Saturday, March 23, 2013

Former Senator Jim Webb criticizes U.S. Congress for “abdicating its role” to the president


Virginia’s very own Jim Webb, a Veteran, former legislator, and historian, has not been out of his U.S. Senate seat for three months and is already criticizing the U.S. Congress “of abdicating its role of overseeing the nation’s use of military power and its agreement with foreign leaders.”[1]

According to Jim Webb, the U.S. Congress has “increasingly” stood back and watched as George W. Bush and Barrack Obama have taken unilateral actions abroad that the U.S. Congress should have been consulted about.

Webb didn’t spare either party from the bulls-eye of his criticism, saying that both parties are to blame for focusing more on party loyalty and not enough on challenging the presidential use of military power abroad.

To Jim Webb, our Congress today “is not the Congress, fiercely protective of its powers, that I dealt with regularly during the four years I spent as an assistant secretary of defense and as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan.”[2]

Indeed, the U.S. Congress appears to have made a collective decision, whether overtly or not, to allow the President of the U.S. unheard of powers to conduct military operations overseas in order to deflect blame away from themselves while reaping the benefits of any perceived “victories” on foreign soil. That is, the U.S. Congress wants to have their cake and eat it too.

Whether it is President Obama, President Bush, or a president yet to be voted into office, the concerns of Americans should remain the same: too much executive power can be disastrous to natural rights.

While we can all believe that presidents who use their executive power are doing so with the best of intentions, the quickest road to hell is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes. President’s Obama and Bush may have had the best of intentions when they fought and continued to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the unintended consequences (as well as the intended consequences) of their executive overreach could well reverberate and weaken the principles that govern who we are as Americans.

The use of unmanned aerial drones in Afghanistan, its technology and experienced personnel, is already being considered as a government tool here in the U.S., a tool supposedly to halt crime, track down suspected criminals, and the like. But how often have we witnessed the use of supposedly benign technology by the government to eavesdrop, intimidate, and eliminate the notion of privacy (e.g., wires for eavesdropping; GPS to place on the vehicles of suspected criminals; cell phone technology to retrieve text messages, etc.)?

While the users of these powerful technologies may well believe they are committing a public service, the greatest action is often inaction, not the blind attempt at a justice that slowly undermines the principles that make the U.S. unique in world history. 


[1] http://hamptonroads.com/2013/03/congress-having-breakdown-exsen-webb-laments
[2] http://hamptonroads.com/2013/03/congress-having-breakdown-exsen-webb-laments

No comments:

Post a Comment