A planned military offensive, which is, by definition, an act of war, must receive the prior authorization of the Congress.
– Sen. George Mitchell, Nov. 23, 1990.
There is no basis for us (Congress) to legally bind the president in advance.
– Sen. George Mitchell, Sept. 11, 1994
Sen. Mitchell’s (D-Maine) remarkable change of heart regarding congressional war powers coincides remarkably with a change of presidents. The rule seems to be that Republican presidents need congressional approval before invading but Democratic presidents do not.
Double standard? What double standard, protest Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright. The reason we don’t insist today on congressional approval of a Haiti invasion, they say, is that Haiti is really not like Iraq but more like Panama and Grenada, which needed and received no prior congressional approval.
They think that bringing up two places that share with Haiti a small scale and a Caribbean location makes their case. But the case is made only for those who remember no history. In Grenada, the the country needed to act quickly; in Panama, with surprise. A protracted congressional debate would have jeopardized both operations. Neither condition applies in Haiti.
In Grenada, President Reagan was reacting to a rapidly evolving emergency. Less than a week elapsed between the assassination of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, which threw the country into turmoil and the safety of 595 American students into jeopardy, and the American invasion.
As for Panama, a congressional debate would have destroyed the element of surprise that was necessary to minimize American casualties. After all, Panama had a real, if small, army. It was not, like Haiti, a hopelessly unarmed constabulary.
More Top Picks Air Purifier
The administration has such obvious contempt for the capacities of the Haitian military and its half-dozen artillery pieces that it has produced the most telegraphed, most choreographed, most advertised invasion in history. Haiti is thus precisely like Iraq in both aspects most relevant to the question of congressional approval: openness and timing.
Like Iraq with its six-month buildup, the Haiti operation carries no secrecy and no immediate urgency. To say, as does Secretary Christopher, that the president cannot go to Congress over Haiti because he needs to be able to act “very quickly” is to invite ridicule on a man who has already invited more than his share.
But congressional war powers is not the only Democratic icon to be broken by the Haiti affair. There is another form of legality even more dear to Clintonites than constitutional war powers. And that is international legality.
Now, I happen to believe that “international legality” is largely a crock, make-work for lawyers and a substitute for strategic thinking. But Albright and Christopher and President Bill Clinton do not think so. They justify every foreign policy act with endless references to international law, the world community, the UN charter, and the other totems of international legalism. It is this belief that made them go to the UN Security Council to get its prior approval for the Haiti invasion.
True, former President George Bush did that for Iraq. But Iraq had clearly violated the UN Charter by invading another country. Chapter VII of the charter allows bystander countries to then get together and militarily undo the mischief. But Chapter VII provides no justification for invading a country just to change its government. Yet the administration rammed through a Security Council resolution invoking Chapter VII to justify an invasion of Haiti-on the grounds that Haiti is “a threat to peace.”
Now, Haiti is a threat to Clinton’s chances of carrying refugee-weary Florida in 1996. Haiti is a threat to Clinton’s hopes of cozy relations with the Congressional Black Caucus. Haiti is a threat to Clinton’s own credibility. But one thing Haiti is not: It is not a threat to international peace. What outbreak of war among countries in the region could Haiti possibly precipitate? The only war that is coming is an American war, justified as preventing the threat of war, a threat that is entirely non-existent.
Clinton’s ardent multilateralists, champions of the United Nations and international law, may not even be aware of how much this perversion of the UN Charter-ginning up a phony casus belli to justify Chapter VII sanction for an invasion of Haiti-undermines the credibility of their deeply held legalism. I care little for “international legality.” They care much-except, it seems, when they need to violate it.
Perhaps feeling it was on shaky ground, the administration then went beyond the UN to that Reaganite ploy of rounding up a few little countries to approve our invasion, as Reagan did in Grenada. At first, the best the administration could do was corral five hemispheric mini-states, Jamaica the superpower among them. The more embarrassing part, however, was that of these five dots on the map not one was Spanish-speaking. So much for “Latin American” support.
So now we are up to 17 countries for the multinational force, exactly three of which are Spanish-speaking. One is Hebrew-speaking. With all the material for a musical comedy now in place, Clinton’s little war can begin.