It was clear then, and undeniable now.
Twenty-two years ago yesterday, I watched Congress abdicate its responsibility and let a President take us to war in Iraq on a lie.
More than 4,400 American troops died in that war, and over 32,000 came home physically and emotionally wounded. We spent the better part of two trillion dollars on a conflict that destabilized an entire region and made us less safe. Today, we're still living with that wreckage, and the families who lost someone never stopped living with it for a single day.
I think about all of that right now, because I'm watching the same machinery start to move again.
Sudden new "reports" about a Middle Eastern country's weapons program, excuses and justifications that change on a daily basis, foreign leaders with their own agendas whispering in the ear of an American president who doesn't seem particularly interested in asking hard questions, and a whole lot of chatter about oil.
We've seen all of this before, and we know exactly how it ends.
Trump promised "no new wars" when he asked the American people for their votes. He said it like a mantra on the campaign trail, repeated it at rally after rally as though the sheer repetition made it true. But it was clear to most of us, even then, through his words and actions, that he was lying through his teeth.
It's undeniable now that he didn't mean a single word of it.
This conflict with Iran right now is a slow-motion march toward another illegal forever war, one being driven in no small part by pressure from a foreign government that has its own reasons for wanting us to fight this fight for them.
That's why the Constitution makes going to war an action that needs to be taken by Congress: 535 minds are better than the 1 in the White House.
I've spent years pushing back against the slow creep of executive authority over matters of war and peace, watching presidents of both parties stretch their power in ways the framers never intended, and I'll keep fighting that fight for as long as I'm in Congress.
More soon,
Jim
