Last week, the United States was considering Ukraine’s request for long-range missiles that could strike more deeply into Russian territory. The Russian government made it clear that this would be viewed as a declaration of war and that it would respond with attacks on NATO countries, including the United States. Clearing the FOG speaks with Scott Ritter about the current state of the Ukraine proxy war against Russia. Ritter explained that had the United States not backed down, World War III could have started. Ritter also discusses the escalating attack on free speech and his new campaign, Operation Dawn, which will launch on September 28 in Kingston, New York.
Tag: perpetual war
Hezbollah’s Exploding Pagers Could Be As Monumental A Cyber-Espionage Operation As Stuxnet
In an extraordinary development in the Middle East conflict, thousands of Hezbollah members have been injured and at least three people were killed after pagers that the militants used exploded simultaneously today. While exactly how this occurred remains unclear, it could very well be a monumental cyber attack that could have widespread implications far beyond the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Regardless, it should be a wake-up call.
While no one has so far taken responsibility, Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the attack. A source from the group said that they expect the attack may have been launched in response to an alleged assassination attempt by the Lebanese militant group on a former senior Israeli security official. The existence of that plot was only revealed today by Israel’s Shin Bet security agency.
At this stage, the total number of individuals killed or injured by the pager blasts is unclear. Hezbollah has confirmed the deaths of at least three people, including two of its fighters.
At the time of writing, at least nine people have died and approximately 2,800 have been wounded, according to Lebanon’s Minister of Health Firas Abiad. Of the injured, 170 at least are also said to be in critical condition.
War Powers: The True History of James Madison, the Constitution and the War of 1812
In the early years of the United States under the Constitution, James Madison made one of the most compelling constitutional arguments against unilateral presidential war powers. Through their actions, the first three presidential administrations of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson notably upheld this position. And once in office himself, Madison unsurprisingly followed the same approach.
Their statements and, more importantly, their actions further undercut the modern assertion that while the Constitution delegates to Congress the power to “declare war,” the president also has expansive authority to make unilateral decisions about war and peace.
CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE
The Constitution expressly delegates the power to “declare war” to Congress and not the executive branch.
In the fourth of his Letters of Helvidius, Madison called this the wisest part of the Constitution.
“In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture of heterogeneous powers: the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man”
Madison astutely pointed out that war is “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.”
He drove this point home in his Political Observations, writing, “The separation of the power of declaring war, from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived, to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”
In Helvidius I, Madison emphasized that from a constitutional standpoint, all legislative authority is vested in Congress, and this logically included the power to change the state of things from peace to war.
“In the general distribution of powers, we find that of declaring war expressly vested in the congress, where every other legislative power is declared to be vested.”
It follows that “the constitutional idea of this power would seem then clearly to be, that it is of a legislative and not an executive nature.”
Madison argued that there is no presidential authority to declare war because it is fundamentally a legislative function. The president’s role is to “execute” laws, and as he explained, “A declaration that there shall be war, is not an execution of laws: it does not suppose pre-existing laws to be executed: it is not, in any respect, an act merely executive.”
Madison further noted that a declaration of war “has the effect of repealing all the laws operating in a state of peace, so far as they are inconsistent with a state of war.”
Madison summed it up in Helvidius II by writing, “The declaring of war is expressly made a legislative function.” [Emphasis added.]
“Whenever, then, a question occurs, whether war shall be declared, or whether public stipulations require it, the question necessarily belongs to the department to which those functions belong–and no other department can be in the execution of its proper functions, if it should undertake to decide such a question.”
In other words, when the president decides any question of war and peace, except for authorizing purely defensive actions, he acts outside his constitutional authority. The president only has the power to act after Congress provides explicit instructions in the form of a formal declaration of war, or authorization to take some kind of offensive military action. Once Congress acts, the president is limited to its instructions, whether it grants an open-ended authorization to wage war, or a more limited offensive response.
In Helvidius III, Madison called this principle “one of the most express and explicit parts of the Constitution,” and he insisted, “To endeavor to abridge or affect it by strained inferences, and by hypothetical or singular occurrences, naturally warns the reader of some lurking fallacy.”
He emphatically declared in Helvidius IV, “Every just view that can be taken of this subject, admonishes the public of the necessity of a rigid adherence to the simple, the received, and the fundamental doctrine of the Constitution.” [Emphasis added]
U.S. presidential debate delusion: two candidates for one party… the War Party
Two events dominated international news this week: the TV debate between U.S. presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump; and reports that Washington and its NATO allies are gearing up to permit the Ukrainian regime to use their long-range missiles to hit deep into the territory of the Russian Federation. The latter move would be viewed in Moscow as a major escalation from a proxy war to a direct conflict between nuclear powers.
The aforementioned events are tightly connected. The U.S. presidential election is less than two months away with Democrat Harris and Republican Trump vying in a hotly contested and divisive race for the White House. Harris, the incumbent vice president, performed best in the live TV debate, according to polls. Trump, however, with characteristic brashness, claimed that he had won the debate. His subsequent refusal to engage in a follow-up second debate might infer that the Trump campaign fears that Harris was able to get the upper hand over her older opponent, who sounded hackneyed and incoherent. We are talking here about superficial style and not substance, which neither candidate has much of.
Discernibly, the U.S. establishment favors Harris to win. Most of the American media are supportive of what would be the first woman to become president of the United States, and a woman of color too. That credential alone burnishes the image of the American republic as a supposed bastion of democracy and liberal values.
