Restore American Exceptionalism — Before It's Too Late

Restoring American Exceptionalism

President Obama has dangerously surrendered the nation’s global leadership, but it can be ours again—if we choose his successor wisely.

By 

DICK CHENEY And 

 

LIZ CHENEY

Aug. 28, 2015Wall Street JournalIn 1983, as the U.S. confronted the threat posed by the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan explained America’s unique responsibility. “It is up to us in our time,” he said, “to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.” It was up to us then—as it is now—because we are the exceptional nation. America has guaranteed freedom, security and peace for a larger share of humanity than any other nation in all of history. There is no other like us. There never has been. 

Born of the revolutionary ideal that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,” we were, first, an example to the world of freedom’s possibilities. During World War II, we became freedom’s defender, at the end of the Cold War, the world’s sole superpower. We did not seek the position. It is ours because of our ideals and our power, and the power of our ideals. As British historian Andrew Roberts has observed, “In the debate over whether America was born great, achieved greatness or had greatness thrust upon her, the only possible conclusion must be: all three.” 

No other nation, international body or “community of nations” can do what we do. It isn’t just our involvement in world events that has been essential for the triumph of freedom. It is our leadership. For the better part of a century, security and freedom for millions of people around the globe have depended on America’s military, economic, political and diplomatic might. For the most part, until the administration of Barack Obama, we delivered. 

Since Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed us the “Arsenal of Democracy” in 1940, Republican and Democratic presidents alike have understood the indispensable nature of American power. Presidents from Truman to Nixon, from Kennedy to Reagan, knew that America’s strength had to be safeguarded, her supremacy maintained. In the 1940s American leadership was essential to victory in World War II, and the liberation of millions from the grip of fascism. In the Cold War American leadership guaranteed the survival of freedom, the liberation of Eastern Europe and the defeat of Soviet totalitarianism. In this century it will be essential for the defeat of militant Islam.

Yet despite the explosive spread of terrorist ideology and organizations, the establishment of an Islamic State caliphate in the heart of the Middle East, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and increasing threats from Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, President Obama has departed from this 75-year, largely bipartisan tradition of ensuring America’s pre-eminence and strength. 

He has abandoned Iraq, leaving a vacuum that is being tragically and ominously filled by our enemies. He is on course to forsake Afghanistan as well. 

He has made dangerous cuts to America’s military. Combined with the sequestration mandated in the Budget Control Act of 2011, these cuts have, according to former Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, left the Army as unready as it has been at any other time in its history. Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert has testified that “naval readiness is at its lowest point in many years.” According to Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh, the current aircraft fleet is “now the smallest and oldest in the history of our service.” 

For seven decades, both Republican and Democratic presidents have understood the importance of ensuring the supremacy of America’s nuclear arsenal. President Obama seems not to. He has advocated cutting our nuclear force in the naïve hope that this will persuade rogue regimes to do the same. He has imposed limits on our ability to modernize and maintain nuclear weapons. He has reduced the nation’s missile-defense capabilities.

He says that he is committed to preventing nuclear proliferation. For more than 45 years, presidents of both parties have recognized that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is vital in this effort. Signed by 190 countries, including Iran, the NPT has been arguably the single most effective multilateral arms-control agreement in history. President Obama stands ready to gut it. Among the many dangerous deficiencies in his nuclear deal with Iran is the irreversible damage it will do to the international nonproliferation regime contained in the NPT. 

Allowing the Iranians to continue to enrich uranium and agreeing to the removal of all restraints on their nuclear program in a few short years virtually guarantees that they will become a nuclear-weapons state, thus undermining the fundamental agreement at the heart of the NPT. President Obama is unraveling this international structure as part of an agreement that provides a pathway for the world’s worst state-sponsor of terror to acquire nuclear weapons. 

Nearly everything the president has told us about his Iranian agreement is false. He has said it will prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, but it will actually facilitate and legitimize an Iranian nuclear arsenal. He has said this deal will stop nuclear proliferation, but it will actually accelerate it, as nations across the Middle East work to acquire their own weapons in response to America’s unwillingness to stop the Iranian nuclear program. 

