With the war in Afghanistan hitting its 10 year anniversary this fall and the Obama administration now talking about a pullout in 2014, was there a better option than attacking a third world country with advanced weaponry, hundreds of billions of dollars spent and untold thousands of civilians and military killed.
And now 10 years later with really no end in sight, polls are showing the American people growing weary with the war. In addition, basic economics just won’t allow us to continue our very expensive and dangerous occupation in Afghanistan. Will we be the next great power to lay rest in the
"Graveyard of Empires"?
The Central Intelligence Agency states that the numbers of Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan is down to around 100 or less. But we have grown our presence in the country in a huge way since Barack Obama came into office.
Budget amendment to defund Afghanistan war gets no votes from Tea Party freshmen
After the tragedy on 9/11, and the enemy was determined to be a group of terrorists and not an actual nation-state, was there a better option to take out those responsible for the attacks on the United States than sending 100,000 troops?
Some spoke of and currently speak of the warrants known as letters of marque and reprisal.
Article I, Section 8, clause 11 of the US Constitution states: The Congress shall have Power ... To declare War,
grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
In a nutshell, according to constitution.org, a letter of marque and reprisal are commissions or warrants issued to someone to commit what would otherwise be acts of piracy. This is in contrast to unlicensed piracy.They normally include:
- Names person, authorizes him to pass beyond borders with forces under his command.
- Specifies nationality of targets for action.
- Authorizes seizure or destruction of assets or personnel of target nationality.
- Describes offense for which commission is issued as reprisal.
- Restriction on time, manner, place, or amount of reprisal.
During an interview on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Western Connecticut State University History professor and Constitutional scholar Dr. Kevin Gutzman describes the use of letters of marque in dealing with the Somoli pirates in response to CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim’s question:
PILGRIM: You know, I would like to actually -- since you brought it up, I would like to bring up the issue of the pirates. And it's really such a mesmerizing problem, actually. It's been debated at every kitchen table in the country this week. Professor Gutzman, I understand you have an opinion about how this actually works with the Constitution. Tell me what you think?
GUTZMAN: Well, there certainly is an age-old provision in the Constitution that in case of activity like this, the Congress can issue what are called letters of marque. That is, they can empower private individuals to take action against pirates. And so there's been some discussion in Congress, I know of doing this. And I think that's one solution to the problem we have now.
It seems that these ships are mainly unarmed because of concerns about insurance. And granting the captain's letters of marque would enable them to take defensive measures without having to call down the wrath of the U.S. Navy or certainly to await the U.S Navy's intervention once the captain has been seized.
Rumsfeld decided to go after Saddam hours after 9/11
Even after the 9/11 attacks, Congressman Ron Paul introduced the
Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 which defined the attacks that day as acts of air piracy. The act would have granted the authority to use letters of marquee and reprisal against the specific terrorists, instead of attacking and subsequently occupying a sovereign nation.
See Congressman Paul discuss this further in the video to the left.
Would a letter of marque and reprisal been preferred to war and occupation?
Judge for yourself.
