What really needs to be done.

[Benji Duncan]

I'm sick of all this talk about foreign policy all turning to the presidential election. That is not a solution. If we elect a good president a bad president is still going to come along eventually who is going to do crooked shit. We need some permanent solutions in place. Some amendments to the constitution to improve the checks and balances or to restrict foreign policy. Any ideas?

Here are a few of my own...

Split the presidency in half. Make "commander in chief" a separate office from "president." This way we no longer have to prioritize between foreign policy and domestic issues when we vote, a president will no longer be able to mask his failures in one area with success in another area, and improved voter turnout will result during "commander in chief" election years.

Amend the constitution so that it is unconstitutional for the US government to give any aid to any group that is not a democratic nation or a group indenting to create a democratic nation. If we had this amendment in place 30 years ago there would be no saddam, no al queda, and all the countries in south America would be democracies. In the long run we have never benefited from aiding dictatorships or fringe military groups, so the president should not be allowed to do so.

Allow states to cut their tax funding of the military if they disagree with the actions of the military.

I personally think it's sick that our country can be this old, this powerful and no constitutional amendments are in place to restrict our foreign policy.

[Gene]

Fair ideas, but these can be more of a problem exchange than a solving.

There are countries where the head of the military and the head of the government are different people, so this idea isn't new. And, I can't even count the instances in history where, in turbulent times, the military head coups the government head to eventually become a monolithic military dictator. The check-and-balance of having the government head be a co-leader of the military, as in America's case, has its setbacks, agreed, but given all, it does provide a decent balance of power.

The term "democracy" is something of a label, since most government forms are just degrees somewhere between absolute dictatorship and full-blown all-citizen representation. Even America's system isn't democratic to the bone, since people don't vote for the president directly, but hold elections as a comparative tool to see just how off these results are to the electorate vote, which does the actual deciding. Some so-called "democracies" are this in name only, and hold sloppily run, completely meaningless, or out-and-out CROOKED, elections. The idea is good in principle, but the shades-of-gray of it can make it tough call as to who should be on "the list"...

Not presenting a unified front in federal military action just sounds like a bad idea. It almost sounds like a proposal for states to "opt out" of any defensive endeavor. I can see the foreign headlines now: "We are going to war with 37/50ths of the United States!"... Say Japan wants to try another conquest of the Pacific rim, for example, and states like Maine and Conneticut don't see the point of contributing to such a thing. I don't agree at all, here, since this looks like a "divided we fall" scenario...

I'm equally sick of covert operations and military police actions driven by philosophies I don't agree with, and even worse, being told they are on a need-to-know basis that I can't be informed about because it's in the interest of "national security", or some hooey like that. I'd agree something is elementally wrong in that way, but, I'm not bubbling over with answers as to what to do about it other than to "chop off the head" of the thing...

[Benji Duncan]

gene said:

Fair ideas, but these can be more of a problem exchange than a solving.

There are countries where the head of the military and the head of the government are different people, so this idea isn't new. And, I can't even count the instances in history where, in turbulent times, the military head coups the government head to eventually become a monolithic military dictator. The check-and-balance of having the government head be a co-leader of the military, as in America's case, has its setbacks, agreed, but given all, it does provide a decent balance of power.

Not the same thing. This would be a system where the commander in chief is elected and held to the same system of checks and balances the president currently answers to. All this means is that the defense department, the state department and the department of homeland security would go to one elected official and the rest of the cabinet offices would go to another. The commander in chief would still be answerable to congress and the supreme court, would still only be able to hold two terms of office and would still face elections every four years. I fail to see how a commander in chief who is unable to manage domestic policy becomes more dangerous than one that can. If anything he becomes less dangerous.

The term "democracy" is something of a label, since most government forms are just degrees somewhere between absolute dictatorship and full-blown all-citizen representation. Even America's system isn't democratic to the bone, since people don't vote for the president directly, but hold elections as a comparative tool to see just how off these results are to the electorate vote, which does the actual deciding. Some so-called "democracies" are this in name only, and hold sloppily run, completely meaningless, or out-and-out CROOKED, elections. The idea is good in principle, but the shades-of-gray of it can make it tough call as to who should be on "the list"...

Freedom house issues a report every year on the subject that most people think is pretty accurate and the US uses for foreign policy terminology. www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=21&year=2007&display=map

Not saying freedom house should determine US policy but the determination of democracy versus other is done to some fairness. If this designation were a congressional chore it would be reliable imho.

Not presenting a unified front in federal military action just sounds like a bad idea. It almost sounds like a proposal for states to "opt out" of any defensive endeavor. I can see the foreign headlines now: "We are going to war with 37/50ths of the United States!"... Say Japan wants to try another conquest of the Pacific rim, for example, and states like Maine and Conneticut don't see the point of contributing to such a thing. I don't agree at all, here, since this looks like a "divided we fall" scenario...

I don't believe that would happen. But still, it would be a good check and balance if they did withhold troops. If we cannot convince every government on our course of action then obviously our course is imperfect.

I'm equally sick of covert operations and military police actions driven by philosophies I don't agree with, and even worse, being told they are on a need-to-know basis that I can't be informed about because it's in the interest of "national security", or some hooey like that. I'd agree something is elementally wrong in that way, but, I'm not bubbling over with answers as to what to do about it other than to "chop off the head" of the thing...

Something more permanent should be done in my view. Every president just seems to want to cement his/her legacy and doesn't care what the next one does.

[Marvin the Misfit]

I think the troops should be able to elect their generals and the generals should be able to veto a presidential order.