President Obama told us he would never accept a deal based on trust. Members of his administration, including his secretary of energy and deputy national-security adviser, said the nuclear deal would be verifiable with “anywhere, anytime” inspections. Instead, the Obama deal provides the Iranians with months to delay inspections and fails to address past clandestine work at military sites. Inspections at these sites are covered in secret deals, which is historic, though not in the way the president claims. Under the reported provisions of the secret deals, the Iranians get to inspect themselves for these past infractions. Inevitably these provisions will be cited by the Iranians as a precedent when they are caught cheating in the future.

The president has tried to sell this bad deal by claiming that there is no alternative, save war. In fact, this agreement makes war more, not less, likely. In addition to accelerating the spread of nuclear weapons across the Middle East, it will provide the Iranians with hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, which even the Obama administration admits likely will be used to fund terror. The deal also removes restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program; lifts the ban on conventional weapons sales; and lifts sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, on the Quds Force, and on Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. Under Mr. Soleimani’s leadership, the Quds Force sows violence and supports terror across the Middle East and has been responsible for the deaths of American service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A vote for the Obama nuclear deal is not a vote for peace or security. It is a vote for an agreement that facilitates Tehran’s deadly objectives with potentially catastrophic consequences for the United States and our allies.

The Obama nuclear agreement with Iran is tragically reminiscent of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s Munich agreement in 1938. Each was negotiated from a position of weakness by a leader willing to concede nearly everything to appease an ideological dictator. Hitler got Czechoslovakia. The mullahs in Tehran get billions of dollars and a pathway to a nuclear arsenal. Munich led to World War II. The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear-arms race in the Middle East and, more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

The U.S. Congress should reject this deal and reimpose the sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the first place. It is possible to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon, but only if the U.S. negotiates from a position of strength, refuses to concede fundamental points and recognizes that the use of military force will be required if diplomacy fails to convince Iran to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.

As America faces a world of rising security threats, we must resolve to take action and shouldn’t lose hope. Just as one president has left a path of destruction in his wake, one president can rescue us. The right person in the Oval Office can restore America’s strength and alliances, defeat our enemies, and keep us safe. It won’t be easy. There is a path forward, but there are difficult decisions to be made and very little time. 

We are living in what columnist Charles Krauthammer has called “a hinge point of history.” It will take a president equal to this moment to lead us through. America needs a president who recognizes that everything the nation must do requires having a U.S. military with capabilities that are second to none—on land, in the air, at sea, in space and in cyberspace. The peace and security of the world and the survival of our freedom depend on it. We must choose wisely.

As citizens, we have another obligation. We have a duty to protect our ideals and our freedoms by safeguarding our history. We must ensure that our children know the truth about who we are, what we’ve done, and why it is uniquely America’s duty to be freedom’s defender. 

They should know about the boys of Pointe du Hoc and Doolittle’s Raiders, the battles of Midway and Iwo Jima. They should learn about the courage of the young Americans who fought the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge and the Japanese on Okinawa. They should learn why America was right to end the war by dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and about the fundamental decency of a nation that established the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They need to know about the horror of the Holocaust, and what it means to promise “never again.” 

They should know that once there was an empire so evil and bereft of truth it had to build a wall to keep its citizens in, and that the free world, led by America, defeated it. They need to know about the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11, the courage of the first responders and the heroism of the passengers on Flight 93. They should understand what kind of world militant Islam will create if we don’t defeat it. 

They should learn about great men like George C. Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan. We must teach them what it took to prevail over evil in the 20th century and what it will take in the 21st. We must make sure they understand that it is the brave men and women of the U.S. armed forces who defend our freedom and secure it for millions of others as well.

