Posted on Jul 28, 2015
Capt Walter Miller
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SPC Jan Allbright, M.Sc., R.S.
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Capt Walter Miller What I find interesting is that most treaties have had free trade increases imbedded in them. You would think that Republicans as Free Marketers would jump on the wagon! Conversely, Democrats who claim to protect the worker appear to readily support the treaties that facilitate the off shoring of US jobs.
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SSgt Forensic Meteorological Consultant
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Excellent points and even further complicated by legislation and bills that are so laden with pork and other agendas, it is hard to tell who is actually telling the truth and what those agendas might really be.
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1SG Civil Affairs Specialist
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I remember when we had treaties ratified by the Senate, in accordance with the Constitution, but that is not how we roll these days. I think that there is a distinct possibility that a veto proof majority votes against this "executive agreement" and that it will be bipartisan. It will get voted down because it allows the Islamic republic of Iran, an avowed adversary on virtually every issue, to pursue it's aims and frees up the resources for it to do so. If it works, President Obama will look visionary and Secretary Kerry has a shot at the Nobel Peace Prize. If it doesn't, they'll say that it was worth the risk. And they'll be out of office by the time we know, probably.

As for the article, it conveniently forgets the SALT treaties. And the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. It touches on the IMF treaty. All negotiated under the Reagan administration. The START treaty was negotiated under George HW Bush.
We have had 14 years of Democrat administrations since then, and there wasn't a whole lot of peacemaking going on. Plenty of foreign relations disasters, though. For all the talk that Republicans pound war drums and Democrats being peacemakers, if you look at history, long or short-term, the two parties are pretty consistent at launching military operations. You can try to make it a partisan issue, but it really isn't. Whoever is in power thinks it is a great idea to go on military operations, and the "loyal opposition" finds fault. Then the other party is elected, and the script flips.
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Capt Walter Miller
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"As for the article, it conveniently forgets the SALT treaties. And the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. It touches on the IMF treaty. All negotiated under the Reagan administration. The START treaty was negotiated under George HW Bush."

Alrighty. Are you saying that conservative voices supported them?

Walt
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1SG Civil Affairs Specialist
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Capt Walter Miller, a Democratic President did ask Congress to declare war on Japan (the last time a President bothered with this little Constitutional formality). It was supported by a bipartisan vote, for obvious reasons. War was never declared in the Civil War (Lincoln did not want to recognize the Confederacy as a legitimate government), and those of us old enough to remember when history was taught in school know that the South fired the first shots at Fort Sumter, leading to the Union to initiate a blockade - an act of war.
I won't go back to the beginning of time, but starting with Reagan:
Reagan (R) - Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, and a few small scale operations in Central America.
Bush I (R) - Panama, Gulf War, Somalia
Clinton (D) - Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Misc operations in Africa, and several bombing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
Bush II (R) - Afghanistan, Iraqi Freedom, Misc operations in Africa, OEF-Phillipines
Obama (D) - Yemen, Libya, Counter ISIS operations.

Looks pretty even to me.
As for the treaties, it takes an administration (generally speaking, the State Department) to negotiate a treaty, and the Senate to ratify them. If Reagan or Bush were not desirous of reductions in nuclear arms, etc, they wouldn't have been bothered to send emmisaries to negotiate them. They never would have existed. Talking heads and Congressmen bellyache about treaties when they see a political or monertary reason to do so. Not really a partisan issue there. I expect bipartisan resistance to the Iran deal, because there are constituencies that hate it, and oh by the way a lot of them think it is bad policy. Whether it gets the two-third necessary to override a Presidential veto is questionable, but there will be a lot of Democrats in the "no" camp.
All of the treaties I mentioned above were ratified by bipartisan majorities, with the party not holding the White House more resistant to saying yes to an accomplishment of the sitting President. The Iran deal will be no different, but it will almost certainly have majority no votes. The question is can they override a veto? I doubt it, but it'll be close.
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Capt Walter Miller
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Well, Sergeant. Does your research show any provocation as to why a Democratic Congress declared war on Japan?

Walt
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1SG Civil Affairs Specialist
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I think Pearl Harbor is an outlier in US military adventures.
Most of the time we started the conflicts we engage in. At least the hostilities between the US and them, if not hostilities in general.

My point is that it is a specious argument. The administration and its allies would have you believe that Republicans don't want the Iran deal because they want war with Iran. Frankly, if Republicans wanted war with Iran, they had ample opportunities to do so. It is a smokescreen to distract low-information voters from understanding the content and ramifications of the deal. It isn't an accident that no details were leaked during the talks. It would have been DOA. As it is, it is on life support and there will be lots of Democrats voting against it.
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Capt Walter Miller
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"Summary: To understand the dynamics and stakes of the Iran deal we should look at our past, rather than conservatives’ confident warnings about the future. The peace we’ve enjoyed for decades results in part from 50+ years of arms control treaties — all strenuously fought by the Right. We can learn much from their false predictions, as they’re repeated today about Iran."
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Capt Walter Miller
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The GOP has been attacking the country since they accused FDR of sending a US Navy destroyer to pick up his dog Fala.
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Capt Walter Miller
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