On the Legality of the Iraq War

There has been a murmuring among Bush critics (of whom I am occasionally a part)
that the Iraq was must end because it is an illegal war. I have been having to look at the bumper stickers saying "impeach Bush" and "Bush is a war criminal" so long and so often that I could gag. Their line of reasoning is that Congress has never declared war on Iraq (not withstandign the 2002 Resolution authorizing the use of Military force) and therefore Bush has no legal authority to remain there. Not one to trust the media who makes things up or party pundits who spin for their own agenda, I decided to do the unthinkable among the hoi polloi: I actually looked the laws up myself!

The real question is: is the formal declaration of war an antiquated concept? Legally, it would seem so. Congress's "vote of confidence" in the form of it's 2002 Joint Resolution for the Use of Military force in Iraq" is legal authority enough under the War Powers Act of 1973. Don't believe me? Here is a portion if the text:

Section 5: (b) Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is
required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1), whichever is earlier, the
President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to
which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the
Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization [italics mine]for such use of United States Armed Forces

It goes on to say:

Notwithstanding subsection (b), at any time that United States Armed Forces are
engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its
possessions and territories without [italics mine] a
declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be
removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution.

The "without" is the important word, as Congess did in fact give the President authorization to go to war. Furthermore, The law gives congress no authority to revoke its authorization once it has given it. The preseident is therefore not obligated to remove troops at the behest of the whims of a majority changing Congress. Please, look it up for yourself. The truth is, whether you like it or not, the President is the Constitutionally authorized and he may commit troops wherever in the world he wants to. Take it up with the Founding Fathers. That being said, whether you agree with the war or not, Bush is not a war criminal so put up the bumper stickers, unless you like driving around advertising your failure to research the topic you pretend to care about.

Proud Owner

I like to collect old books in the areas of my interests. I already own a couple really good ones including: The Study of Aesthetics published in 1856 and A History of English Dramatic Literature, published in 1899. I tried to get a first edition British copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin from 1851 but, alas, it went for almost $300 while I was at a ball game. I did manage to pick up Abraham Lincoln: His Life and Public Service by Mrs. P.A. Hanaford, the author of Our Martyred President. The "record of his stainless life and martyr's death" is inscribed to "The Loyal Men and Women, North and South, East and West; the the Union Army and Navy; and especially to the Long-Oppressed Race for whom President Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation" I can't wait to read and digest this account from just after his death from an obviously sympathetic New England writer!

Another Graduate Bibliography

The first version was annotated!

Works Cited:
Aristotle. “Poetics.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed.
David Richter. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1998. 42-64.
Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland, or the Transformation. New York: Prometheus
Books, 1997.
---. “Wieland, or the Transformation. An American Tale.” The American
Review and Literary Journal 1 (1801): 333-37.
Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New
York: Oxford UP, 1986.
DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
Goddu, Teresa A. Approaches to Teaching Gothis Fiction: the British and American
Traditions. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Harris, Jennifer. “At One with the Land: The Domestic Remove-Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland and Matters of National Belonging.” Canadian Review of
American Studies 33.3 (2003): 189-210.
Kramnick, Isaac, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York: Penguin Books,
1995.
Kutchen, Larry. “The ‘Vulgar Thread of Canvass’ Revoluction and the Picturesque in
Ann Eliza Bleeker, Crevecoeur, and Charles Brockden Brown.” Early American Literature 63.3 (2001): 395-425.
Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Government. Ed. Thomas P Pearson. New York:
The Liberal Arts Press, 1952.
---. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Vol I. Ed. Alexander Cambell Fraser.
New York: Dover Publications, 1959.
Schneck, Peter. “Wieland’s Testimony; Charles Brockden Brown and the Rhetoric of
Evidence.” The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 18 (2002): 167-213.
Sutherland, Helen. “Varieties of Protestant Experience: Religion and the Doppelganger in Hogg, Brown, and Hawthorne.” Studies in Hogg and His World 16 (2005): 71-85
Tomkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. 40-61.

Works Consulted:
Amfreville, Marc. “Charles Brockden Brown’s Cultural Paradox.” Letterature d’America
24 (2004): 5-21.
Basu, Biman. “Reading the Techno-Ethnic Other in DeLillo’s White Noise.” Arizona Quarterly 61.2 (2005): 87-111
Bradshaw, Charles C. “New England Illuminati: Conspiracy and Causality in Charles
Brockden Brown’s Wieland.” The New England Quarterly 76 (Sept 2003): 356- 77.
Dill, Elizabeth. “The Republican Stepmother: Revolution and Sensibility in Charles
Brockden Brown’s Wieland.” The Eighteenth Century Novel 2 (2002): 273-303.

Grabo, Norman. The Coincidental Art of Charles Brockden Brown. Chapel Hill, NC: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1981. 3-29.
Hsu, Hsuan L. “Democratic Expansionism is ‘Memoirs of Carwin’.” Early American
Literature 35 (2000):137-156.
Norwood, Lisa West. “‘I may be a Stranger to the Ground of Your Belief’ Constructing
Sense of Place in Wieland.” Early American Literature 38.1 (2003): 89-122.
Williams, Daniel E. “Writing under the Influence: An Examination of Wieland’s ‘Well
Authenticated Facts’ and the Depiction of Murderous Fathers in Post- Revolutionary Print Culture.” Eighteenth Century Fiction 15 (2003): 643-68

Don't Blame Us if We Evah' Doubt Ya'

After a sweep of the Yankees capped off by this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAGTfFJFsfA the picture looks like this:


Boston 12 5 .706 -
Baltimore 11 7 .611 1.5
New York 8 9 .471 4.0
Toronto 8 10 .444 4.5
Tampa Bay 7 11 .389 5.5

Goodbye Hornets, Goodbye Kurt Vonnegut, Goodbye Don Imus

Everything about this Friday the Thirteenth lived up to the reputation. It was rainy and cold, which delayed the Redhawks home opener (to which we had tickets). we had thunder, while the panhandle is getting snow, possibly up to nine inches by tomorrow.

In the midst of all of it, the Hornets played their final game in Oklahoma City. They will now go back to New Orleans where they will have decidedly less fan support. The lost in heart breaking fashion to the Denver Nuggets in the very last seconds. Just like that, we're a minor league town again.

Kurt Vonnegut, one of the finest author's of the last generation, died Wednesday night after struggling with a brain injury caused when he fell down. He was the Author of "The Slaughterhouse-Five" "Cat's Cradle" and most recently "The Man Without a Country." He was one of the few anti-war activists who had ethos, having seen war himself. I had a self-revelatory moment when it occurred to me that some people get upset when Anna Nichole Smith died. I got upset to hear about Kurt Vonnegut. Jeez, I'm a nerd.

Goodbye Don Imus. I never liked you. I'm glad you're gone. The only thing is, will we as a society now censure those in pop culture who make millions by denigrating women and projecting racial stereotypes (is rappers)? My fear is that we will not. In fact, I'm almost positive we will not. America has proven again and again that it tolerates double standard.

And back on the subject of my rained out ball game, we will be taking in a double header on Sunday.

When Work Intrudes Into Your Personal Life

I would just like to thank the Tuttle officer that gave my personal cell phone number out so that someone has called to ask about her stolen car when I was 1) sleeping and 2) in Tulsa with the kids that I coached. I appreciate it, buddy.

Robyn Can't Get Service...

But Dunkin' Donuts need not fear.

My partners ensure that Dunkin' is the safest place in earth and that the stereotype lives.