Our children need to know that they are citizens of the most powerful, good and honorable nation in the history of mankind—the exceptional nation. They must know that they are the inheritors of a great legacy and a great duty. Ordinary Americans have done heroic things to guarantee freedom’s survival. Now, it is up to us. Speaking at Omaha Beach on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landings, President Reagan put it this way, “We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.”

Mr. Cheney, former vice president of the United States, and Ms. Cheney are the authors of “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America,” from which this article was adapted; the book is being published Sept. 1 by Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions.

Obama Is A Racist

The Wages of Racial Discord

The president will leave office with race relations at their lowest ebb in decades. His politics of division bear much of the responsibility.

By JASON L. RILEY
Wall Street Journal
Aug. 4, 2015

One great irony of the current presidency is that Barack Obama won the support of so many seasoned political journalists—not to mention otherwise-skeptical voters—who thought that a black president would improve racial unity. David Remnick of the New Yorker called him “the bridge.” Time magazine’s Joe Klein assured readers that Mr. Obama, who “transcends the racial divide so effortlessly,” would help America turn the page on race. But six years in, that hasn’t happened.

According to a CBS News/New York Times poll in July, nearly 60% of Americans, including large majorities of both blacks and whites, say race relations “are generally bad.” Almost 40% say they are getting worse. Other surveys back those findings. CNN pollsters reported in March that the share of people who think race relations have improved on Mr. Obama’s watch had fallen to 15% this year from 32% in 2009, while the share who think relations have worsened grew to 39% from 6%. A Gallup survey in January reported that 62% of respondents are “somewhat dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the state of race relations in the country, versus 40% in 2008.

The press has dutifully reported this racial retrogression but is reluctant to lay any blame on Mr. Obama. The president obviously isn’t responsible for the racially charged incidents that have occurred on his watch, from Ferguson, Mo., to Baltimore, to Charleston, S.C. Still, he ought to be held accountable for the racial impact of his reactions, his polices and his political bedfellows.

Mr. Obama campaigned as a racial conciliator, someone who believed, as he said in a speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, that “there is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There’s the United States of America.”

But that is not how he has governed. As president, he has repeatedly—and often prematurely—taken sides in local police matters involving black suspects.

He has supported college-admissions policies that favor black applicants over their white and Asian peers. He has dispatched his attorney general to accuse advocates of voter ID laws of trying to disenfranchise blacks and Hispanics. He has pressured wealthy suburbs to change zoning laws and build low-income housing so that he can shoehorn minorities into neighborhoods where they otherwise can’t afford to live. He has leaned on local school districts to discipline students differently based on their race and ethnicity rather than solely on their misbehavior. He has appeared before activists at the NAACP to denounce the criminal-justice system as racially skewed.

When Mr. Obama first ran for president, he went to such lengths to distance himself from professional agitators such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson that “Saturday Night Live” ran a cartoon parody that featured then-Sen. Obama sending Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson off to places like Botswana and Paraguay so that they couldn’t interfere with the campaign.

These days, Mr. Obama has the reverend on speed dial. Mr. Sharpton is a frequent White House visitor and the president’s point man on civil-rights issues. Given that the president is keeping company with someone who monetizes racial conflict for a living, is it any wonder that so many people believe race relations have regressed?

In the CBS News/Times poll, 77% of respondents said that race relations in their own community were generally good, but only 37% said they were good nationwide. One explanation for the disparity could be that the president’s emphasis on race in general and racial conflict in particular has made things seem worse than they really are. Presidents—especially the ones who can count on mostly favorable mainstream-media coverage—have the ability to control the narrative. And racial strife, or the perception of it, works to the political advantage of Mr. Obama and the political left.

The Black Lives Matter movement may be built on a falsehood—that cops shooting blacks is somehow a bigger problem than blacks shooting each other—but the falsehood will be indulged by politicians like Mr. Obama because the last thing Democrats want is for black people to stop seeing themselves as helpless victims of systemic racism.