More importantly for the American deep state – or ruling class – is that Harris is more aligned with its imperialist foreign policy. As with her current boss, President Joe Biden, Harris spoke belligerently about confronting Russia and unwavering support for the conflict in Ukraine.
The Washington establishment wants Harris to win on November 5 to ensure the continuation of the proxy war against Russia. The all-dominant military-industrial complex at the heart of U.S. capitalism wants the war racket to keep churning out mega profits. But also in the bigger geopolitical picture, the conflict with Russia is just one element in a wider policy of confrontation with other foreign powers, primarily China, or any other nation that challenges U.S. presumptions of hegemony. As we argued in our editorial last week, the United States is endeavoring to offset its failing global power by pursuing an intensified policy of aggression and bellicosity even if such a policy puts the entire planet at risk of catastrophic world war.
The highly choreographed move this week by the United States and Britain to give the Ukrainian regime permission to use long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia is tightly correlated with the high-stakes presidential election.
38,000 Russian Troops Committed To Kursk Counteroffensive: Report
Russia is stepping up its pressure on Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region, after launching its counteroffensive there last week. It’s now reported that as many as 38,000 Russian troops have been committed to the operation, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been forced to defend the incursion — which began in August — against mounting criticism.
A report in The Financial Times cites a senior Ukrainian military intelligence official who assessed the number of Russian soldiers now involved in the counteroffensive, with some of these having been redeployed from southern Ukraine. Despite this, the same source says that the counterattack is “still not large-scale,” and Russia will need to introduce more of its combat-proven assault brigades before making more significant gains. In the past, Zelensky has mentioned 100,000 Russian troops being required to fully repulse the incursion.
Alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh wrote 2023 memoir about how Ukraine must win ‘unwinnable war’ and advocating for killing Trump
Ryan Wesley Routh, the man under investigation for a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Sunday, wrote a book with his fiancé about how Ukraine must win the “unwinnable war” against Russia in which he discussed Donald Trump being assassinated. The book was published last year.
The book is titled, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment, and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, and the End of Humanity.” It was written by Routh and his fiancé Kathleen Schaffer.
While discussing the Russia-Ukraine war, Routh wrote, “I presume that I must be clear, that while on the current path Ukraine will not win, it is imperative for the world that they do win, and that’s why this book is so important, for us to recognize that losing is not an option and what we must do to win.”
Routh wrote of Trump in the book with disparaging terms and supported the assassination of the now-GOP nominee.
“I must take part of the blame for the retarded child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize,” he wrote.
Trump Assassination Attempt Suspect Ryan Routh Was Coordinating with Foreign Soldiers to Fight for Ukraine — Sought to Recruit ‘Revolutionaries’ to ‘Take This Whole System Down’
The man accused of attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, has been connected to a bizarre web of pro-Ukraine activism and a history of erratic behavior.
Routh, who was apprehended in West Palm Beach with a scoped AK-47 before the Secret Service intervened, had previously expressed an obsessive fixation on Ukraine and even conducted interviews boasting of his commitment to die for their cause.
In a now-deleted X (formerly Twitter) post directed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Routh declared his intentions: “I am an American coming to fight with you in Ukraine; I am flying into Krakow and will take any transport to Kyiv to meet you and fight to the death. We must get every civilian in the world to come and join the fight; I will be the example. Attack Moscow now.”
Putin’s Bluffing ‘Until He Isn’t’: Ex-UK Official
Kim Darroch, Britain’s former national security adviser, said in an interview published Saturday that the West should consider Russian Vladimir Putin’s threat of a major escalation before allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
“If they are confident that he’s bluffing, then fine. But he’s bluffing until he isn’t,” he told The Financial Times.
U.S. President Joe Biden and the collective West continue to gamble.
This is a major shift from when Biden told reporters on 11 March 2022, just weeks after the Russian invasion, that providing “offensive” equipment to Ukraine was off-limits.
“Look, the idea… the idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand – and don’t kid yourself, no matter what you all say – that’s called WWIII,” he said at the time.
From Carolina Roofer To Ukraine Activist: Would-Be Trump Assassin Ryan Routh Gave Many Interviews With MSM
Fox News confirmed earlier that the suspect in the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has been identified as Ryan Wesley Routh.
Using public records, Routh appears to be from Greensboro, North Carolina (some reports say he now lives in Hawaii) and was or still is part owner of United Roofing and Construction Inc.
On Yelp, one negative review for “United Roofing” in late 2016 said:
“As a military member trying to buy a home before returning from a deployment, the proprietor, Ryan Routh, insulted me for trying to buy a house site unseen as many military members do returning from overseas.”
Would-Be Censors Peddle Yet Another Election Meddle
In early September, the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against two employees of RT (formerly Russia Today), alleging that the state media outlet “orchestrated a massive scheme to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on U.S. soil.”
Separately, DOJ announced its theft (“seizure”) of 32 Internet domains supposedly used to “covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election. ”
The victims, per US Attorney Damian Williams? “[T]he American people, who received Russian messaging without knowing it.”
US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland weighed in as well: “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts.”
Oh, really?
Garland, once nominated to serve on the US Supreme Court, surely knows better. There is no “unless the ideas originate with parties I happen to dislike, or include content I disagree with” exception to the First Amendment’s free speech and free press guarantees.
DOJ doesn’t even enjoy the fig leaf of an “in extremis” excuse, such as a state of war existing between the US and Russia or an imminent threat of attack which the indictments and domain thefts might have thwarted.
Does the Russian regime “meddle” in US elections? Of course it does. All powerful regimes meddle in other countries’ elections.
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