In October of 2002, I shocked many in my Congressional District and beyond by voting against giving President George W. Bush authorization to use military force in Iraq.
The night before that vote, my older sister told me a Knoxville television station had conducted a poll which found that in its viewing area 74 percent were for the war, 9 percent were against, and 17 percent were undecided.
When I pushed the button at about 3:00 the next day to cast that vote, I wondered if I might be ending my political career. My vote was so highly publicized that it was clearly the most unpopular thing I had ever done.
However, after three or four years and much to my amazement, that vote became the most popular of the more than 16,000 I cast during my 30 years in the U.S. House.
Unfortunately, the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) that the Congress passed then is once again relevant because President Trump and his advisers seem to think it gives them authority to go to war in Venezuela without the declaration by Congress called for in our Constitution.
When we went to war in Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein’s total military budget was about 2/10 of one percent of ours. Venezuela’s is even less. Neither of those two countries were or are capable of attacking us in any serious way. Neither has even threatened to do so.
Two polls in late November by CBS News/YouGov and Reuters/Ipsos both showed that about 70 percent of the American people were opposed to going to war in Venezuela, and probably most of the other 30 percent did not really want such a war but just did not want to oppose President Trump.
While the overwhelming majority of the American people do not want more dangerous illegal drugs coming into this Country, far more drugs are coming from China and Mexico and various other places. If we take action against Venezuela, which country is next?
Just before we went to war against Iraq, U.S. News & World Report had a story headlined “Why The Rush To War?” We should be asking the same thing today.
Hellbound and Down 