“A central problem—perhaps the central problem—in improving the relationship between white and black Americans is the difference in racial crime rates,” observed the late political scientist James Q. Wilson. “The high black crime rate cannot be wished away by talk of racism, over-arresting, excessive punishment, or whites having allegedly drugged or armed blacks.”

Race relations under Mr. Obama haven’t soured by accident, and so long as a wisher-in-chief occupies the Oval Office, there is little chance of improvement. Community organizers specialize in creating social divisions, not bridging them. So do presidents who profit politically from racial anxiety. 

America has learned these lessons the hard way.

Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor, is the author of “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (Encounter Books, 2014).

The Vilification of Donald Trump Over Illegal Immigration

The Vilification of Donald Trump Over Illegal Immigration by Bill O'Reilly 2015 July 6 Does the truth hurt? Or did Mr. Trump unfairly malign Mexico and millions of Mexican illegal aliens? Talking Points will now answer those questions. The primary mistake Donald Trump made in his campaign kickoff speech was speaking too generally about the border problem. Most Mexicans who sneak into the USA or overstay their legal visitation status do so because they are economically deprived.  They are largely under-educated folks who are trying to feed their families. Also, the vast majority of illegal aliens do not commit crimes while on American soil, apart from their immigration offense. But there are big problems stemming from Mexican illegal immigration, and the statistics tell the story. As we all know, Mexico is the major supplier of illegal drugs to the USA.  The drug cartels down there have corrupted the police and many politicians. They are brutal thugs who commit mass murder, torture and generally shame their nation. ISIS has nothing on these drug cartels; they are both savage enterprises. The government of Mexico is not capable of defeating the drug lords and rejects direct American intervention. U.S. drug agents are not allowed to carry firearms in Mexico, thereby putting themselves at great risk assisting Mexican authorities. For decades Mexico City has allowed organized crime to brutalize its own people and Americans, as well. Some of the drug organizations have branched out into people smuggling, charging money to get desperate migrants across the border. In the process many, perhaps most, migrant women are sexually molested, and that was the rape situation Donald Trump mentioned. But it's not ordinary Mexicans doing the raping.  It's the gangsters, and Trump should have made that clear. The truth is there is little supervision on the Mexican side of the border.  Cities like Juarez and Nuevo Laredo are literally run by the drug cartels. Border security in Mexico is non-existent and has been for decades. That situation will not improve. So Trump is correct in saying that only a massive wall will stop the chaos.  And even then, drugs and people will get through, although not to the extent they do now. Washington knows all this but has turned away from securing the border ever since President Reagan promised to do so after he signed an immigration amnesty in 1986. Mr. Reagan did not keep his promise, and every single president since has failed to secure the southern border.  Every one. Now what about the immigrants themselves? Fifty-nine percent of Mexican residents and illegal aliens have less than a high school education. Only four percent have a college degree. Sixty-eight percent are poor or near poor. Fifty-seven percent receive means-tested welfare of some kind. Fifty-six percent do not have health insurance.  Many of those will receive Obamacare subsidies. So, Trump's analysis is correct.  The majority of Mexicans coming to the USA are not achievers in the economic sense. To be fair, that was the case with the Irish, Italian and European immigration waves of the past … hard-working people trying to improve themselves. But here is the dangerous part. According government statistics, 71% percent of non-American citizens in federal prisons are from Mexico.  Colombian nationals are second, just 4%. Mexican criminals represent a whopping 16% of all convicts serving time in federal penitentiaries. That is a huge burden on the American taxpayer, and a dangerous situation for ordinary Americans like 32-year-old Kate Steinle. Last Wednesday Kate was walking with her father in San Francisco when she was shot dead on the street for absolutely no reason at all. Police say 45-year-old Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal alien from Mexico, murdered Kate. Apparently Sanchez has seven felony convictions and had been deported five times. Yet he was still walking around the streets of San Francisco. That's because Mayor Ed Lee and the eleven members of the San Francisco City Supervisors refuse to cooperate with the federal government on criminal aliens. The feds asked the city of San Francisco to keep Sanchez in custody; the city refused.  Ms. Steinle paid for that irresponsible and unconstitutional decision with her life. San Francisco is a sanctuary city, and violent crimes committed by criminal aliens have happened before. City authorities refuse to say how many because they know this is a huge scandal -- a black mark on the history of San Francisco, the most tolerant of cities. The family of Kate Steinle is asking for calm, not vengeance.  But Talking Points is not as charitable. In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, which stipulated that local and state authorities were to cooperate with the feds in apprehending illegal aliens, especially criminals. In 2007 then Mayor Gavin Newsom issues an Executive Order stating that as a Sanctuary City, San Francisco would not cooperate with federal authorities on illegal immigration matters and would protect even criminal aliens. The feds did nothing. In 2010 the Obama administration openly said it would not punish cities that refuse to obey the 1996 law. So here's the deal. The mayor and city supervisors of San Francisco are directly responsible for the death of Kate Steinle and the Obama administration is complicit. Attorney General Loretta Lynch could order FBI agents to arrest Mayor Lee and the supervisors for violating federal law.  She is within her authority to do that. I know that will never happen because racial politics drives the law these days, which is why Trump caught so much hell. The Constitution demands that the federal government protect Americans from foreign intruders. Obviously, that responsibility is not being met.  And if you point that out as Trump did, you are a racist, a piñata for the open-border crowd to bash. The fact that a felon could be deported five times and still be walking around the USA should shame Congress. Where is a law that says if you are deported one time and come back you serve five years in prison.  Where is that law? Congress should pass it, and if President Obama doesn't sign it, everything will then be on the table. That legislation should be called the Kate Steinle law, much like Jessica's Law. So who will sponsor the new law?  Please let me know.  We are looking for some legislators of courage.  Are you out there? Talking Points is disgusted with the cowardice of our elected officials, from the crazy left San Francisco people to the president to the Congress. Most of them are rich folks who could not care less about the violence and chaos out of control criminal activity south of the border is creating here. If Mexico does not crack down hard on border intrusions and drug trafficking, we should punish them economically.  Period. This entire disaster has been going on for far too long. The excuse that America is at fault because we use drugs and do not secure the border on our side is valid. We are at fault. But that does not excuse Mexico's rampant corruption and abuse of its own people. Drug and people smuggling injure millions and cost lives.  It's the dirtiest of crimes. Finally, the poor people sneaking in here to paint your house are not the problem. The cowardly politicians who will not uphold the law and the Constitution of the United States are the problem. That's what Donald Trump should have said. And that's the memo.

