War Department’s Name Change From Defense Highlights Congress’s Failures

Last week, US President Donald Trump redesigned the Ministry of Defense as the Ministry of War. To lead the point to the house, the White House account X shared a picture of the squatting president in the sunglasses and a knight weapon hat against the background of helicopters, explosions and Chicago horizon – a satirical simulation of the film The end of the world now. I read the illustrations, “I love the smell of deportation in the morning …” Chicago [sic] It is about to know a reason called the Ministry of War. “

In the same week, the US military killed a luminous boat crew in the Venezuelan in international waters. He was asked X if the strike is a war crime, the vice president, a trained lawyer on Yale, answered, “I do not give what you call.”

Last week, US President Donald Trump redesigned the Ministry of Defense as the Ministry of War. To lead the point to the house, the White House account X shared a picture of the squatting president in the sunglasses and a knight weapon hat against the background of helicopters, explosions and Chicago horizon – a satirical simulation of the film The end of the world now. I read the illustrations, “I love the smell of deportation in the morning …” Chicago [sic] It is about to know a reason called the Ministry of War. “

In the same week, the US military killed a luminous boat crew in the Venezuelan in international waters. He was asked X if the strike is a war crime, the vice president, a trained lawyer on Yale, answered, “I do not give what you call.”

However, it was not the Trump drone that attracted more anger, but rather his decision to rename the Ministry of Defense. To clarify, the executive order directs the government to the use of the “Ministry of War” and “Minister of War” as secondary titles, but they are actually basic names. The fully stripped “Ministry of Defense” will require congress to issue legislation. Maybe legislators will adhere, but at this stage this is almost discrimination without a difference. After all, why is the President waiting for Congress to change the name when they don’t wait for Congress to launch war works abroad? Congress in defense issues has been increasingly reduced to technical aspects and messages, regardless of the anti -interbia spending packages it is going through.

The Ministry of War was established in 1789, as it was supervised by the American army and then the army’s air force, while the Ministry of Navy dealt with the fleet. In 1947, the Ministry of War was divided into the army and air force departments, with the new Ministry of Defense, given its final name in 1949, was created as an umbrella agency that supervises all the armed forces. Trump’s move is less restored than renamed, according to his executive order, because it is supposed to “guarantee peace through power.”

As one commentator in Atlantic Ocean I really noticed that the first change from the Ministry of War to the Ministry of Defense realized that there was a lot to defend the nation more than just fighting wars and that its opposite will now be lost a large amount of money in administrative costs, in the name of Cringey Disantics. Wasting millions of dollars in the activity of the Pentagon may lead to uselessness until it turns into more heads if it is not very common.

However, criticism should also recognize that the Ministry of Defense was behaving like the Ministry of War for a long time – as it was supervised and enabled by graduates of the same elite institutions that produced the vice president. John Yu, an engineer of torture notes in the George W. Bush administration, is a Locke graduate colleague. John Ashkruvet, who defended her as a general lawyer, studied at Yale University and the University of Chicago. Alberto Gonzalez, another Bush’s lawyer, trained at Harvard University before the rejection of parts of the Geneva Conventions as “strange” and “outdated”.

During the era of President Barack Obama, Martin Ledman, who studied law at Yale University and David Baron, who studied at Harvard University, composed the memorandum that justifies unprecedented drone strike for the American citizen and al -Qaeda member Anwar Al -Olaki claimed in Yemen, two weeks after the death strike of his 16 -year -old American son. When asked about the death of the boy, the former White House press secretary and the great campaign advisor Robert Gibbs noticed that the teenager “must be” [had] A more responsibility father. “

So why is the vice president “giving shit” whether the external killing of alleged drug dealers in open waters is qualified as a war crime? In order to be fair, the former officials who called it with them are struggling with unprecedented political questions, and they were accused of protecting the country after September 11 and taking a few options that you may envy. And yes, elite institutions also produced the heroes of humanitarian law and military supervision. But the idea that the ideas that revolve in the Pentagon Trump are some anomalous break from the base is a myth that serves the self.

If Congress wants to rise to the “Ministry of War” to the most acceptable “defense” title, there were great opportunities. Instead, legislators got rid of the powers of the constitutional war, allowing the presidents of the two parties to launch military measures without approval. The 2011 Obama Air Force Air Force against the Gaddafi regime in Libya, Trump’s assassination of 2020 for the commander of the Iranian Jerusalem forces Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, and the bombing campaign Bill Clinton in 1999 in Kosovo – before Congress weighed – only three examples.

Each of them has produced great regional and political consequences, in some cases, leading to the loss of American life, while relying on the powers of the second article and extensive interpretations of the license of the previous Congress, making the voice of Congress actually not related. The censorship reached more than just a party reprimand when the other side controls the White House. The constant was the steady expansion of the presidential war-making power-may now be very firm to retreat.

The American air strikes in Iran in June are only the latest example. The Senate (SJ Res. 59) to summon the decision of the war authorities and withdraw American forces from unauthorized hostilities against Iran. 47-53 failed; The House of Representatives has never voted. Congress has also been repeatedly criticized the abolition of the outdated licenses of the use of military power (AUMFS) – which was equipped in 1991, 2001 and 2002 – which extends beyond its original purposes. These AUMFS, especially those created at the beginning of the World War on terrorism (GWOT), like the Bible, have become frozen documents in a timely manner so far that have been interpreted indefinitely to justify a new military action.

As I recently argued, the thread, and perhaps the most disturbing, most likely, the tactics that have identified Washington’s selection wars abroad, especially during the GWOT era, return home. At the end of last week they did again, in the form of Trump The end of the world now Mimi. It seemed less similar to political messages than the propaganda bulletin that one might drop to thwart the enemy city. Only this time, the target was Chicago.

The pictures were ugly, followed by partisan anger. “The President of the United States threatens to go to war with an American city.” The leader of the minority in the House of Representatives, Hakim Jeffrez, chanted the charge. Senator Tami Dakrith, an old warrior in the decorated army, accused Trump of courage stolen for the presence of the knight (potential) knight.

But this condemnation choir was largely absent from this point. Trump does not literally announce the war on Chicago. It refers to a vulgarity of his intention to deploy American forces to help other agencies in mass deportations, in the same way that the efforts made in Washington, DC, succeeded in mobilizing supporters behind this policy while challenging opponents to focus on optics instead of circumventing how the American army is used. And in noise, what is lost? Any serious supervision of how the American army was deployed abroad or at home.

Legislative and commentators may announce anger last week. However, for a quarter of a century, the Ministry of Defense and other agencies operated unannounced wars and carried out fatal strikes all over the world while Congress had abdicated supervision, critics chanted, and critics set out as not close, and a presidential force on who lives, who is compatible, and who was imprisoned in Guantanamo.

We have now reached the destination that has been closed all the time: the White House tells us brilliantly that it can do what it wants with the American army, and no one can like it.