorized preemptive wars on one country after another, none threatening US security.

Millions of casualties and vast destruction in multiple theaters attest to US barbarity. In all its wars of aggression, Congress was complicit by providing required funding.

Without it, wars can't be waged. The Wall Street owned and controlled Fed is also complicit in US wars by printing money required to wage them, Congress never objecting once launched.

Nor has the UN, supporting US aggression by not squarely opposing it rhetorically or enlisting member states against it.

If the Trump regime intends war on Iran, it's coming. Neither hell, high water, or a congressional opposing majority will stop it — even though its members have no legal power to authorize war on any nations.

Security Council members alone may authorize it, never preemptively for any reasons under the UN Charter.

It's only legal in self-defense by a nation if attacked or an attack is clearly imminent — never for any other reasons the way the US repeatedly operates.

All its post-WW II wars were and continue to be against nonbelligerent countries unwilling to subordinate their sovereign rights to unacceptable US interests.

That makes them targets for regime change, naked aggression Washington's favored strategy of choice.

A super-majority of congressional profiles of courage (that never existed in the nation's history) could prevent all US wars of aggression two ways — by refusing to fund them, along with impeaching and removing from office a sitting president for defying their authority, going to war on his own, and committing high crimes against peace.

These are slam-dunk impeachable offenses. If Congress acted against them, most earlier US presidents would have been removed from office and held responsible for the highest of high crimes.

The same goes for the current incumbent, a war criminal multiple times over, belonging in prison, not high office — the same true for Obama, Bush/Cheney, the Clintons, and most of their predecessors.

Other ways to slow or stop the US war machine would be by overwhelming public anti-war activism and/or by White House failure to enlist coalition partners to attack another nation except in self-defense.

The US is a warrior state, waging endless wars on humanity at home and abroad. 

Because of congressional complicity, world community failure to challenge its aggression, and a largely silent public, virtually nothing stands in the way of White House authorized rape and destruction of one country after another.

The jury is very much out on whether the Trump regime will attack nonbelligerent Iran.

Taking this reckless step will open the gates of hell, unleashing potentially devastating consequences.

A Final Comment

In June, House members voted to repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) by a 226 - 203 majority. No Republicans supported the measure.

It has zero chance for enactment despite the AUMF flagrantly violating the UN Charter, the Security Council having exclusive authority on matters relating to warmaking — not presidents, prime ministers, legislators, or the courts.

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