Why We Went To War In Iraq.

NOTE: The Public Law that authorized war against Iraq in 2002 never stated that Iraq had nuclear weapons at that time.  Nonetheless, it was clear, according to intelligence reports at the time, that Iraq had a clear desire to develop a nuclear weapon capability.  Read Public Law 107-243 below for the reasons that we went to war with Iraq. 

PUBLIC LAW 107–243—OCT. 16, 2002

AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY 
FORCE AGAINST IRAQ RESOLUTION OF 2002 


116 STAT. 1498 PUBLIC LAW 107–243—OCT. 16, 2002 

Oct. 16, 2002 

[H.J. Res. 114] 
Public Law 107–243 

107th Congress 
Joint Resolution 

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. 

Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq’s war of aggression against 
and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a 
coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order 
to defend the national security of the United States and enforce 
United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq; 

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into 
a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to 
which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate 
its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the 
means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for 
international terrorism; 

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United 
States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery 
that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and 
a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had 
an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was 
much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence 
reporting had previously indicated; 

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, 
attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify 
and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and 
development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal 
of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998; 

Whereas in Public Law 105–235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded 
that Iraq’s continuing weapons of mass destruction programs 
threatened vital United States interests and international 
peace and security, declared Iraq to be in ‘‘material and unacceptable 
breach of its international obligations’’ and urged the President 
‘‘to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution 
and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into 
compliance with its international obligations’’; 

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security 
of the United States and international peace and security in 
the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable 
breach of its international obligations by, among other things, 
continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and 
biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons 
capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations; 

Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations 
Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression 
of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace 
and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, 
or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, 
including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property 
wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait; 

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability 
and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other 
nations and its own people; 

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing 
hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, 
including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President 
Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United 
States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the 
resolutions of the United Nations Security Council; 

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility 
for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, 
including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are 
known to be in Iraq; 

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist 
organizations, including organizations that threaten the 
lives and safety of United States citizens; 

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, 
underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition 
of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist 
organizations; 

Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use 
weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi 
regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise 
attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide 
them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme 
magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and 
its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by 
the United States to defend itself; 

Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) 
authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United 
Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent 
relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities 
that threaten international peace and security, including the 
development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or 
obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation 
of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression 
of its civilian population in violation of United Nations 
Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors 
or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United 
Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994); 

Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against 
Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1), Congress has authorized 
the President ‘‘to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to 
United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order 
to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 
661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677’’; 

Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that 
it ‘‘supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals 
of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent 
with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against 

Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1),’’ that Iraq’s repression of 
its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council 
Resolution 688 and ‘‘constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, 
security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,’’ and that Congress, 
‘‘supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the 
goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688’’; 

Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105–338) 
expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy 
of the United States to support efforts to remove from power 
the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic 
government to replace that regime; 

Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the 
United States to ‘‘work with the United Nations Security Council 
to meet our common challenge’’ posed by Iraq and to ‘‘work 
for the necessary resolutions,’’ while also making clear that ‘‘the 
Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just 
demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be 
unavoidable’’; 

Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war 
on terrorism and Iraq’s ongoing support for international terrorist 
groups combined with its development of weapons of mass 
destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 
cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions 
make clear that it is in the national security interests of the 
United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that 
all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be 
enforced, including through the use of force if necessary; 

Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war 
on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding 
requested by the President to take the necessary actions against 
international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including 
those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, 
committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 
11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations; 

Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue 
to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists 
and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, 
or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided 
the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or 
harbored such persons or organizations; 

Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to 
take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international 
terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in 
the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force 
(Public Law 107–40); and 

Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States 
to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf 
region: Now, therefore, be it 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Authorization for 
Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002’’. 

SEC. 2. SUPPORT FOR UNITED STATES DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS. 

The Congress of the United States supports the efforts by 
the President to— 

(1) strictly enforce through the United Nations Security 
Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq 
and encourages him in those efforts; and 

(2) obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security 
Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, 
evasion and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies 
with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. 

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. 

(a) AUTHORIZATION.—The President is authorized to use the 
Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary 
and appropriate in order to— 

(1) defend the national security of the United States against 
the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and 

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council 
resolutions regarding Iraq. 

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.—In connection with the 
exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force 
the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter 
as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising 
such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of 
Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his 
determination that— 

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic 
or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately 
protect the national security of the United States against the 
continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead 
to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council 
resolutions regarding Iraq; and 

(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent 
with the United States and other countries continuing to take 
the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist 
organizations, including those nations, organizations, or 
persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist 
attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. 

(c) WAR POWERS RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS.— 

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION.—Consistent with 
section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress 
declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory 
authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the 
War Powers Resolution. 

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS.—Nothing in 
this joint resolution supersedes any requirement of the War 
Powers Resolution. 

SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS. 

(a) REPORTS.—The President shall, at least once every 60 days, President. 
submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint 
resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of 
authority granted in section 3 and the status of planning for efforts 
that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, 
including those actions described in section 7 of the Iraq Liberation 
Act of 1998 (Public Law 105–338). 

(b) SINGLE CONSOLIDATED REPORT.—To the extent that the 
submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with 
the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this 
joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress 
pursuant to the reporting requirements of the War Powers Resolution 
(Public Law 93–148), all such reports may be submitted as 
a single consolidated report to the Congress. 

(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—To the extent that the information 
required by section 3 of the Authorization for Use of Military 
Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102–1) is included in 
the report required by this section, such report shall be considered 
as meeting the requirements of section 3 of such resolution. 

Approved October 16, 2002. 

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY—H.J. Res. 114 (S.J. Res. 45) (S.J. Res. 46): 

HOUSE REPORTS: No. 107–721 (Comm. on International Relations). 

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 148 (2002): 

Oct. 8, 9, considered in House. 

Oct. 10, considered and passed House and Senate. 
WEEKLY COMPILATION OF PRESIDENTIAL DOCUMENTS, Vol. 38 (2002): 

Oct. 16, Presidential remarks and statement. 

Iran and the U.S. --- Can You Believe It?

Biden Reveals Deceitfulness Of Administration On Iran

Iran: Vice President Joe Biden says that we have to go through with the Obama nuclear deal because Tehran can and will manufacture eight nukes if we don't. How many will it make if we do? 

The Iranians "already have paved a path to a bomb's worth of material," Biden told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Thursday. In two or three months, Tehran could build as many as eight atomic warheads, Biden warned, applying a kind of shock therapy as he urged acceptance of the so-called deal.

It was a curious gun-at-our-heads argument, and far from what the Obama administration had been saying.

Back in November 2013, President Obama announced that Iran had agreed to nuclear talks, calling it "a new path toward a world that is more secure — a future in which we can verify that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon."

Now comes Joe a year and a half later to tell us we're doing this deal because Iran can build a nuclear weapon. Eight of them, in fact.

Biden has exposed the fact that Obama, as on so many other things, wasn't being honest with us. These negotiations were never really about keeping nuclear weapons capability from the leading terrorist enabler in the world; they were about getting a deal, even if it meant settling for attempted containment of an inevitable Islamist nuclear power.

It echoes the old liberal policy in the 1970s and '80s toward the Soviet Union. Calling the USSR what it was, an Evil Empire, as Ronald Reagan did, was to liberals the language of warmongering. And undertaking, as Reagan put it in his June 1982 speech to the British Parliament, a "march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history" was, to the left within American politics, an insane course of action.

No, the Soviets, with their 45,000 nuclear warheads, were going to be with us forever. Victory over communism was impossible; management of this monster was the only realistic course.

Reagan proved that victory was not only possible but also that it could be achieved without firing a shot. Had he not, how long would it have been before a nuclear war, like the one that came perilously close during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962?

Living under an agreement with Islamofascist Iran in which there would be, as Biden described it, "a breakout timeline of a year for at least a decade or more" is asking the world to sit on a time bomb and ignore the sound of the ticking.

Except this time, instead of the Soviets, we'd be dealing with a different brand of evil — a nuclear-armed adversary whose crazed, apocalyptic theology means it might be willing to suffer its own national nuclear destruction for the sake of incinerating Israel, or an American or European city.

In the face of such an evil, the free world must once again realize that victory, not containment, is the only feasible goal.

America’s Academies for Jihad

By 

AYAAN HIRSI ALI
Wall STreet Journal

March 31, 2015 

Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.” 

After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails. 

According to records on the federal site USASpending.gov and first reported by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Mr. Bayly a $10,500 contract in February 2014 to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” to inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Ten months later he received another federal contract, worth $2,400, to provide “Muslim classes for inmates” at the same prison.

This isn’t a story about one problematic imam, or about the misguided administration of a solitary prison. Several U.S. prison chaplains have been exposed in recent years as sympathetic to radical Islam, including Warith Deen Umar, who helped run the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Islamic prison program for two decades, until 2000, and who praised the 9/11 hijackers in a 2003 interview with this newspaper.

That same year, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism held hearings on radical Islamic clerics in U.S. prisons. Committee members voiced serious concerns over the vetting of Muslim prison chaplains and the extent of radical Islamist influences. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time, said that “inmates are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists,” and that “we must guard against the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.” 

Yet it is not clear what measures—if any—were taken in response to those concerns.

Testifying in 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael P. Downing, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said that in 2003 it was estimated that 17%-20% of the U.S. prison population, some 350,000 inmates, were Muslims, and that “80% of the prisoners who convert while in prison, convert to Islam.” He estimated that “35,000 inmates convert to Islam annually.”

Patrick Dunleavy, retired deputy inspector of the Criminal Intelligence Division at the New York State Department of Corrections, said in testimony that prison authorities often rely on groups such as the Islamic Leadership Council or the Islamic Society of North America for advice about Islamic chaplains. Yet those groups can and have referred individuals not suited to positions of influence over prisoners. As Mr. Dunleavy pointedly testified: “There is certainly no vetting of volunteers who provide religious instruction, and who, although not paid, wield considerable influence in the prison Muslim communities.”

The problem isn’t limited to radical clerics infiltrating prisons. Radical inmates proselytize and do their utmost to recruit others to their cause. Once released, they may seek to take their radicalization to the next level.

Kevin James formed the Assembly of Authentic Islam while in New Folsom State Prison in California. In 2004 James recruited fellow prisoner Levar Washington to his cause. After being released, James developed a list of possible targets including an Israeli consulate, a Jewish children’s camp in Malibu, Los Angeles International Airport and a U.S. military recruiting station in Santa Monica. The two men pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges; Washington was sentenced to 22 years in 2008, James to 16 years in 2009.

Michael Finton converted and radicalized in an Illinois state prison while serving time for aggravated assault. Finton wanted to attack a federal government building and spoke of the need to attack members of Congress. He pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2011.

In 2009 the “Newburgh Four”—James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams—were arrested for plotting to bomb synagogues in New York City. The men also intended to shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles. All four had converted to Islam in prison, where they developed radical sympathies. The men didn’t know each other while in prison but met after their release while attending a local mosque connected to a prison ministry. All four were convicted on conspiracy charges and received 25-year sentences in 2011.

In January 2010 John Kerry, who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a report warning that “three dozen U.S. citizens who converted to Islam while in prison have traveled to Yemen, possibly for al Qaeda training.”

Europeans have known for some time that prisons can be breeding grounds for Islamists. The British “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, is thought to have been radicalized while in prison for smaller crimes. Two of the gunmen in the Paris terror attacks in January—Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly—came under the religious influence of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist and charismatic Islamist, when serving prison sentences. Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, three small children and a rabbi at a Jewish school near Toulouse, France, in 2012, apparently became a jihadist while in jail. The list is depressingly long.

The problem is that experts tend to be concerned about prison radicalization only to the extent that it ultimately results in some type of violent attack. Yet there are good reasons to be concerned about the inmates who come to cherish a radical interpretation of Islam while refraining—for the time being—from the use of violence. The boundary between nonviolent and violent extremism is much more porous than conventional wisdom allows.

What can be done to stop prisons from becoming academies of jihad? Here are four suggestions: 

1) Choose better partners than the Islamic Society of North America and the Islamic Leadership Council to screen prison chaplains. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, founded and led by M. Zuhdi Jasser, a medical doctor and former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, would be a good choice.

2) Prevent radical clerics from coming into prisons to spread their message to susceptible inmates. 

3) Ban radical Islamist literature from being disseminated in U.S. prisons.

4) Stop placing inmates in proximity to radicalized mentors. 

The fact that Fouad El Bayly, an imam who publicly called for my death, was chosen to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” at a federal prison shows that U.S. authorities haven’t learned the right lessons from a growing list of prison-convert terrorists. Bringing in radical imams to mentor vulnerable inmates will not do anyone any good—least of all prisoners looking for a better path in life.

Ms. Hirsi Ali, a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Heretic: The Case for a Muslim Reformation,” just out from HarperCollins.